Part 5

‘I doubt it,’ said the Poet, ‘for Veronica has a fine sense of the fitness of things, and her tastes are sufficiently flexible for her to distinguish between Northern and Southern needs, Northern and Southern traditions. When Francesco Cibo, the nephew of Innocent VIII., married Lorenzo’s daughter, and came to Florence with a large and splendid retinue, he was entertained during the period of the nuptials with the utmost magnificence. But, at the end of that time, he observed that all the silver vessels and ornaments, of which there had been such a profusion, disappeared from the table, and were replaced by others of brass; and, moreover, that every meal was now served with the utmost plainness and frugality. Anxious lest his Roman attendants should carry back to the Eternal City the impression that he had contracted a union with either a very poor or a very parsimonious family, he sought to discover how they were faring, and found they were still being entertained in the most sumptuous manner. The enigma was explained when Lorenzo said to him, “You are now one of ourselves, and as one of ourselves I treat you. My grandsire Cosimo used to say to his sons, ‘Remember you are only citizens of Florence, and must reserve what splendours you can command for the glorification of the City.’ As his descendant, I obey his injunction.”‘

‘Hark!’ I said. ‘Already there are sounds of modern civilisation. The grass-plot is being mown.’

Lamia and the Poet listened, though I think the latter at once guessed my meaning.

‘What is it?’ said Lamia. ‘A mowing-machine? I cannot hear it. I hear only the bleating of sheep.’

We passed afresh into the garden, and there was a flock of ewes and lambs nibbling the sweet short clover, attended by a picturesque shepherd girl, who carefully kept them off the shrubs, but went on industriously knitting all the while.

‘Is not that a simple enough mowing-machine for you?’ I asked. ‘It attains to even Veronica’s ideal of primitive expedients.‘

‘It is as simple and primitive,’ said Lamia, ‘as much of the garden itself. What a comfort it is to find oneself in a country where’—I imagine this was intended as a shaft against myself—‘there does not rage a fidgety mania for perfection. Flowers here are reduced to their proper subordination in the universe.’

Whether Lamia was right or wrong in this conclusion, it must be allowed that, as a race, Italians have not that tender attachment to flowers which is universal among ourselves, and that being, contrary to general belief, far less sentimental and more practical than we are, they do not care to devote much attention to the growing of anything that cannot be taken to market and turned into _quattrini_, or ready cash. Hence, they will willingly grow carnations, freesias, arum-lilies, lilies of the valley, ranunculuses, and such like flowers that find a quick sale on the ledges of the _Palazzo Strozzi_, or under the shadow of the _Municipio_ in the _Piazza della Trinità_. But even these are so reared that the purchaser alone gets any delectation out of them, and the spot where they are produced is but little more of a garden in consequence of their temporary presence. The difficulty is to induce an Italian gardener to believe that you care for flowers for their own sake, that you regard the sale of them as a sort of desecration, that you feel they ought to be love-gifts, tokens of present or mementoes of absent affection, and, in any case, cherished companions of one’s private thoughts, one’s habitual pursuits, and one’s transitory emotions. He cannot understand that you want to consort with them, to tend them in sickness and health, to cultivate them for better or for worse, to let them twine and garland themselves about your inner and your outer life, to make them, in fact, flesh of your flesh, and spirit of your spirit, till death do you part, when, with a sweet form of suttee, they will come and immolate themselves upon your grave.

