Part 10
Romans make jokes about their miraculous images, laugh at miracles, relate indecent stories about cardinals, priests, and monks, and present caricatures of them on the stage. No wonder, indeed, that many pious pilgrims have lost their faith in Rome.
Among the many completely pagan superstitions that are still extant in Roman society, the most notoriously absurd is that in connection with so-called _Jetatori_. Irene had heard of this superstition while yet in Russia, but had thought that it was in vogue solely among the ignorant lower classes of Naples. What then was her astonishment on coming across it in the most enlightened circles of Roman society! If a Roman passes an acquaintance in the street without noticing him and bowing, or if he fails to invite him to one of his parties, the offended one revenges himself by announcing the other to be a _Jetator_. Thereupon, society, immediately, as one man, turns its back on the latter! If by some chance, and in the face of public opinion, some specially fearless soul invites a _Jetator_ to a reception, no one dreams of speaking to him, it is considered dangerous even to look at him, and heaven forbid, indeed, that one should be obliged to sit next to him! No one even mentions him, as the very sound of his name is supposed to bring misfortune. Only great wealth and high rank can save any Roman from falling under this ban. Saddest of all, however, is the fact that the wife and children and all the relations of the _Jetator_ share his evil influence, and, therefore, his hard fate. Irene once happened to meet, at a luncheon party, the accidentally invited wife of a _Jetator_. Two ladies, who had been obliged to sit next to the evil one, were taken seriously ill on the same day, one with her customary liver complaint, and the other with a severe cold, having gone out too soon after an attack of influenza! Both cases were, of course, attributed to the unfortunate woman, to whom, after this occurrence, every door in Rome was closed with redoubled vigilance.
Irene was astonished to find that this superstition was shared also by the majority of the foreigners in Rome, who seemed to become infected by it on their arrival, and were cured only on their departure from the Eternal City. Such a peculiarity can only be explained by the almost unbearable force of the impression that Rome makes on most strangers. In all the rest of our contemporary great cities, we live in the twentieth century. On arriving in Rome, we are suddenly plunged into the very heart of antiquity, then rushed, without a moment’s warning, into the Middle Ages, with their Vatican, their churches, their convents, and their palaces, or flung into the whirlpool of the most brilliant and fashionable modernity. All these elements are bound up together, and one passes from one to the other in a day. The human mind is incapable of such an immense effort, becomes unbalanced, and is ready to accept and believe the wildest nonsense.
Another pagan feature in the Roman character is the extraordinary attachment of all Romans to their native city. The first question that is put to every stranger on his arrival is: “Do you like Rome?” and woe to the simple-minded foreigner who answers in the negative! The dark eyes of the incredulous Roman sparkle with indignation and astonishment, which gradually give place to a pitying contempt for the ignorant simpleton! In vain the latter tries to atone for his mistake by remarking that he does not dislike Venice or Florence. This does not touch or interest the Romans at all. In spite of a superficial union, Italy consists, as much as ever, of a number of separate states. Admiration of Venice or Naples can only offend a Roman. The stranger tries hard to explain that it is impossible to admire a town that is entirely lacking in harmony, and in which the modern buildings erected by the government nearly give one convulsions, such an eyesore is their dazzling whiteness on the background of the yellow, ancient city. He repeats in vain that being accustomed, at home, to broad, well-lighted avenues, he cannot but regard with disgust the narrow, dark alleys of the ancient quarters of Rome, while, being used to clear air and constantly watered streets, he is still more profoundly disgusted at the clouds of that particularly objectionable yellow dust that rise with every gust of wind blowing over Rome.
The Roman listens gloomily to the stranger, but is not convinced. He is not consoled by the admission that his city is very original, and that every educated man ought to see it. He requires and expects love and admiration for his “Cara Roma,” the adored fair one, for whom he would willingly die. Irene envied the Romans this fervour and the love of home which forced all inhabitants, before temporarily leaving the city, to drink of the water of the famous Fontana Trevi, and throw a coin into the fountain—superstitiously assuring themselves by this means that they would safely return. No other nation in the world has invented such a poetic superstition as this.
