Part 17

“Was that scar on your cheek made by an Austrian or a French bayonet?” He rubbed the old wound with a stiff hand smiling grimly to himself. “By neither--worse yet! At Calatafini, when the royal troops--they were Neapolitans--had exhausted their cartridges, they threw stones at us. Have you not heard what Garibaldi said of that action? ‘The old misfortune, a fight between Italians, but it proves to me what can be done with this family united.’ One day while the chief was watering his horse at a spring a Franciscan friar suddenly appeared among us. Some of the men tried to arrest him, but he forced his way to the chiefs side, threw himself on his knees, and begged to be taken along with us. There were some who believed him an enemy in disguise, but the man, his name was Fra Pantaleo, did good service and proved true as steel!”

As long as the talk is of the old time our ancient soldier is a hero; when it touches to-day he degenerates into a grumbler. He seems less dissatisfied with the army than with most things modern. “My grandson is serving his four years. Where do you suppose his regiment is quartered? In Milan; that is as it should be, the North and the South must know each other. It is well to send the men of Sicily to Piedmont and the Piedmontese to Sicily. In this manner they may learn that they are before all things Italians.”

The veterans who fought for the Unification of Italy are treated very much as we treat the veterans who fought for the preservation of our Union; they are scolded, laughed at, loved, and forgiven many things that would be unpardonable in others. On national holidays the old Garibaldians turn out in their red shirts, white kerchiefs, and peaked caps. They are fewer now, their blouses have faded to a softer red than when I first saw them in the year 1878, mustered to meet Garibaldi, already mortally ill, when he came up from rocky Caprera to Rome for the funeral of Victor Emanuel, the man he had made King of Italy. I remember it as if it had all happened yesterday. We were in the square outside the railroad station when he arrived. The Piazza di Termini was packed with silent people waiting patiently hour after hour. At last we heard the whistle of an engine; the crowd was shaken by a murmur, “Garibaldi has come!”

A landeau was driven across the piazza at a footpace, Garibaldi lay across the carriage, his head raised on a pillow. He wore the classic gray felt hat and the red blouse. At first his eyes were closed as if he were in pain. His face reminded one that God made man in His own image. The features were fine and firm, the hair and beard were a rich silver, the complexion white and rose, like a child’s. He was always described as “bronzed”; the delicacy came from his long illness. Once he opened his eyes, those who stood near caught an eagle’s glance. A tall woman lifted her child high over her head, whispering to it, “Never, never, never forget that thou hast seen the face of Garibaldi.” There was no applause; many women, some men were weeping. As the carriage passed, the guard of honor, his old companions in arms, closed around it. F., who was near us in the crowd, was singing under his breath the words of the old Carbonari song,

“_Zitto! silenzio, chi passa la ronda? evviva la republica, evviva liberta_ (Hush, silence! Who passes the patrol? Long live the republic, and long live liberty)!”

I wonder if F. remembers! He is a Pope’s man now and denies the virtue of republics.

I described this scene to our old soldier; his bloodshot eyes grew redder yet as he said gruffly,--

“I too was there!”

* * * * *

To-morrow we go back to Rome. We have ordered a basket of strawberries to take with us. I have written to the _gobbo_ to meet us at the station; as we pass the _fruttajola’s_ shop I shall stop and tell her that I now understand all about the strawberries of Nemi.

PALAZZO RUSTICUCCI, ROME, July 14, 1900.

This summer I am again trying the Roman method of supineness; I eat very little, sleep a great deal, and keep mostly indoors. Last year I exhausted myself with bicycling and other violent exercise. The English and German residents recommend this energetic course, but I find that the Romans are right. The terrace is too lovely, ablaze with marigolds, cannas, cockscombs, balsams, oleanders, and portulacas. Our only failure has been the dahlias, which all died. The vines are all doing famously; the red honeysuckle which J. dug up (in the very face of the white bull) at the Villa Madama, has grown to an astonishing size. Our large passion-flower vine covered half the terrace pergola; it had out-grown the largest flower-pot that is made, so to save its life J. gave it to Signor Boni for the Roman forum. Four men carried it downstairs. It was tragic to see the beautiful branches broken and trailing as they put it in a cart and drove it away.