This conflict of ideals between the Poet and myself on the one side, and Ippolito, the gardener, on the other,—for the humblest folk in Tuscany have classical names, which they imagine to be Christian, and indeed frequently are so, thanks to some primitive martyr in the Church Calendar,—began at once, and never wholly ceased. We put our veto on the sale in Florence of flower or leaf grown on the premises; and as Veronica, with all her marvellous foresight, had not extended our contract to these, we had to arrange with him what was to be paid by us for what would otherwise have been profitable produce. Ippolito’s calculations were of the most elaborate character; but their complexity arose solely from his scrupulous desire to do justice as between man and man. Personally, he had no money interest in the matter; for, but for what he regarded as our unaccountable tastes, he would have carried all the saleable flowers twice a week to that charming little market-place which every visitor to the fair city knows so well, made the best bargain he could with the purchasing public, and credited his _padrone_ with the amount received. Selling the flowers, he could know, to a _centesimo_, what they were worth. Not selling them, in deference to these odd _forestieri_, and therefore having to surmise what they would probably have fetched could they have been sold, and anxious neither to defraud his master nor to rob us, he lived, during our sojourn, a life of continual arithmetical anxiety. In vain were the Poet’s magnificent endeavours to make him understand that we were not, as modern language has it, so mighty particular as to what we paid for rescuing the flowers from what he regarded as an ignoble doom. We could excite no sentimental emotion on the subject in Ippolito. To him it was simply a matter of addition in decimals, the sum total of which should represent the practical results of abstract justice. It must not be supposed, however, that this quite satisfied him, or entirely quieted his conscience. To the last he let us perceive that he considered our arbitrary conduct to have a certain moral obliquity about it, since it caused and consecrated so much absolute waste; waste of time, waste of material, waste of money. Once, when we were not present, he appealed to Veronica, and asked if we were really in earnest in forbidding him to sell any portion of the flowers. The violets flowered by tens of thousands, the carnations were rotting on their stalks, and it was not possible more freesias could be wanted for indoors; and, with his _Ma, Signora mia_, and _Senta, Sua Signoria_, he did his best to convert her. But she told him we were inexorable; and, though she fully shared our sentiments on the subject, she laughed at us for a couple of _zucconi_, or dunderheads, for allowing ourselves to pay twice what the flowers were worth: a form of judgment which, as we have seen, was not quite equitable, but which nevertheless represented, with tolerable accuracy, the low estimate she entertained of either the Poet’s or my capacity for a bargain.

Once Ippolito was thoroughly convinced of our obduracy concerning his mercenary traditions, he showed an amiable readiness to please us, by bringing pot after pot of well-grown plants from frame and shelf and sheltering nook, and placing them where we would, and mostly round the noble fountain that flashed quietly but unceasingly in the centre of the garden enclosure; though he well knew that, even in the genial weather with which we were being favoured, the length of their days would thereby be somewhat curtailed; white arum-lilies, freesias, lilies of the valley, and early carnations, thus making a most lively show.

‘Do not suppose, though,’ I said to Lamia, ‘that Italy has not its true garden season, even in the English sense; and I trust you will, in due course, be able to judge of it for yourself. But it is brief in its marvellous beauty. Like the people themselves of this lovely land, the year ages soon, when compared with the lagging Spring, the lingering Summer, and the slowly-ripening Autumn of Northern climes. But when the roses come they will come in battalions, the wistaria will run riot over wall and pergola, the _Spiræa Van Houtte_ will whitely decorate itself with a lavishness unknown to chillier latitudes, and Madonna lilies will astound you by their height, and irises by their profusion. For a month, in a favourable season for six weeks, one will be embowered in bloom; then suddenly to find, if one gardens in English fashion, you have no garden at all.’

‘A short life and a merry one,’ said Lamia: ‘an ideal existence.’

‘But do not let us forget,’ I observed, ‘that when this brief exuberant blending of Spring and Summer has passed away from the garden, the purple and opal bunches of the festooned and trellised vine come timely to take its place.’

‘Nor,’ added the Poet, ‘should we omit that bewitching preliminary to the profuse period you speak of, when, as now, in whichever direction you look or ramble in that astonishing valley, almond and peach, plum-blossom, pear-blossom, and apple-bloom, fleck with their rich rival tints, from purest white to rosiest pink, the silvery spray of the ubiquitous olives.’

‘Silvery till ruffled by the wind,’ he went on, ‘as Lorenzo so admirably describes it in his poem on the _Ambra_.