Being a pagan, it follows that the Roman is the most loving of fathers and the most dutiful of sons. As he knows nothing about Christianity or love and charity towards his neighbour in the broad sense, he laughs at such ideas as absurdities, and gives all the love of his heart to his own family. On public holidays, fathers are everywhere to be seen leading by the hand tiny children in their Sunday frocks, treating them to chocolate and cakes at the fashionable confectioners, and talking caressingly with them. Or else one meets young married couples, accompanied by nurses who, with airs of vast importance, carry on cushions three-weeks-old infants, concealed under clouds of lace. Babies are not hidden away in back rooms, as in other countries. From the moment of their birth, children have their rights and privileges, and, in the arms of their nurses, receive visitors!
But although Romans love and respect their little ones, they never become the slaves of the children. On the contrary, it is the parents who are adored and deeply respected, the children seeing in them the principal representatives of their race. There are in Rome countless aged fathers and mothers who live in palaces and drive about in magnificent motor-cars, while their children struggle to make both ends meet, going about on foot and living in small flats. No one would ever dream of depriving his parents of anything for his own benefit, or for the sake of his children, as, alas! so often happens in Russia. This love of one’s race and one’s family is the foundation stone of Latin civilization. In the northern countries that have received their civilization through Christianity this love is not nearly so pronounced. Christianity does not encourage family interests, but, on the contrary, demands that all men should be brothers. Romans have succeeded in remaining deaf to these demands, and have kept their ancient Latin character. This is most noticeable in the Roman museums, where the types represented by the antique statues bear the most striking resemblance to modern Romans.
The Roman has remained true to the pagan passion for luxury and magnificence. Nowhere in the world can one see so many private carriages as in Rome. No self-respecting Roman goes about on foot. He must have a carriage to drive through the Corso, and, at the fashionable hour, on the Pincio. He does not care about the elegance of his horses or their harness, but his carriage must have red and yellow wheels, and his grooms must have smart liveries. In their deep-seated victorias fashionable Roman beauties lean back lazily under their enormous ostrich-plumed hats, their knees covered, not, as elsewhere, by a common traditional plaid travelling rug, but by a magnificent bear-skin or tiger-skin, the paws hanging down over the wheels.
The prices at the Costanzi Theatre are colossal. A box costs as much as £6; yet the opera is always crowded, and not only this, but the men appear in evening dress, and the ladies in low neck and diamonds! This southern cult of elegance and luxury, indeed, is in evidence everywhere. Roman women never wear everyday clothes. They always seem to be in fancy dress, appearing in fantastic bright scarlet, yellow, or green costumes, with golden caps and golden serpents. They all wear numerous necklaces, combs, buckles, brooches, mostly imitations of the antique, for which Roman jewellers are famous. This style of dress would be absurd in the North, but it suits the Roman beauties to perfection.
In spite of its paganism, however, Roman society nevertheless belongs to and is closely linked with the great family of social Europe from which Russia is hopelessly separated by centuries of culture. Irene was charmed to notice, for instance, how much universal sympathy and attention were lavished, in Roman social circles, on a foreign authoress, who was studying Roman life with a view to making it the subject of her next work. Everyone tried to help her; closed doors were opened for her, and meetings with interesting people were willingly arranged. Nobody troubled to find out whether she was talented or not, or whether her work would be translated into Italian. She had expressed a desire to work, and that was quite enough.