This is the beginning of the end! Beppino was right, the Palazzo Rusticucci is sold to a brotherhood of French monks, and we must deliver up the apartment and the terrace to them on the first day of September. Many of our beloved plants will be bought by friends, others we shall give away. The honeysuckles and some of the roses follow the passion-flower to the forum; others go to the garden of the American School of Archæology, where the dear Nortons will care for them, and some to the Spanish Academy, where the Signora Villegas will have an eye to them.

Camphoring goes on to-day; the general wretchedness of “things in the saddle” is in the air. How stupidly we complicate life by acquiring fleeces of Miletus and other perishable objects. How to dispose of the accumulations of all these years? Diogenes had the right of it. In future a tub and the sunlight will suffice me.

This afternoon as we were sitting comfortably together in the big old studio (the coolest place in Rome) enjoying our tea, Signor Boni threw a bombshell into our camp.

“I notice,” he said, “that those cracks in the wall have widened perceptibly since I was last here.”

The studio is forty feet high, sixty feet long. Among the jocose charcoal sketches scrawled on the walls certain evil-looking cracks zigzag from the high-pitched wooden roof to the red brick pavement. When we first came they were no more than mere cracks in the whitewash; now they gape wide enough to hold my finger. As we were examining the cracks we all started at a sound like the snapping of a pistol over our heads.

“What was that noise?” I cried.

“Only the creaking of the ceiling beams, it happens every now and again,” said J.

“Before we restored the Ducal Palace in Venice, and saved it from tumbling down, the same thing went on,” said Signor Boni; “but, _amici miei_, do you not see what all this means?”

“It means that this old barrack is going to pieces,” said J.; “some day they will either have to shore it up or tear it down.”

“Listen,” said the Venetian, impressively. “Last Sunday morning the Palazzo Piombino, in the Via della Scrofa, not half a mile from here, fell in a heap of ruins, all in a second, with no more warning than you have had. If it had not been _festa_, and a fine day, there would have been a great loss of life. As it was the people were all out gadding about the town.”

Pietro, who had been listening, now chimed in. “_Scuse Signore_, there was the cook, a friend of mine, who was obliged to remain at home in order to freeze the ice cream,--thirsty work on a hot day. _Magari_, that cook’s thirst saved his life. He had just climbed through the grating into the wine cellar to get a _fiaschetta_ of the wine of Orvieto, when piff, paff, pifferty! down came the house crashing about his ears. The wine cellar had a vaulted stone roof so strong that it resisted all the bricks, mortar, and rubbish that fell upon it. They heard that cook shrieking like a small devil, and dug him out; the flask of Orvieto was still in his hand, though he had not drunk a drop; he believed that the catastrophe was a judgment upon him for taking the wine.”

“The Palazzo Rusticucci to be sold over our heads, the studio threatening to fall down upon them--our Roman world is crumbling about us!” I cried.

To which Pietro’s “What are you going to do about it?” was cold comfort.

XV

THE KING IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE KING!

PALAZZO RUSTICUCCI, ROME, July 29, 1900.

I was awakened at six o’clock this morning by a loud knocking and the shrill voices of my maids calling to me. Hurrying out to the hall I found the three pale, shivering women huddled together near our door.

“What is the matter?” I asked.

Old Nena could only lift her withered hands to heaven and cry aloud to the Madonna. Filomena stood staring dully, saying over and over again,----

“Murdered, murdered, murdered!”

Pompilia the Tuscan seemed less distraught than the others.

“Tell me quickly what has happened?” I said to her.

“They have killed our King!” wailed Pompilia.

“It is true,” Filomena sobbed; “I heard it when I went to mass.”

We dressed immediately and went out into the street, to find that it was only too true. Giuseppe the baker standing at his shop door, white as his linen clothes, read aloud the dreadful news from his morning paper. In the dark shop behind, his boy fed the crackling fire with brushwood as if nothing out of the common had happened. The loaves were ready for the oven; it was his business to keep up the fire.