‘L’uliva, in qualche dolce piaggia aprica, Secondo il vento par, or verde, or bianca.‘

‘What an incautious quotation!’ said Lamia; ‘and, were I a critic, I should at once fasten on you a charge of gross plagiarism. I remember, if you do not:—

‘The smiling slopes with olive groves bedecked, Now darkly green, now, as the breeze did stir, Spectral and white, as though the air were flecked With elfin branches laced with gossamer;

And then so faint, the eye could scarce detect Which the gray hillside, which the foliage fair; Until once more it dense and sombre grew, To shift again just as the zephyr blew.

‘Have I not established my case?’

‘Completely, my dear Lamia; and I am glad to find myself in such excellent company as that of Lorenzo, more especially now that we have taken possession of a villa where he must often have been a guest, with Politian for host, and Poggio and Pico della Mirandola for companions.‘ ‘I fear,’ said Lamia modestly, ‘I should have found them too learned to be congenial society.’

‘Not when Lorenzo was with them; for he assimilated their learning to life, and contrived to make gaiety out of their scholarship. With more even than the statesmanship of his grandfather, and of whom it may equally be said that he ruled without arms and without a title, endowed with no inconsiderable portion of the culture of the students he so generously abetted, Lorenzo was a thorough man-of-the-world, and more than a respectable man-of-letters. I recommend to you his description, in the _Selve d’ Amore_, of the shepherd leading his flock from the wintry fold to the Spring pasture, and carrying in his arms a newly-dropped lamb, his sonnet on the origin of the violet, and, still more perhaps, the one in praise of rural sights, sounds, and solitude. Permit me to cite at least a portion of it:—

‘Cerchi, chi vuol, le pompe, e gli alti onori, Le piazze, e tempi, e gli edifizi magni, Le delicie, il tesor, qual accompagni Mille duri pensier, mille dolori. Un verde praticel pien di bei fiori, Un rivolo che l’erba intorno bagni, Un augelletto che d’amor si lagni, Acqueta molto meglio i nostri ardori.‘

‘I fear,’ said Lamia, ‘I have not yet made sufficient progress in my studies to follow your recitation completely. Will you kindly translate?’

‘Let a spontaneous paraphrase suffice, which will reproduce the original with, if with less literary perhaps with more spiritual, accuracy.

‘Covet who will the patronage of Kings, And pompous titles Emperors bestow, Splendour, and revelry, and all that brings A thousand bitter thoughts, a world of woe: A meadow glistening in an April shower, A green-banked rivulet, and, near his nest, A blackbird carolling in guelder bower, ‘Tis these that soothe and satisfy the breast.‘

‘Surely it is strange,’ I said, ‘that a man so occupied with affairs of State as Lorenzo, conspiring and conspired against from morning to night, a landowner not indifferent to the prosperity of his estate, a banker attentive to the profitable employment of his capital, a father most anxious for the wise bringing up of his sons, a collector of manuscripts, gems and intaglios, a founder of libraries, an owner of alum mines, a prince, a statesman, and a diplomatist, should not only have experienced such a sentiment as you have cited, but should have found leisure to give expression to it.’

‘And in so short a space of time,’ said Lamia, more indulgent than usual to my observations. ‘Was he not only forty-one when he died?’

‘He was,’ I said, ‘but he seems to have lived every hour of his life, and to have acted on the principle he lays down in his contribution to the _Disputationes Camaldulenses_, that life should consist in equal parts of action and contemplation; thereby being rather at issue with Plato, whom he loved so well. But even in his most contemplative moods he never seems to be divorced from the themes that interest mankind. There is a passage in a poem of his expository of the Platonic Philosophy which some critics have thought gave Michelangelo the suggestion for his famous marble _Sonno_, which you will shortly see in the Sacristy of San Lorenzo; while, in his _Simposio_ there is a description of a toping friar which is worthy of Chaucer, and in the _Canzoni a Ballo_ and the _Canti Carnascialeschi_, which I cannot recommend you to read save in what you will scarcely find, an expurgated edition, he expresses the very thoughts, feelings, and ideals of the populace of Florence.’

