Chapter VI: Part 6

I was so vexed with you for two whole days that I wrote you not one line from Siena or Pisa. Now your indiscretion is partially atoned for by a letter which has just reached me here, and I am trying to forgive you and "be friends again," as we used to say when we were children. But the charms of Siena are already so eclipsed by those of Florence that it is quite impossible for me to give you an atmospheric description of its streets and churches, above all of the shining cathedral, rich from dome to pavement with colored marbles, frescoes, and mosaics. This may be no loss to you, who are doubtless well tired of my Italian rhapsodies; but your respite is only temporary, as I quite missed writing you that letter. I wanted to tell you that the campanile at Pisa leans quite as much as the little Parian model on your desk, and about the famous Campo Santo with its interesting paintings, and many other things. The habit of relieving my mind of the burden of surplus impressions, or of what I might call my "oversoul," has become second nature. Do you remember, Allan, the man in Frank Stockton's story who, on his return from abroad, found his friends and acquaintances so much interested in their own affairs that he engaged a young man at twenty-five cents an hour to listen to his traveller's tales? You seem to be all unwittingly playing the rôle of that youth, less the twenty-five cents, and I, alas! shall never know whether you prove yourself more worthy than that faithless one, who fell asleep in the midst of the most thrilling adventures.

I must explain to you for your benefit, when you travel this way, that we did what is discouraged by Baedeker and most of the guide-books; we changed cars at Empoli and took a train to Pisa, where we spent a night and day. The usual plan is to go directly from Siena to Florence, and make a separate day-trip to the city of the Leaning Tower. One of Zelphine's pet economies is to save the retracing of steps or railway journeys by doing all that we can _en route_. In this case I think her plan was a good one, as we shall never be willing to spend one whole beautiful day in any other city, no matter how long we may tarry in Florence. I overheard Zelphine, this morning, telling Katharine Clarke that she intended to stay here indefinitely and stifle the promptings of conscience with regard to Venice and all the rest of Italy, adding, in her earnest way, "After all, Katharine, the true pleasure of travelling is to settle down in one place and let its charms sink into your mind."

Katharine was so much amused at Zelphine's novel definition of the joys of travel that she repeated it to an English acquaintance, who exclaimed, "Really!" with a delicious rising inflection, "would not that be rather unpractical?" Refreshingly English, was it not? The truth is, we are all well tired of short journeys, and look forward with pleasure to a whole month of Zelphine's kind of travelling, living in Florence and making half-day trips to Fiesole, La Certosa, and some of the lovely villas on the hillsides near by.

We reached Florence last night so late that the long twilight had quite faded, and darkness veiled the charms of this most beautiful city. As we drove along the Lung' Arno, its lights revealed glimpses here and there of the shining river and picturesque bridges, with a line of dark mountains rising beyond and above them. There is something fascinating and stimulating to the imagination in such a first view of a strange city, especially when, as in this instance, she discovers fresh beauties when she lifts her veil to the morning light.

We were not able to get into the delightful pension that Katharine Clarke told us of. Madame had not received my note from Assisi advising her that we would be two days later than our appointment, and had promptly rented our rooms, believing, like all Italian landladies, in the proverbial "bird in the hand." "Never mind," said Zelphine, as we turned sadly away, "what is any pension, even the Pension Riccoli, whose feasts are said to rival those of Lucullus, compared with that incomparable last day in Assisi with St. Francis or that other red-letter day in the cathedral at Siena?"

"And then," said Angela, "the Pension Riccoli is a paradise reached by many purgatorial stairs."

Being both tired and hungry by this time, we consulted our note-books, and directed our _vetturino_ to the nearest pension. An indifferent hostel it proved to be, with the one charm of being directly on the Arno. Our windows opened on the river, and we were lulled to sleep by the music of its rushing waters. These rivers, fed by springs from neighboring hills, are widely different from the sluggish streams of the plain; the spirits of Undine and her kind seem to inhabit them and sing their lullabies in storm and calm. Zelphine evidently had the same thought, as she told me that she had been dreaming all night of Undine and Sir Huldebrand, and that it would not have surprised her to have the lovely sprite appear at her window and dash water in her face. Instead she awoke to find Angela standing by our window, in the freshest of pink and white morning-gowns, the warm sun lighting up every thread of her blonde hair to pure gold. She begged us to come to the window and look out. The Florence of the left side of the Arno, the Florence of "Romola" and Mrs. Browning, lay before us, with its churches and palaces, connected with the Lung' Arno delle Grazie by the oldest bridge in the city, the Ponte alle Grazie. Off to the south are the heights of San Miniato, and still further the commanding Fortezza di Belvedere, and beyond, hill upon hill of blue velvet spanned to-day by a sapphire sky. Behind us are the Duomo, Santa Croce, San Marco, and a whole world of architectural wonder and entrancing interest, the old streets through which Dante, Michael Angelo, and Raphael walked and the churches that resounded to the voice of Savonarola.