“Last night, at half-past ten o’clock, as the King was getting into his carriage at Monza, he was shot and almost instantly killed. As he fell, those nearest caught him in their arms imploring him to say if he were seriously hurt. His Majesty answered, _Non è niente_ (It is nothing).’ These were his last words, he died almost immediately after.”

Ignazio our gardener who had just come up, a damp newspaper crumpled in his hand, echoed the words:

“It is nothing! It is nothing! Was not that like him? Ah! he was a brave man.”

“The assassin was with difficulty saved from the mob;” Giuseppe continued to read.

“Why _did_ they save him?” interrupted Ignazio. “They should have let the people tear the wretch to pieces, and that would have been too good for him!”

“It is nothing!” Giuseppe repeated. “Ah! you may well say he was a brave man. Do you remember the last time they tried to murder our good King? He was on his way to the races. The officer in the carriage with him was wounded; Re Umberto sent the injured man back to Rome while he himself drove on to Tor di Quinto as if nothing had happened. In the royal box he said to one of his suite that being shot at was one of ‘_gl’incerti del mestiere_ (the risks of the profession).’ Ah! he _was_ a brave man; he deserved a better trade.”

“Well they have killed him at last,” said Ignazio. “What do you suppose will be done to the murderer? Will they hang him? No, indeed; nothing so sensible! We tax-payers must support that vile assassin for the rest of his life. I ask you, is there any sense in that? They should let the people have him; we will give him justice. Ah! if I had only been there!”

Ignazio, perhaps the gentlest man I have ever known, was quite transported with rage. Cursing and crying he dashed the tears from his eyes with his clenched fist.

Old Nena took Ignazio by the sleeve: “Come away, man,” she said gruffly; “will it help matters for you to have a fit of apoplexy?”

Filomena, the soft hearted, took his other arm; between them they led him into the house. Pompilia, made of sterner stuff, remained to listen to the baker.

“We have no capital punishment in Italy,” Giuseppe explained to me. “The King’s assassin will be sentenced to solitary confinement for life.”

“Was the man an anarchist?” I asked.

“An anarchist, yes; and an Italian--more shame to him. But, _Signora mia_, he comes from your country; read for yourself.” The regicide has lived in Paterson, New Jersey. It is said that two Italian anarchist newspapers published in that town have advocated the murder of sovereigns in general, of King Umberto in particular. The paper Giuseppe handed me attacks our Government sharply for allowing the publication of these incendiary sheets.

Rome is very quiet; the grief seems to be genuine and universal. The Prince and Princess of Naples are cruising in the Mediterranean. It is believed that a message from a semaphore was understood upon the royal yacht, and hoped that the young King will soon land and make his proclamation. The evening papers speak of him already as King Victor Emanuel III. and of our dear Queen Margaret as the Queen Mother! As soon as Pope Leo heard of the murder he celebrated mass for the repose of the King’s soul.

The twenty-two years of King Umberto’s reign seem to me like a dream. I am haunted by a song of my mother’s; I hear the tragic pathos of her voice singing the words which when I was a little child and could not understand their meaning always sent me shamefaced into the corner to hide my tears:

“Kingdoms have passed away since last we met: See from their thrones of pride monarchs like spectres glide, Love’s law doth still abide, Love reigneth yet!”

I was in Rome when this dead King’s father, Victor Emanuel, died; I strewed roses before his sumptuous funeral car with its eight black horses; I saw King Umberto receive the oath of allegiance from his troops, take the vow to support the constitution. Again I am in Rome; if I live so long I shall see his funeral pageant, and yet I feel as young as ever I did in my life, and my feelings are hurt when people treat me as if I were not so. Read me this riddle if you can: mystery of mysteries!

This morning Patsy, sent back to Rome as a special correspondent of the “Daily----” surprised us at breakfast. You may imagine if we were glad to see him. People here are so tense, so overstrained and excited, that his presence is like a fresh north wind after days of sirocco. He brought us the latest bulletins from the Press Club.