‘Veronica shall be my Bowdler,’ said Lamia, ‘and meanwhile I thank you for your erudition! But, as it happens to be my birthday, do you think you could forget the Medici for a few moments, if only to wish me, in the most conventional manner, “many happy returns”?‘

I had not forgotten the circumstance, and indeed had armed myself with a propitiatory gift which I intended to offer later in the day. But, before I could stammer out my excuses, she put her hand in that of the Poet, and said:

‘Perhaps you have forgotten that, not very long ago, you rebuked me most gently for one of my numerous foibles, and that I asked you to tell me what I ought to do, and to be, in order to merit your approval. Will you, for a birthday present, tell me now?’

We had come, in our saunterings, to the long low wall, leaning over which we gazed down direct on Florence.

‘With pleasure,’ he said, ‘and I must only hope you will not think me too severe.

A BIRTHDAY PRESENT

I

‘“Say what, to please you, you would have me be.” Then listen, dear! I fain would have you very fair to see, And sweet to hear.

II

‘You should have Aphrodite’s form and face, With Dian’s tread; And something of Minerva’s lofty grace Should crown your head.

III

‘Summer should wander in your voice, and Spring Gleam in your gaze, And pure thoughts ripen in your heart that bring Calm Autumn days.

IV

‘Yours should be winning ways that make Love live, And ne’er grow old, With ever something yet more sweet to give, Which you withhold.

V

‘You should have generous hopes that can beguile Life’s doubts and fears, And, ever waiting on your April smile, The gift of tears.

VI

You should be close to us as earth and sea, And yet as far As Heaven itself. In sooth, I’d have you be Just what you are.‘

O these poets! I need scarcely say that, after this insidious effusion, I stowed away the present I had intended for Lamia in a secret drawer, reserving it for some more propitious occasion. I hope I am not prejudiced when I say that the verses were scarcely among the Poet’s happier compositions. But diamonds would have lacked lustre, after such metrical adulation.

* * * * *

But did you go all that way, it will perhaps be asked, and introduce Lamia to the acknowledged fascinations of Tuscany, only to wander in search of wild-flowers, to climb rural hill-sides, to rave about scenery and sunshine, to listen reverentially to the Poet’s rhymes, and to discuss things in general, and Lamia’s favourite themes in particular? Surely, you may be disposed to add, all those things could have been done just as well at home. Had Florence itself, its churches, its palaces, its galleries, its storied thoroughfares, no attraction for you all?

Indeed they had. But these have been written about with such minuteness by the learned, and with such fervour by the enthusiastic, that you would hardly thank so homely a pen as mine for describing them afresh. Moreover, let it be confessed that we had a way of our own, which is hardly the common way, of impressing Lamia’s sensitive mind with the artistic marvels of the City of Flowers. To the rest of us, Florence was already as familiar even as the Garden that we love, and the Poet had a theory, in which I entirely concurred, as to how Lamia’s familiarity should grow to be like ours, with a reserved freshness of its own. ‘There are two ways,’ he said, ‘of approaching a place like Florence. You can try to take possession of it, or you can allow it to take possession of you. The first is the more usual, but the second is, I would suggest, the more excellent way. Once when I was travelling hitherward, I remember an American tourist who was the only other occupant of the railway compartment, asking me if I knew Pisa; and, on my replying that I did, he said he should be much obliged if I would point it out to him. Shortly we approached it, and the train slackened pace in order to make the customary halt of some seven or eight minutes. “This is Pisa,” I said, and he at once leaned out of the window, and there he remained intently gazing till its Duomo, Leaning Tower, and Baptistery, could be seen no more. Then he turned to me, and said, “I thank you, sir, for showing me Pisa. I should not have liked to return to the States without having seen Pisa.” I beg of you not to take my fellow-traveller as a national type, for Americans are as various, and differ from each other as much, as the people of other countries. But I cannot think he had seen Pisa. Yet numbers of people resemble him in their tacit assumption that a hasty visual impression or snapshot, so to speak, deserves to be described as seeing, though, assuredly, where great works of art are concerned, it is not to see with the mind’s eye, to say nothing of the spirit’s.‘

‘I am easily taken possession of, as you know,’ said Lamia, for a moment pointedly turning to me, who certainly know nothing of the kind, and indeed know very much the reverse, and then redirecting her attention to the Poet. ‘But, if one is to be taken possession of by all the lovely places and things in this world, would not one have to live to a rather venerable age?’

