Part 3

A South African couple sit at my table; they have come all the way from Cape Town. For seventeen long years the husband suffered with nervous dyspepsia, whatever that may be. One summer at Woerishoven has cured him. Does this sound like Paine’s Celery Compound? I learn as much from the other patients as in any other way. Herr Schnell, a German New Yorker,--a hardware man,--and his wife are my best friends. She first spoke to me at table.

“Dot caffee is not good for _Ihnen_. _Sie müssen Wasser trinken_.”

“I am here for my throat,” I told her; “I only need hardening; besides, Father Kneipp drinks coffee.”

“Dot _Pfarrer_ is not _krank_--sick, how you say?”

My dear, she actually sent the coffee away, and forbade the _kellner_ ever to bring it to me again! The Schnells and I patronize the same fruit-stand, and we walk up and down after meals together, eating grapes out of brown paper bags. A certain forlorn Pole at our table interests me; he is called Count Chopski, or some such name. His nerves are shattered by too much cigarette smoking. Frau Schnell and I came upon him in the wood the other day, sitting behind a big tree smoking. Frau Schnell marched up to him, took the cigarette out of his hand, and gave him a scolding for smoking on the sly. He began to cry!

I am at the best hotel, which is of a simplicity! Big people and little people all sit down to the half-past-twelve dinner; only royalties (there are always some of them here) are allowed to keep any state. At the table next mine a bishop and a ballet-dancer sit side by side; it is an open joke to all of us, except the bishop, who doesn’t know, and nobody will tell him,--I call that nice feeling. In all my life I have never met with such simple kindliness as there is here; it’s a sort of Kingdom-come place, where everybody feels responsible for everybody else. Nothing of the am-I-my-brother’s-keeper feeling here! Of course, it is all _Pfarrer_ Kneipp; the whole atmosphere of place and people is the expression of a great, ardent heart which beats for sick humanity, which rages against all shams and cruelties. His spirit is like my father’s, the atmosphere here more like that of the old Institution for the Blind in his day than anything I have ever known.

When Sebastian Kneipp was a young student preparing for the priesthood (he was the son of a poor weaver) his health broke down so completely that he was obliged to give up his studies. One day in a convent library he stumbled on a copy of Preissnitz’s book on water-cure. Impressed by the theory, he persuaded a fellow-student in the same predicament as himself to join him in putting it into practice. It was midwinter. The two lads broke the ice from a neighboring stream in which they took their baths. Heroic treatment, but it saved them; both soon regained their health. Kneipp finished his course of study, took orders, returned to his native village of Woerishoven as parish priest, and has remained here ever since.

From the beginning he seems to have been more interested in curing his parishioners’ bodies than in saving their souls. He tells of being called to administer the last sacrament to a dying man. The moment he saw him he threw away book and candle, called for a pail of water and a linen sheet, put the patient in a wet pack, and saved his life. For many years the _Pfarrer_ only practised among his peasant neighbors. Gradually his fame spread to the surrounding villages, to the city of Munich, to other cities. People began to flock to Woerishoven from all over Germany, France, Europe, America, till finally this obscure Bavarian hamlet has become one of the world’s great Meccas of health.