PENSION C., VIA SOLFERINO,
Saturday Evening.

Among surroundings of so much interest it seemed almost a desecration to devote an hour to a search for a pension, and yet even this practical business was illuminated by glimpses of beauty by the way. We passed through the Loggia dei Lanzi, with its many statues, where Cosimo's German lancers were once quartered, across the Piazza della Signoria and by the Strozzi Palace. This middle-age castle, with its rough-hewn stone walls unbroken by windows except on the upper floors, must have proved an impregnable fortress in days when war was the chief occupation of the Florentines and a man's house was primarily and emphatically his stronghold. Although the Palazzo Strozzi was built by a merchant, its exterior is decorated by the handsome iron _fanali_ which were used only by the most distinguished citizens, and here are the rings to which the party standards were once attached. We passed the Palazzo Strozzi on our wandering way to Thomas Cook's office, which is on the same street, the Via Tornabuoni, with its alluring cafés, confectioners', modistes', and bric-à-brac shops. The massive walls and huge bulk of the old palace form a picturesque background for the bright, varied modern life and tourists' life of the Florence of to-day.

Katharine told us of an excellent pension on the Via Solferino near the Cascine, which she feared would be full, like every other place that we had looked at, as all America seems to have come up here from the Eastertide in Rome to spend May in Florence. We meet more acquaintances on the Via Tornabuoni and under the arcades of the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele than on Fifth Avenue, and almost as many as on Rittenhouse Square. Zelphine says that it would be pleasant to meet some Florentines once in a while, "or even some Romans," suggested Angela.

"Romans never travel," replied Zelphine, in her most encyclopædic tone; "like Parisians, their own surroundings satisfy them entirely."

"Never travel! How strange, how dull!" exclaimed Angela, shaking her head, incredulously. Was she thinking of Ludovico or of the Marquis de B., I wondered, this apparently frank but absolutely inscrutable Angela? She had a letter handed her at Cook's office this morning, with a Roman postmark, which she put in her pocket without a word or a sign of interest. It was not in Ludovico's handwriting, I know; whose then? Do I seem to be watching straws to find out which way the wind blows? You must remember, Allan, that I am the appointed chaperon of this party, and that Angela's father, like the "Father of his Country," has a great objection to entangling foreign alliances. Indeed, my task is no light one, as there are times when Zelphine needs a chaperon quite as much as Angela; her _beaux yeux_ draw many admiring glances in our direction. But pray do not whisper this above your breath, as Zelphine is absolutely unconscious of the admiration that she excites, and would accuse me of gross exaggeration, and then a certain widower of our acquaintance might become alarmed and feel it his duty to join us "as a protector," which would certainly interfere with Angela's pleasure and mine, however it might affect Zelphine's happiness.

To return to our quest, we found the Pension C. crowded, as Katharine had feared, but Madame assured us that she would have rooms for us in a few days, if we would only be content with lodgings in the dépendance for the present. The rooms shown us were altogether captivating, with their long windows and balconies overlooking a garden full of roses. When Zelphine learned that in addition to their other attractions these rooms were presided over by a maid named Assunta, wild horses, buffaloes, or even the more probable menace of mice would not have drawn her from the Pension C. "Think of it, Margaret!" she exclaimed, "to sit on a balcony overhanging a rose-garden, and have our coffee and rolls brought to us by Assunta! And then," added Zelphine, in her most persuasive tone, "she seems to understand my French, although she speaks nothing but Italian!" Although Katharine laughed heartily at Zelphine's argument, and said that it reminded her of a sign in one of the shops on the Via Tornabuoni, "French spoken and English understood," I felt this to be an important consideration and one that would affect our comfort even more materially than the balcony, the rose-garden, or the pleasing name of our _femme de chambre_, and after some conversation with Madame we concluded to await her pleasure. We are now lodged in the dépendance, a dismal apartment-house on the Via Montebello, connected with the pension by a tunnel-like gallery. Here we and our belongings hang between heaven and earth until our promised rooms in the main house are vacant--to-morrow, or the next day, or the next; nothing is quite certain here, and dates do not seem to be reckoned with or upon.