‘There is an alternative,’ I said, ‘is there not? which is to be taken possession of by only some of them, but to be taken possession of by these thoroughly.’

‘How conjugal and domestic that sounds. But it makes no allowance for feminine curiosity. I should be sorry, when we leave Florence, to think there was anything in it worth seeing I had not seen.‘ ‘Neither shall there be, I hope,’ said the Poet, ‘but, if one is really to see what is worth seeing, I think one must bridle one’s curiosity a little about much that is not worth seeing. The specialist, no doubt, must be boundlessly curious concerning his particular pursuit, and the professional student of Art is a specialist. We are, at best, only dilettanti, and seek solely to expand our minds through sympathetic and discriminating enjoyment.‘

‘In fact,’ said Lamia, ‘it is with Art as with Life. If one is to enjoy it, one must not know too much about it. In that case, I can promise myself, during the next few weeks, no end of pleasure.’

We none of us, unless it be Veronica sometimes, resent Lamia’s seemingly irrelevant way of diverting a discussion, and the Poet has less reason than any of us to do so, since she not only accepts his utterances as words of absolute wisdom, but invariably strives to shape herself according to his canons of life and conduct. Accordingly, when we descended into Florence, which was pretty often, she manifested neither impatience nor curiosity, but suffered herself to fall into the fortuitous fashion of wandering about it that he recommended. We had neither guide nor guide-book; and, if any of us showed a disposition to enter here or to linger there, we entered or lingered as a matter of course. Lamia was left to her own impulses in giving much or little attention to tomb, fresco, statue, altar-piece, pulpit, or doorway; nor was she distracted by any information concerning them till she asked for it. Then, indeed, it was given most willingly, and it was rarely that one or other of us could not answer her inquiries. The Poet and I were sometimes at fault, but Veronica never. If you think that by such a method as this much must have been overlooked that is well deserving of notice, you must remember there was nothing to prevent us from returning to the same chapel or sacristy, the same monument or bas-relief, again and again; and, so varying is the human mood in general, and Lamia’s mood in particular, that what she would pass by on one occasion would wholly engross her attention in another. Thus there was a certain method underlying our apparent purposelessness, and I fancy she ended by knowing fully as much about Florence as those who order their visits to its innumerable treasures, while I am sure she enjoyed herself infinitely more. Moreover, this unsystematic system of artistic vagrancy issued sometimes in welcome surprises that extended the experience of all of us. One evening, for instance, just as we were on the point of quitting the city and driving homeward, Lamia said:

‘Let us go into the Duomo for a few minutes.’

‘But it is so dark,’ I suggested, ‘you will see nothing!’

We entered, nevertheless. It was the eve of Good Friday, when, according to the Roman Catholic Ritual, the Host, instead of being enshrined as usual on the High Altar, is, in commemoration of the sacred tragedy of Calvary, borne to a dimly-lighted Sepulchre, where, all night long, the faithful come to watch and pray. The Office of _Tenebræ_ was just over, and the worshippers had all passed out of the Cathedral. There remained in the doubtful light only a Verger and ourselves, till, from either side of the Choir, there emerged a figure robed in black, and bearing a lighted torch. Slowly, solemnly, and parallel to each other, they skirted the inner walls of the building, till they met at the main doorway, and then, at the same grave pace, they walked up the long empty nave. I had a surmise of what was signified by this slow and lonely procession, but in order to be quite sure I said to the Verger:

‘_Cosa fanno?_’ (What are they doing?)

‘_Cercano Il Signore, e non lo trovano_,’ he replied. (They are looking for Our Lord, and cannot find Him.)

We all had heard the reply. Then we quitted the Duomo, and drove home in silence.