The only person who makes any effort for society is an Austrian countess, a great court lady. She has taken a tiny cottage, brought her own cook, maid, and butler from Vienna, and tries to give “at homes.” I heard some good music at her rooms the other day. Somehow she had managed to draw together half a dozen people of the sort that can make “society” in the prison of La Jacquerie, on an ocean steamer, or even at a German cure,--an Austrian officer, an English diplomat, a French abbé, my Polish count, and the musician, who is a real artist. We walked with the gods for that hour; the pianist gave us whatever we asked for--Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Grieg. It was a _Kaffee-klatsch_ without the coffee (all stimulants are forbidden, even tea and coffee); the butler handed--scornfully, I thought--milk and grapes. The party broke up rather hurriedly at sunset, everybody rushing away to get their _Wassertreten_ before dark. Water treading is to wade up to one’s knees in one of the streams which run through the fields. Very pleasant, very comic--fortunately, there is a male stream and a female stream; such chippendales! such piano legs have I seen! It is all so strange, so _echt deutsch_! The countess does not harmonize with the rest, she is out of key. I meet her at seven o’clock in the morning, her feet, head, neck, and arms bare, strolling over the wet grass, a lovely, incongruous vision; her hair dressed and “_ondulée_” in the latest fashion; her parasol, rose-colored satin. Now, a rose-colored satin parasol at Woerishoven is a false note in a pastoral symphony. She worships Father Kneipp; they all say she owes him her life; he cannot endure her, has attacked her almost openly in his talks; he will not tolerate folly, vanity, or worldliness; she personifies--oh, so charmingly--all three! She wears the prescribed dress of coarse Kneipp linen with such a difference; the other women look like meal-sacks; she has the lines of a Greek goddess.

In the early morning all the patients walk barefoot through the wet grass. Those who have been here longest go without shoes and stockings all day. I am told it is delightful to walk bare foot in the new-fallen snow. Women’s skirts reach only to the ankles; men wear knickerbockers. The only foot-gear allowed at Woerishoven is the leather sandal, classic and comfortable. Newcomers begin by wearing the sandal over the stocking, then the stocking is left off for half an hour--an hour--finally for the whole day. An hour and a half after breakfast and dinner a cold douche is taken. The _blitzguss_ (lightning douche) is for people who have been taking the cure for some time, the _rumpf_ (body) douche is commonly prescribed for new arrivals. At the ladies’ bath attached to this hotel a rosy _mädchen_ plays the hose upon the patient with skill and firmness. That ordeal over, the dripping victim scrambles hastily into her clothes--drying and rubbing are forbidden--and exercises vigorously until she is perfectly dry and warm. The exhilaration which follows is indescribable. In the exercise-room attached to the largest bath, I have seen a bishop capering, a princess sawing wood, a fat American millionaire pirouetting with a balancing pole. No one laughs; it is too grave a matter. You dance or prance, box, saw wood, or do calisthenics for your life--anything to get up the circulation!

Bavaria is enchanting, Bavarians are delightful, not at all like other Germans, more like the Tyrolese,--simple, kind, deeply religious. I cannot imagine becoming a “convert” in Rome, but here it would be easier. Why should the people of Catholic countries have better manners than those of Protestant lands? I know you will bring up some old saw about sincerity and truth not always being compatible with suavity! We can’t be _all_ right and they _all_ wrong, “and yet and yet” it is known that the Pope keeps his own private account at the Bank of Protestant England! Does this mean that he, like the Italians I meet every day, is readier to trust an Englishman or an American than his own countrymen?

I keep thinking of him, my neighbor in Rome, the Prisoner of the Vatican, shut up between the walls of his vast garden through all the long summer. I used to look at his windows and wonder if he felt the heat as much as I did in those last August days before we came away on our _villeggiatura_. No _villeggiatura_ for him, he is still there! The “Black Pope” (as the power of the Jesuit is called) is his gaoler,--not good King Humbert, as you may have been led to suppose,--but a prison is a prison, whoever the gaoler may be.

I am learning all I can about the German Kaiser. I am inclined to think he plays the strongest game at the European card-table. The Bavarians I have talked with seem rather bored by him; they compare him unfavorably with poor, dear, mad King Ludwig and his father, great art patrons, both.