After our first dinner at the Pension C. Angela showed her satisfaction with her new surroundings by exclaiming, "I am glad that you two romantic creatures have decided upon a place where the food is so good, as we cannot be expected to live on antiquities for many days." Angela is quite right: we are fed upon strawberries, sugar, and cream, while succulent asparagus, and peas as sweet as those from your garden at Woodford, have replaced the artichokes and fennel, of which we had grown a bit tired. I saw Angela tremble this evening when the dish of green peas was offered to her right-hand neighbor first, according to the undeviating blindfold justice of table d'hôte rules; for although Madame provides most liberally for her guests, this woman would create famine in a land of plenty. Our youngest made a grimace over the small portion left for her on the platter, and then with resolute cheerfulness essayed to open a conversation with her neighbor, remarking that we had spent a delightful morning at the Annunziata, to which the lady, whose thoughts evidently never rise above her plate, asked, naïvely, "Why, what's going on there?"

In view of all that has "gone on" at the Annunziata, especially in art, the masterpieces of Andrea del Sarto and Ghirlandajo and the lovely Della Robbias, we were all reduced to silence.

Although there are some charming people at the pension, we are not particularly well placed at the table d'hôte. Zelphine is not more fortunate in conversation than Angela, as her neighbor is an Italian gentleman who, although charmingly polite, is deaf and dumb in every language save his own. Angela and I have concluded that this Signor A. is preternaturally dull, as Zelphine can say enough with her eyes to make most men understand; beside which her adroitly pronounced and cleverly emphasized French usually appeals to the intelligent Italian imagination. Occasionally she touches the roses on the table, and says "Bella," when there follows a rapid flow of conversation on the part of Signor A., through which Zelphine smiles sweetly. She scored quite a point this evening when Madame made her appearance, after an indisposition of a couple of days, and Zelphine bowed in recognition of the return of our presiding genius, and, turning to her neighbor, said "Benia." "Benia" may not be the very best Italian equivalent for "better," but it evidently conveyed Zelphine's idea to Signor A., who nodded his head in approval and beamed upon her like a sunburst. He has been her devoted slave ever since, passing everything at his end of the table to her, evidently quite incapable of helping himself first, and urging wine upon her until I tremble for her sobriety. Zelphine is of a yielding nature up to a certain point, of course, beyond which she is a rock of steadfastness, as Angela and I have learned in the course of our travels together. We trust that she may discover the rocky side of her character if Signor A. fills up her glass too often, or makes her an offer of his heart, his hand, and his fortune. This latter we are disposed to think is inconsiderable, as one of his chief sources of revenue is, as we have incidentally gathered, the keeping of Madame's books.

Angela looks discontentedly at her own insatiable neighbor and then at Zelphine, so tenderly cared for by hers, and remarks in the crude slang of the day that "Zelphine has a soft thing of it, all right!"

A blooming widow opposite, with a daughter of twelve at her side, wastes the sweetness of her smiles upon the unrequiting feminine company of the pension. The only available man, available, I mean, for excursions and strolls in the Cascine, left this morning for Venice, wearing a bright red necktie which the lady has been knitting for days while he sat by her side in the rose-garden. Angela thought it very unbecoming, because it did not match his hair exactly, scarlet not being the color one would choose for a red-haired man, but then our youngest is overcritical in the matter of color.

Further down the table d'hôte are several widows with daughters, one, two, or three. Zelphine and I have been wondering when the great mortality among American men occurred, as most of the women whom we meet are too young to be relicts of the Civil War. The widow _en voyage_ with grown daughters is the rule. Some few wives are here who have husbands at home; the exception is when paterfamilias accompanies the party, and when he does, I must frankly admit that he looks excessively bored, especially in picture-galleries.

Sunday, May 9th.

Katharine came in this morning, bright and early, with her hands full of roses and her head full of plans. She had been modelling steadily for ten days, and, having reached a convenient stopping-place, announced her intention of taking a vacation of three days, which she would be glad to devote to us and our sight-seeing. Would it please us to go to Fiesole for the day or to Vallombrosa? Zelphine says that we must see Vallombrosa if we would know something of the beauties of Paradise in advance. Milton is said to have drawn his description of the Garden of Eden from the lovely slopes of the Pratomagno. You, ardent lover of the English classics, may recall a passage in the first book of "Paradise Lost," in which Milton speaks of Fiesole and Valdarno, and of

"Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High overarch'd embower."