In the same way they helped an American, known in Europe as the Book King, to form his library. This American was a very representative example of a curious modern type produced, so far, only by the New World. Nobody knew where he had lived and what he had done in his youth. He had been born, so to say, at forty years of age, when, having made a fortune, he crossed the ocean, appeared in Paris, and announced his desire to form a library composed entirely of the works of contemporary writers, each volume to be autographed by the author, who must add a few words to explain what special idea he had intended to express in the work in question. The enterprising Yankee was profoundly ignorant, had never read anything at all, and had never heard of names known to all the world. Also he was as tactless as the majority of his compatriots; but, with true American insistence, he applied to everybody, pestered people pitilessly, and really ended by getting together a very interesting collection of books. It was his express desire that this collection should be sent to America, and should never again leave American soil; and yet, so great is Italian generosity, on the collector’s arrival in Rome everyone helped him by making out lists of Italian writers and by introducing him to literary people.
Involuntarily, while observing all these facts, Irene’s thoughts strayed back to her own country, where, alas! things were arranged very differently. With the exception of a very limited circle of people educated in the European fashion, all the rest of Russian society is nothing but a crowd of ignorant, lazy, uncivilized bears, who spend all their lives lying half-asleep in their dens, and sucking their paws. Woe, indeed, to him who may occasionally attempt to wish for something better than this beloved, national, loutish existence, or who may perhaps by chance not only have an idea, but also a vague desire to work at it! What a howl of displeasure and derision makes itself heard in all the dens! “What!” wail the bears, “renounce our idleness, and our laziness, and our true Russian eternal nagging and grumbling? How dares he! Murder! Treason! Cry him down! Kill him!”
All the rest of Europe has long been intelligent enough to understand that even the most microscopic effort, when added to other efforts, produces a total of labour that must be of use to all the world. Alas! It will be a very long time before the dull, stupid Russian bears are brought to understand even something so simple as this!
Irene was particularly attracted by Italian women. These charming creatures have neither nerves nor caprices. They are kind and amiable, they make friends easily, and they are ready to be of assistance to every foreigner they come across. Never once did Irene see, at Roman gatherings, anything resembling the anxious, world-worn expressions of the young girls who fill Petrograd drawing-rooms.
“Shall I ever meet my fate? Shall I have many children? Shall I be happy?” say their pale, sad, restless faces. Italian girls are bright and gay and happy. They delight in the sunshine, the flowers, and the springtime of their own lives. They have no need to fear the future, for they know that to Italian men love is as necessary as air. They will never, indeed, have to deal with miserable Petrograd worldlings, who may try as they will to squeeze a drop of tenderness out of their icy hearts, but will always die without having succeeded!
Irene was quite astonished at herself for finding Italian society so attractive. She, a stranger, speaking another language, holding another faith, felt quite at home in its circles. She looked back with a shudder at the old days in Petrograd, and at the bitter sense of resentment and irritation with which she had invariably returned home from all social gatherings. Here, Irene delighted in those exquisite sensual entertainments, with their music, their singing, their recitations. On leaving them, she loved to take deep breaths of the balmy night air, feeling that soft sense of luxury that a tired wanderer experiences on getting into a warm, fragrant bath. “How am I to explain all this?” wondered Irene.
Alas! Like most of us, Irene did not know herself. It never occurred to her that since her earliest childhood she had never been anything but a pagan. Whereas, however, Roman paganism was hereditary and the result of centuries of voluntary enslavement to antique culture and its ideals, Irene’s paganism was simply a morbid disease. Like sufferers from progressive paralysis, who gradually sink into a state of primitive bestiality, so a diseased soul not only cannot develop, but cannot even maintain itself on a level with its contemporaries, and invariably slips back to the ideals of a past civilization.
XIV
Of all the Roman houses in which Irene visited, she most liked that of Count Primoli, who, during the season, entertained the whole of cosmopolitan Rome in his luxurious villa. Count Primoli was only half an Italian. Through his mother, a Princess Bonaparte, he was French, of which fact he was very proud. He was a delightful mixture of French wit and Italian gaiety and hospitality. Absolutely everyone went to his Wednesdays and Saturdays! The diplomatic world, famous Italian writers, French painters and journalists, celebrated singers, Indian princes, American millionaires, Russians, Swedes, and Englishmen. Romans of the higher circles visited him with pleasure, even though they disapproved of his cosmopolitanism. Count Primoli was undismayed by this disapproval, for he well knew what a service he was rendering to society.