The Prussians think their Kaiser the greatest man on earth. I gather from one of their number that the court people are harried by him beyond belief; he is forever interfering with their private affairs. A young officer with an English wife and English tastes set up a tandem in Berlin last winter. He received a message from the Emperor requesting him not to drive one horse before the other! How can they bear it? When we first arrived the Kaiser had lately been at Rome and people were still telling stories of him. The Italians are not over-fond of his visits; he costs a great deal to entertain and is too much given to dropping in to tea! He stayed at the Quirinal Palace, the guest of the King. As such, etiquette forbade his visiting the Pope. You don’t suppose he let a little thing like that interfere! On a certain day the German Ambassador to the Vatican (you understand there are two Ambassadors, don’t you, one to the King, one to the Pope?) received notice that the Emperor was to be his guest for the morrow. The Ambassador, a bachelor of simple tastes, prepared for the imperial visit as best he could. The Emperor arrived with a portmanteau, made one of his lightning changes, and came down to breakfast. The breakfast-table was a bright spot, a friend having lent a fine service of silver and some wonderful Venetian glass. When the Kaiser saw the display he cried out, “Mein Gott, A----, where did you steal all these?” Rather nice, wasn’t it? After they had “eated and drinked,” as your children say, a carriage, come all the way from Berlin, with horses, harnesses, and servants to match, drove up to the door and carried the Emperor off to call on the Pope! It would not have been etiquette to use the Italian royal carriage to pay the papal visit!

Prince Doria’s ball for the Kaiser at the splendid Palazzo Doria--one of the finest of the Roman palaces--must have been gorgeous; the picture gallery was a blaze of glory,--you remember there the great Velasquez portrait of Pope Innocent X.?--all the jewels in Rome were present except the emeralds of the Pope’s tiara. When he went away the Kaiser said to Prince Doria,--

“We shall be very glad to see you and the Princess at Potsdam, but we cannot show you anything like this.” Handsome of him, wasn’t it?

When the Kaiser went sightseeing to St. Peter’s he admired my fountains. Well he might! After watching them leap and play for some time he said, “Turn them off now; it’s a pity to waste so much water.” Thrifty, eh? Turn off Carlo Maderno’s tireless fountains, which have danced in the sun and shimmered in the moon nigh three hundred years!

III

A VISIT TO QUEEN MARGARET

PALAZZO RUSTICUCCI, ROME, December 7, 1894.

Yesterday was _sirocco_. In consequence the house was full of fine sand blown up from the African desert and everybody was out of humor; it is curious how this soft wind sets people’s nerves on edge. In spite of _sirocco_, I saw the King and Queen going to open Parliament. The King, Prince of Naples, and two officers were in the first crystal and gilt coach, the Queen her mother the Duchess of Genoa, and a gentleman of the court in the next. The horses, trappings, coachmen, and footmen were magnificent. There were three servants to each of the six royal carriages--one on the box, two standing behind. They wore scarlet coats, white wigs, three-cornered hats, and pink silk stockings. The King and the Prince were in uniform, the Queen and her mother in the latest French fashion. Little Gwennie Story (the granddaughter of our dear old friends the William Storys) was dreadfully disappointed when she found that the Queen did not always wear a crown. I sympathize with her. I had a place in the loggia of the Palazzo Montecitorio--where Parliament meets--and saw the royalties step out of their carriages and enter the palace.

January 21, 1895.

Yesterday I went to the annual memorial mass for Victor Emmanuel at the Pantheon. The noble old temple--the only one of the Roman buildings which has been in continuous use since it was erected in the first century--was hung with black and cloth of gold. A huge catafalque stood in the middle, directly under the open dome; the whole interior was lighted by classic torches, urns, and tripods holding blue fire. A tribune had been constructed for the orchestra and singers. The music, a mass of Cherubini’s, was very fine. The catafalque was surrounded by a double line of men who stood facing one another through the long service. The men of the outer circle were soldiers of the King, the men of the inner ring were priests of the Church, for Victor Emmanuel was a good Catholic and died in the faith.

I was in Rome for the first time in 1878, the last winter of his life. I often saw him driving on the Pincio or in the Corso. He was an extraordinary-looking man, fierce, powerful, bizarre, every inch a king; loved and hated accordingly. I remember the intense excitement when the two old enemies, Pius the Ninth and Victor Emmanuel, both lay dying in the city for which they had fought. Would the King be permitted to receive the sacrament? When it was known that the Pope on his death-bed had sent his blessing to the King _in extremis_ all Rome drew a long breath. We went to see _Il Re Galantuomo_ lying in state in the _capella ardente_ at the Quirinal. He was dressed in full uniform with high riding-boots, the royal robe of red velvet and ermine was spread over the inclined plane on which he lay, the crown and sceptre at his feet. The chapel blazed with candles; in each of the four corners knelt a brown Capuchin monk telling his beads. Signor Simone Peruzzi, chamberlain to the King, watched one night beside the body. He was alone for the moment when he heard a deep sigh, saw the King’s breast heave. The matter was explained by the physicians afterwards. I remember to this day the thrill in Peruzzi’s voice when he spoke of the dead King’s sigh.

