Part 12

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,--

“There was an old person of Ischia, Whose conduct grew friskier and friskier. He danced hornpipes and jigs, And ate thousands of figs, This lively old person of Ischia.”

XI

OLD AND NEW ROME--PALESTRINA

PALAZZO RUSTICUCCI, ROME, 1899.

Sunday afternoon we went over to hear vespers at St. Peter’s (the music was Palestrina’s). The service was celebrated in the gorgeous Cappella del Coro. It must have been some especial _festa_, for the chapel was even more magnificent than usual, the priests wore extra fine flowered brocade robes, the air was bluer and heavier with incense, there were more candles. The slumbrous canons, in purple gowns and gray squirrel-skin capes, dozed in their fretted stalls. Over their heads, in the carved and gilded gallery, stood the choristers, two by two, each pair holding between them a quaint, black-lettered music book; behind the choir was the organ, in front, the leader, baton in hand. They all wore white lace-trimmed cottas over black gowns. Their voices, dominated by the piercing sweetness of the Pope’s angel, a male soprano, filled the chapel with an almost overpowering melody, that flowed through the gilded gates and floated out into the distant aisles and transepts of the great church.

Wandering about after service, we came upon the tomb of Palestrina, in the transept near the chapel where his _magnificat_ had rung out so gloriously.

“The Church has a long memory for its saints, sinners, and master-workmen. If I thought it would remember me, now, I would take the vows to-morrow,” somebody said in my ear. It was Patsy.

“Jolly to think,” he went on, “of the old boy who led that choir and composed that music for ’em--he died, you know, in 1594,--lying here within the smell of the incense, within the sound of his own harmonics.” Patsy’s only instrument is the guitar.

“I like incense,” he went on; “the Roman populace smells no sweeter than in the days Shakespeare wrote about them; but the real value of incense, of course, lies in its being a germ destroyer, a safeguard to the priest. In the old days, when people did not know so much about health as they do now, they used to come to church to give thanks for recovery from smallpox while still in a state to give it to others.”

Here Helen came up. We had scarcely finished asking her news when Mr. Z---- joined us.

“Looking at the tomb of Palestrina?” he said. “That reminds me, would you ladies like to go and see the town from which he took his name? It is an opportunity, the greatest living authority on polygonal walls is going with us.”

“I never heard of a polygonal wall,” Helen began. (“You’d not give a hoot to see one,” murmured Patsy.) “But I would go anywhere for a day in the country this divine weather, provided the company was good.”

“And the luncheon,” Patsy put in.

Mr. Z---- smiled: “I think the ladies may trust me for that,” he said. Then he gave Helen and me directions for meeting at the station and left us.

“Z---- is a silly old gloat, but there is no malice in him,” Patsy said. “His Antonio is the best cook in Rome. It is part of the law of compensation that the biggest bores always have the best _chefs_.”

We had perfect weather for the trip to Palestrina. All the women, like Helen, had come for the day’s outing in the country, the men were grimly intent upon polygonal walls--all but one--Patsy, the uninvited, who turned up at the station and said he “would go along to have a try at the _vino di paese_ and to see if the girls of Palestrina were as pretty as the girls of Præneste.” As we did not feel responsible for him (he is a relation of the Z----’s) we were thankful to see his handsome face. Express trains do not stop at Palestrina, so we had to take a local, which crawled. One does not mind crawling across the Campagna, in sight of the trees and tombs of the Via Appia, beside the long lines of brown aqueducts, broken here and there into picturesque groups of arches. As we approached the Alban hills we found a hazy scarf of pink gauze spread about their feet and half way up to their knees; on nearer view this proved to be fruit trees in blossom.

At the dull little station of Monte Compatri Colonna there was a delay. Patsy, in search of diversion, tried to get out of the carriage. The door was locked. He put a long leg out of the window and made as if he would climb out. Excitement among the peasants on the platform. Everybody talked at once. Four women and three men rushed to the window.

“_Eccellenza_, for charity’s sake, have patience! The door is capable of being opened!” urged the vendor of _passa tempi_ (salted melon seeds).

An old woman, with a basket of assorted fruits, threw herself passionately in the breach.

“For the love of the Madonna, _illustrissimo_, have a care, you will do yourself an injury. The door opens, I assure you it is true. That _ignorante_ of a guard. Where has he gone? The _capo stazione_ himself should interest himself in your _signoria_.”