“Yesterday,” he said, “the young King and Queen landed from their yacht somewhere on the coast of Calabria and went directly to Monza by way of Naples, where Crispi, old, broken, and nearly blind, met them at the station. The son of the murdered King hurrying to his father’s body stops to embrace the old Minister. Can’t you imagine it? Though Crispi is out of office and out of public favor, the young man remembers the time when he was a child and Crispi was his father’s right hand. That was a meeting worth seeing. I wish I had been there.”

History will judge both King and Minister more fairly than contemporaries have done; it will find the King worthy of the great name he bore. I gather from Patsy’s talk that the reaction is beginning already.

“The Italians are finding out,” he said, “that the King inherited more than his name from Humbert of the White Hand; he had the same colossal loyalty, courage, and honesty. It sounds brutal to say it, but I believe his tragic death has done more to secure the throne to the dynasty than any act of his life could have done. Sympathy is already wiping out the memory of his mistakes. There could not be a more propitious opening for the new reign.”

August 8.

Rome is crowded. It is strange to see the hotels open, the Corso alive with people, the Pincio and Villa Borghese filled with carriages at this usually dead season. The Court, the people of the embassies, special envoys from all the countries of Europe, and I should think nearly every distinguished personage in Italy, are here for the King’s funeral to-morrow. All these people augment rather than lessen the universal gloom; after six months of jubilation Rome is a mourning city. This afternoon we drove to the Quirinal Palace to inscribe our names in the Queen’s book. A dozen large folios lie on as many tables in the entrance hall; here all who wish to express their sympathy may write their names. I recognized among those waiting to sign, the French Ambassador, Beppino (Prince Nero’s grandson), and our Ignazio. One table was surrounded by poorly dressed lads,--they looked like newsboys, messengers, and the like. They are the best witnesses of the progress made in the last twenty years; when King Umberto came to the throne, the street boys of Rome did not write their names. To-night the walls are covered with manifestoes from the various trades, guilds, and associations, expressing horror at the crime, sympathy for the royal family, grief for the murdered King, loyalty to his house.

August 9.

The King’s funeral was to-day. The weather was fair and very cool for the season. We left home at half-past five in the morning and drove to the Corso, where we were obliged to leave our carriage. We had a pass which took us through the lines of cavalry stretched across the Piazza Venezia. We reached the balcony we had secured (thanks to kind Mr. Iddings, of our embassy) in the Via Nazionale, half an hour before the funeral procession started. We kept a place for Patsy, who soon joined us, looking, for him, rather jaded. He had been up all night, having come down from Monza on the special train which brought the King’s body.

“It was a wonderful journey,” Patsy said. “The bells were tolled in every town we passed through; all the stations were hung with crape; everywhere, even at the poorest villages, we were met by citizens bringing flowers. When we arrived, the train was half buried in laurel and roses.”

“Were you late in reaching Rome?”

“That was the best of it: there was no confusion, no delay, we were exactly on time. It was half-past six when the Duke of Aosta stepped from the train,--he was in command of the guard which escorted the body from Monza--and saluted King Victor, who was waiting on the platform. The cousins--they are about of an age, I fancy--looked hard at each other, shook hands, then embraced.”

Patsy had evidently been a good deal moved by the scene, which is not surprising. You know Aosta is the heir presumptive and has a son, while the young King is still childless.

“How did King Victor look?”

“Soldierly; as the coffin touched the soil of Rome, his lip trembled; it seemed for a moment as if he would give way; but he controlled himself,--that was the only sign of weakness.”

The procession opened with a troop of lancers, dashing fellows, well mounted and well set up. Then followed artillery, infantry, engineers, sailors, marines, and in the place of honor nearest to the cortege, the trim, smart _bersaglieri_, a crack regiment of riflemen. Their dress is very picturesque: dark blue uniforms, crimson facings, and large round hats with cocks’ feathers worn on one side. The crowd in the streets was extraordinarily quiet; the only sounds were the tramp, tramp of the soldiers’ feet, the muffled drums of the dead march. Many of the people had waited all night to secure their places. The civic officers of Rome marched in fine mediæval costumes, the dresses of the _gonfalonieri_, red and yellow cloth, were among the best.