March 10, 1895.

Mrs. Potter Palmer and I have had a private audience with the Queen. The visit went off very well. We arrived at the Quirinal Palace at two o’clock, and were received by the Marchesa Villamarina and two other court ladies, with whom we talked for perhaps ten minutes. A tiny old woman dressed in mourning, looking like the Fairy Blackstick, came out from her audience just as we entered the Queen’s reception-room for ours. She must have been a privileged person, for we had been warned not to wear black and not to wear hats, bonnets being _de rigueur_. As I do not own a bonnet, Mrs. Palmer kindly lent me a charming one, fresh from Paris--a few days later, when she was received by the Pope, she wore my Spanish mantilla. The Queen, who was seated on a sofa, rose as we entered and shook hands cordially with us. She is still beautiful, her hair magnificent, her eyes kind and keen. When you visit royalty you must only speak when you are spoken to; the choice of the topic of conversation thus remains with the royal personage. You must always say “your Majesty,” and you must make three reverences on entering and leaving the presence. In all this, I was tutored by Marion Crawford, who has often been “received,” and whose books the Queen is said to read with pleasure. She speaks English perfectly, by the way. She had seen an article in a late magazine--_The Century_, I think--on American country houses; she spoke of those at Newport, and said that, “judging from the illustrations, they must be very fine.” She showed us a grand piano at the end of the room, saying that it was an American instrument, a Steinway, and that “it had a very brilliant action.” With Mrs. Palmer the Queen spoke of the World’s Fair. Mr. MacVeagh had presented her with a copy of the book I edited on the Woman’s Department of the Chicago Exposition. The audience lasted about twenty minutes; then the Queen rose, the signal for us to withdraw. We made our three courtesies and backed successfully from the room. The Queen is much beloved; she has real charm, besides being good and clever.

Yesterday I went to Mr. William Story’s studio. The garden is lovelier than ever, the climbing vines that mask the dead wall make a rustling screen of cool green in which the birds build their nests. I waited in the studio among the statues--most of them old friends of mine--and found my particular tassel on the fringed robe of the marble Sardanapalus. One day, seventeen years ago, when Mr. Story was working on the clay, he let me take his modelling tool and add a few touches to the fringe. I have seen a copy of this statue in Lord Battersea’s fine house in London opposite the Marble Arch of Hyde Park. When Mr. Story came in--much as you remember him, the same graceful, brilliant talker, only with a new pensive note since his wife’s death--we talked of the old days at Dieppe, of the meetings in the studio there, when he and my mother read aloud from the books they were writing, and Mrs. Story gave us tea and read us Mallock’s “New Republic,” published that year; it must have been the summer of 1878. Mr. Story remembered the mornings on the _plage_ when we sat on the warm sea sand under big red umbrellas watching “the boys” tumbling in the surf, and mamma’s calling Waldo “the amber god,” and Julian “a young leopard,” as he swam and dove through the waves like a merman. I reminded him of the little poem he wrote in our autograph book, and showed him the locket Mrs. Story gave me with a picture of herself and Pippa, the funny little pug dog she took with her wherever she went. We both remembered how Pippa behaved the day they left Dieppe when she saw the handbag in which she always travelled. She bit and scratched the bag, whined and generally remonstrated. Once inside the satchel, however, she was perfectly quiet and never betrayed her presence by barking _en route_.