Patsy put out his head and one arm. The vendor of the straw-covered flasks of red and white wine joined the group.

“This is a serious affair, _amici miei_,” he said. “Signori, restrain the gentleman! Between ourselves now, is he mad? If so, my brother, who is of the _carabinieri_, can easily be summoned.”

Patsy by this time had got one shoulder out and was frantically waving an arm and a leg. That was too much for the immemorial beggar with the head and beard of Jove, who for forty years has sat upon that platform and begged. He laid down his tray of matches and hurried off on one leg and a crutch to the office of the _capo stazione_. Meanwhile, the guard came out of the restaurant furtively wiping his moustache. He rushed at the carriage with his key. Only one person on the platform had maintained his equilibrium,--the waiter from the restaurant, a man of the world, continued to walk calmly up and down the platform, offering his atrocious chiccory brew--he called it coffee--to the other passengers. He rather superciliously let us alone.

The guard hurried to the window. “I asked the signori before I allowed myself to attend to my duties at Colonna if any of the illustrious ones desired to descend. You yourself, excellency, assured me you desired nothing!” He fitted the key to the door as he spoke.

“Behold, did I not speak the truth?” said the fruit seller; “am I not right? the door opens.”

Patsy leaned comfortably back in the corner and lighted a cigarette. The _capo stazione_ arrived, hastily buttoning his gold-laced coat. He looked daggers at the guard.

“What is wrong? If there has been any inattention it shall be reported. How is this? One of the travellers obliged to get out of the window, and now that the door is open nobody alights?”

“That gentleman,” said Patsy, nodding towards Mr. Z----, “wished to see if he could climb out of the window. Do not trouble yourselves, he is not mad, merely an original. So sorry you should have been disturbed.” The _capo_ bowed politely to Patsy, fixed poor Z---- with a freezing stare, and returned with olympian dignity to that stuffy seat of authority, his office. The Jove-like beggar, leaning on his crutch, in his curiosity to see us forgot to beg.

“_Un fiasco di vino!_” said the wine seller, thrusting a flask into the carriage.

“_Portugalli!_” shrilled the old fruit woman.

“_Caffè due soldi la tazza_ (Coffee two cents a cup)!” cried the waiter.

“_Pronti_ (Ready)!” roared the guard.

“_Taratara!_” screamed the station master’s horn.

“_Partenza!_” and that was the last we saw of Monte Compatri Colonna.

Between Colonna and Palestrina Patsy allowed us to enjoy the view, really well worth seeing. We had enchanting glimpses of the Alban, Sabine, and Volscian mountains; the valleys between blazed with wild-flowers. At the station the party divided, Mr. Z----, the expert on polygonal walls, and the rest going in the stage, Patsy, Helen, and ourselves crowding into a _botte_.

“The trouble with those fellows is,” said Patsy, “that they know too much of one thing and too little of anything else. You’d be talked to death and sick of the subject if I had not come along to save your lives.”

“I _should_ like to know what we have come to see,” I feebly protested.

“Nonsense,” said Helen, “they have crammed it all out of books, you can cram a great deal better afterwards. It takes the edge off to read too much about a thing before you see it. Don’t read the guide-book till you have seen the thing and got your own impression neat.”

The road from the station leads up a sharp incline, winding through the steep and dirty streets of Palestrina, a hillside town, which stands upon the ruins of the Colonna’s mediæval stronghold, which again stands upon the ancient town of Præneste, extolled by the Latin poets. That Præneste, with its magnificent Temple of Fortune, the resort of the fashionable Romans of the days of Mæcenas, seems modern compared to the ancient Præneste, whose ruins are found beneath it, and whose _arx_ was the spot chosen for the picnic luncheon. It was a stiff climb. We left the carriage at Castel San Pietro and scrambled to the summit where that magnificent and indomitable race--Castellane calls them the _Italiotti_--built their citadel. Here we saw the ruins of the polygonal (we used to call them cyclopean) walls. Astonishing structures, making the walls of the three later periods--the latest, exquisite brick-work of the Empire--seem by comparison like the work of children! The huge rocks are fitted together without cement of any sort, and in some places the walls look as solid as the day they were built, long before Rome was! To make room for our table-cloth, an old shepherd obligingly drove his sheep a little lower down the mountain. He was knitting stockings for one of his grandchildren; he has four to bring up. Their mother is dead, their father--he went years ago to Buenos Ayres--has ceased to write or to send them money.