“Have you ever seen such a well-drilled procession, or such a well-behaved crowd?” said Patsy.

I confessed that I had never seen better. Just as we were commenting on the fine gravity and self-control of those who marched, and of those who waited and watched, the silence--which till then really had been remarkable--was broken by a sound like the buzzing of thousands of insects.

“Who can these be?” I asked.

“The lawyers are coming,” said Patsy.

The members of the court of cassation, and other legal lights, dressed in crimson and black velvet robes, with large square velvet hats to match, and thick gold chains about their necks, went chattering by; they could not be silent! Siena sent a dozen pretty pages in fifteenth-century dress: puffed satin doublets and jerkins, long silk hose, and golden lovelocks on their shoulders. The gondoliers of Venice (famous loyalists) were a fine group; two of the tallest carried between them an enormous wreath of laurel, the gift of their guild.

There was a sudden stir in the crowd; then a deep sigh, as a gun carriage drawn by two lean artillery horses came in sight, driven by a grizzled gunner, the coffin strapped behind in the place of the gun. An officer carrying King Umberto’s sword walked before, another followed, bearing on a cushion the iron crown of Savoy; an orderly led his favorite horse, the saddle draped in crape, the empty boots turned backwards in the stirrups. King Victor followed close behind the coffin on foot, with the Princes of Savoy, the Russian Grand Duke Alexis, the Duke of Argyle, and other special envoys and guests of honor; among them were Lord Currie, Mr. Iddings, and Colonel Needham, looking like a pale-brown ghost.

Just as the gun carriage had passed, at a sudden unexplained noise--I believe it was merely the knocking over of a chair--the panic-stricken crowd surged into the street, broke up the procession, and nearly swept King Victor off his feet.

There was a moment of sickening suspense; the gun carriage halted; the King drew his sword, his kinsmen pressed close about him as if to protect him. Then in the opposite balcony a tall handsome woman dressed in mourning rose to her feet, and leaning well over the balcony waved her handkerchief with a majestic gesture that quelled the panic. The crowd understood the signal to mean “No danger!” The women in the neighboring windows began to clap their hands. Meanwhile the gun carriage waited, the young King stood at bay, startled, but ready for whatever might happen. At the clapping of hands, the groans, the cries of “Anarchists!” “A bomb!” “Traitors!” ceased, the insensate pushing and jostling stopped, and before one could believe it possible order was restored, and the procession took up its line of march. I never saw a finer example of one individual of nerve and presence of mind controlling the blind panic of a crowd.

Late, late in the procession marched a small band of old Garibaldians. We recognized our friend from Nemi hobbling among them.

“They should not have been put off at the end of the procession, along with the tailors and shoemakers of Rome. If it had not been for them there would be no United Kingdom of Italy to-day,” J. said.

“Policy, my friend, policy!” said Patsy, his eyes a little dim at the sight of the faded red shirts and the broken men who wore them.

“Nobody,” Patsy confessed, “feels the charm of gold lace more than I, but did you notice how well the plain black coat of the American Chargé d’Affaires looked among all those glittering liveries of kings? The sight of it made me feel rather proud of being an American citizen!”

We waited in our balcony to see the return to the palace. Patsy, who went to the Pantheon, where the funeral services were held, reported them as admirably short and impressive.

“Throughout the ceremony,” he said, “Queen Margaret was given the place of honor. At the end, just as they were about to leave the church, she made a deep courtesy to her son, and stood back while the young King and his wife went out before her. Think what that means! Queen Margaret, from her fifteenth year the first lady in the land, entered the church Queen of Italy and left it Queen Dowager. With that courtesy she stepped from the first to the second place in the kingdom.”

“As long as she lives she will be first in every true Italian heart!”

“There’s the rub! She should not be.”

“That may be true; she will be all the same!”

There was a sudden sound of bugles, the clatter of horses’ feet. The King’s guard, picked men, every one of them over six feet tall, came dashing up the street to the crisp music of the royal march. In their midst we caught a glimpse of King Victor, in a closed carriage, on his way to take possession of the Quirinal Palace.

The King is dead. Long live the King!

August 14.