Mr. Story showed me the monument he is modelling for Mrs. Story’s grave--a kneeling figure of an angel leaning over a classic altar. The face, every line of the figure, every finger of the hand, each feather of the drooping wings seems to weep. He calls it the Genius of Grief. This last expression of a great life love gripped me by the heart. It is to be placed in the Protestant cemetery here (where lovely Jennie Crawford is buried) not far from the corner where the ashes of Shelley were interred, and near the tombstone of Keats with its familiar inscription,--

“Here lies one whose name is writ in water.”

ST. AGNELLO DI SORRENTO, March 18, 1895.

Last Monday we left Rome in a rain-storm and came here to break up a pair of obstinate colds. We are delightfully established at the Cocumella, an old Jesuit monastery turned into a hotel. There is less of what Hawthorne calls the odor of sanctity--a peculiar mildewed smell the monks leave behind them--than is usual in such places. Our windows command an astonishing view of the Bay of Naples and Mt. Vesuvius. To the right, about a quarter of a mile away, is Villa Crawford, where we are most kindly welcomed by the ladies; the man of the house is away. The children are charming; the villa ideal; it stands on the edge of a high cliff leaning over the sea. The grounds, filled with flowers and fruit-trees, are seamed with quaintly paved walks. On the left of the house is a terrace, where they dine in summer. Here a flaming heart in gray and white paving-stones took my fancy. The house is large and luxurious; there are roses everywhere inside and out.

To-day is Palm Sunday. The chambermaid who brings my morning coffee brought me a bit of olive-branch, instead of palm, from early service. Later we went to high mass at the cathedral in Sorrento. The procession was headed by the bishop, his acolytes, and some smart young canons in rose-colored satin capes. After the mass the procession marched through the town, led by a group of bronzed fishermen and boys dressed in white robes, with bright blue _moiré_ capes, and loose oriental white hoods over their heads. They all carried yellow palm branches in their hands. It was the most perfect contrast of color imaginable.

Yesterday I saw the nets hauled in. The men and women, old and young, form a line upon the beach, take hold upon the rope, and with a graceful, swinging motion pull in the seine inch by inch, as they did in the days of St. Peter. The Sorrentines are a handsome and seem a kindly people; there are comparatively few beggars here.

Throughout the _Piano di Sorrento_ thousands of men and women are employed in the manufacture of silk stockings, scarfs, carved and inlaid wood, coral ornaments, tortoise-shell combs, and jewelry. I dare not enter a shop for fear of temptation. The Italian spoken is far pleasanter than the nasal Neapolitan; the chief peculiarity is the dropping of the final vowel. Maria, the dark-eyed chambermaid, asks if she shall make the _lett_, for _letto_ (bed), and speaks of Sorrent, _doman_, and _Sabad_, meaning Sorrento, _domani_ (to-morrow), and _Sabato_ (Saturday).

The trees in the garden are laden with oranges and lemons, the feast of the roses is beginning, the birds are singing. The service of the hotel is excellent, the table quite good enough, our room has a fireplace and afternoon sun; for all this, food and wine included, we pay six francs--one dollar and twenty cents--a day, with permission to roam in the garden and pick as many oranges and roses as we like. I am reminded of Hugh Norman’s saying, “When I have only a dollar and a half a day left to live on, I shall retire to the Cocumella and pass the rest of my life there.” We have _uva secca_ for luncheon, grapes dipped in wine and spices, rolled up with bits of citron in grape-leaves, tied in little bundles, and roasted. They may be kept half the year, and are among the dainties of the world. The miniature Italian count who married Mrs. Tom Thumb, _veuve_, said when he came to take tea at our house, “_In Italia si mangia bene_ (In Italy one eats well).” He was right; we hear less about Italian than about French cookery, but it is quite as good--the range of dishes is wider and shows more imagination. There is a great deal about cooking in my letters; so there is in life. Fire, cookery, and civilization seem to be inseparable. Speaking of fire, the women about here say that Vesuvius, across the bay there, sets a bad example smoking his eternal pipe. The men sit watching him, presently they imitate him, and try and see how big a cloud of smoke they can make.