Gloomy dullards never see anything in receptions and other social gatherings but frivolous distractions, necessary, perhaps, to youth, but positively reprehensible when indulged in by older people. In truth, however, balls and parties of every description are indispensable to all human beings and to the maintenance of their moral and mental health. A man who leads a solitary confined existence loses his equilibrium. He ceases to see things in their just perspective, exaggerates and misunderstands everything, looks at life tragically, and makes mountains out of mole-hills.
As soon as he leaves off isolating himself, comes in contact with other people, exchanges ideas with them, laughs and talks a little, his mental balance is restored, and the mountains become mole-hills again. Also, the more various are the people he meets, the more his mind broadens and develops. People who exclusively frequent their own immediate circles, be they aristocratic or otherwise, invariably grow dull and stupid. That is why the hospitable host who receives very mixed gatherings renders a great service to society—though society itself is short-sighted enough not to recognize this service.
To receive on a large scale is not as easy as people think. It by no means suffices to be rich and to issue invitations broadcast. The principal thing is to know how to receive one’s guests, an accomplishment attainable only on the two following conditions: Aristocratic extraction and love of humanity. At least three or four generations of well-born and wealthy people accustomed to social surroundings are needed for the production of a good host. Everyone who has been in the house of a _nouveau riche_ knows that he felt, on that occasion, as though he were in a restaurant. The hosts did not know how to greet their visitors, nor how to introduce or unite them, so the latter ate and drank, and having witnessed what entertainment was provided for them, left, sometimes even forgetting to say good-bye to the hosts. A love of humanity is as indispensable to a good host as blue blood, and Count Primoli may be said to have been richly endowed with both these qualifications. He was a true “Grand Seigneur,” and knew how to make his guests feel at home. He sincerely loved them all, and wished to give them pleasure. There were some vulgar people who made fun of his charming cordiality. Had he forgotten to invite them, or had he treated them with lofty disdain, they would immediately have begun to respect him. Nice people, however, valued his kind heart, and took no notice of the silly anecdotes that rumour spread about him.
Like all ideal hosts, Count Primoli loved his beautiful villa, and never tired of improving it.
“Je veux que ma maison ne ressemble à nulle autre,” he said to his friends.
This was not easy to attain, since, in our day, it is hardly possible to invent anything really new or original. Thanks to railways, steamships, newspapers, and journals, life grows every day more level and commonplace. Almost all the world lives, eats, and dresses alike. The women of Greenland know the latest fashions as well as their Parisian sisters. The cannibals of Central Asia, imitating English lords, put on smoking-suits when they sit down to eat their roasted neighbours. The aristocratic drawing-rooms of Pekin are furnished like those of Madrid. Dinners, balls, receptions, are alike everywhere, and people travel from one end of the earth to the other noticing hardly any difference.
Count Primoli, however, managed to attain his object, and his receptions, once witnessed, were not easily forgotten.
Already, on driving up to the entrance of his villa, one felt a sense of gaiety and pleasure. The small covered courtyard was carpeted for the occasion and was decorated with flowers and the Bonaparte arms. A majestic outdoor servant, theatrically attired, received the carriages as they drove up. In the square hall, on each side of the door, stood rows of footmen, in long gold-embroidered satin tail-coats, knee breeches, white silk stockings, and buckled shoes, an original, old, and now extinct French fashion of dressing house-servants.
The costumes of these footmen, indeed, were so splendid, that many people were sure they must be original ancient liveries of the Bonaparte family, and ought to be in glass cases in a museum. Perhaps this was true; but it is nevertheless a fact that the liveries were much more effective and much more clearly remembered on the shoulders of footmen than they would have been had they been hidden in a museum. The guests, on arrival, felt that they had left their humdrum daily existence outside the door, and that they had entered the enchanted realms of fairyland. Like children who expect a Christmas-tree and surprises, they crossed the hall, with its wonderful arm-chairs of velvet and cloth of gold, and its enormous sofa, covered with fur rugs and decorated with masks from Greek tragedy. Then up the staircase, over the balustrade of which were thrown priceless brocades of all shades and colours, the walls being hung with Chinese embroideries and fans of peacock-feathers.
Upstairs, the elegant drawing-rooms, with their pink curtains and gilt furniture, were wonderful and interesting museums of Napoleonic souvenirs. Count Primoli honoured the memory of his famous great-uncle, Napoleon I., and carefully preserved all Napoleonic relics. There were masks and miniatures of the great Emperor, and other ancient family treasures, jewelled combs, fans, lace, snuff-boxes, letters, seals, and silhouettes. In a prominent place stood a large glass case, brilliantly illuminated, containing two dresses: one of green velvet, embroidered with gold, from the wardrobe of the Empress Josephine, and the other of lace over a pink foundation, the priceless robe of Marie Louise. At the side lay fans and satin slippers, to match the dresses. On the walls of the room were shelves, and on them signed photographs of the present-day members of the Bonaparte family.
Another remarkable and charming peculiarity of the villa was the wealth of flowers with which it was always decorated. Magnificent azaleas of all shades stood about everywhere, garlands of lilac were suspended from one chandelier to the other, and other garlands of hyacinths, roses, and violets, surrounded the glass cases, wound themselves round the shelves, and framed the looking-glasses.
“Quella fantasmorgia dei fiore!” laughed Roman Princesses and Countesses, as they entered. It is strange that Roman women, who are surrounded by flowers that grow in the open air all the year round, do not really care for them, and only decorate their rooms with them because it is the fashion, and because it pleases foreigners. Count Primoli, however, was a great lover of flowers, and so completely filled his villa with them that one grew faint with the sweetness of their overpowering fragrance. The air, indeed, was full of something romantic and reminiscent—one thought of old Italy and the Renaissance.
“Quand je vais chez le Comte Primoli,” said a foreign lady once, “j’ai toujours envie de parler en vers, et de demander un sorbet aux domestiques”—and there were many who shared this impression.
The crowd at these receptions was always composed of the most varied cosmopolitan elements. There was the Chinese Ambassador, who, having but yesterday cut off his “pigtail,” had thrown off his flowered robe, and wore European dress clothes with the ease and _chic_ of a London clubman. There was the American Ambassador, whose quiet dignity stood out in relief against the noisy vulgarity of his numerous compatriots. There were members of all the Embassies with their wives, the latter attired, according to the custom of luxurious Rome, in beautiful Paris dresses, low-necked, and even in some cases set off by wonderful diamond ornaments or tiaras. All Western women consider themselves queens, and by no means object to sometimes wearing crowns, as a sign of their high rank.
Loveliest of all, however, was the Russian singer L⸺, recently arrived in Rome to fulfil an engagement at the Costanzi theatre. Perfectly dressed, and wearing wonderful pearls, she was modest, dignified, and charming. The arrival of the famous French painter, Carolus Duran, was greeted by exclamations from all sides: “Comment allez-vous, cher maître? Quel bonheur de vous voir!” But, as was to be expected from a painter, the great Frenchman was immediately attracted by the beautiful singer; and the latter, having previously announced that she never sang in private houses, offered, on learning that the charming and universally beloved old man had never heard her, to make an exception for his benefit. The painter was so sympathetic and irresistible, that no one was surprised at her wish to sing to him. He was, indeed, the personification of all that is best in France: industrious democracy, firm principles, and profound belief in God and in the triumph of right and justice.