As Katharine is a delightful cicerone, intelligent and appreciative, her enthusiasm well balanced by common sense, we were charmed by the prospect of three days in her good company, and when she asked us what we would do to-day, I was about to say, properly and politely, that we would go wherever it would please her to take us; but Zelphine interposed, and solemnly protested that it would be quite impossible for her to spend another day in Florence without visiting the grave of Mrs. Browning. Being of a cheerful temper and not given to haunting graveyards, Katharine seemed to have a rather vague idea of the location of the Protestant Cemetery, but she readily consented to Zelphine's request, and by dint of considerable questioning we found it. Not an ideal Campo Santo is this, like that at Rome, where tall cypresses shut it in from the outside world, and where the vast pyramidal Tomb of Caius Cestius overshadows it grandly. Just outside the Porta Pinti is this Protestant burial-ground of Florence. The old walls that once framed it in have been removed, and it now stands in the midst of dusty highways where noisy trams pass to and fro with their freight of eager-eyed tourists. Once inside the enclosure, we found trees and shrubbery, and roses blooming everywhere. Katharine and Angela stood under a tree to rest beneath its grateful shade, while Zelphine walked on and on as if drawn by a magnet, I following her, until we stood before a square marble sarcophagus, simple and dignified, with the initials E. B. B. on one side and the date June 29, 1861. A cedar-tree stands guard by the poet's grave, one branch leaning over it protectingly, roses climb all about it, and as we stood there, silent and reverent, a bird sang from one of the branches overhead, and, like Browning's "wise thrush," he sang his song

"twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!"

Standing by the grave of the English poetess in the beauty of a May day, with the blue sky above it, the air filled with the fragrance of flowers and the songs of birds, it seemed to us that they were wise who decided that Elizabeth Browning's tomb should be here, in this Italy that she loved, and among the Florentines who adored her, rather than in the vast gloom of the abbey where her husband lies and where she is by right entitled to rest among the great of England.

Two other English poets sleep in this cemetery, Arthur Hugh Clough and Walter Savage Landor. Landor died in Florence in a house on the Via Nunziatina, in 1864. As we stood by his grave, Zelphine softly murmured Swinburne's lovely lines to his brother poet:

"So shall thy lovers, come from far,
Mix with thy name,
As morning-star with evening-star,
His faultless fame."

This afternoon, returning from Katharine's studio, which is beyond the Porta Romana, as we passed the vast monotonous façade of Palazzo Pitti and entered the Via Maggio, we were attracted by a tall gray house with a white tablet above its first-floor windows. "The Casa Guidi!" exclaimed Zelphine, reading the words in which the Florentines recorded their love and gratitude to the woman poet who had by her golden ring of verse linked Italy to England. The well-known lines by the poet Tommaseo are inscribed in letters of gold upon the marble tablet, in Italian of course, but I am quite sure that Zelphine could read an inscription to the Brownings in Hindustani. After lingering long before the windows of the _primo piano_, which will always be associated with the Brownings, we walked around the corner to the Piazza Santa Felicità and looked up at the terrace where Mrs. Browning spent so many days, and up and down which she described her husband as walking with the third Browning in his arms.

I must frankly confess that we were disappointed in the terrace, as we had expected to see one of the charming garden terraces, adorned with blooming plants and even trees, in which the Italians delight to find rest and seclusion above the noise and dirt of the street; instead we saw only a balcony overhanging the piazza, with a few straggling plants in pots. So small is this balcony that Mr. Browning's goodly proportions must have filled all the available space, even if it was quite large enough for the fairy-like lady who sat there through long summer days. Do you remember that she wrote to Miss Mitford that she was so happy despite the intense heat that she could quite comprehend the possibility of St. Lawrence's ecstasies on a gridiron? In another letter Mrs. Browning wrote, "Here we can step out of the window on a sort of balcony terrace which is quite private, and swims over with moonlight in the evenings, and as we live upon watermelons, iced water, and figs, and all manner of fruit, we bear the heat with angelic patience and felicity which are really edifying."

It is not strange that, with new happiness and renewed health, everything in Florence was glorified to Mrs. Browning, and that the Casa Guidi apartment, with its windows looking out upon the Pitti Palace on one side and on the other "toward the gray wall of a church, called San Felice, for good omen," seemed a bit of Paradise.

Near the Casa Guidi are several classic spots. On the right of the Via Maggio at the corner of the Via Marsili is the house where Bernardo Buontalenti lived when the great Tasso came from Ferrara to embrace him and thank him for the beautiful scenery painted by him which had contributed so much to the success of his "Aminta." The story runs, as told by Baldinucci, that after thanking Buontalenti and kissing him on the neck and forehead Tasso mounted his horse and rode away, leaving the painter as amazed as if he had beheld a vision from the world of spirits.

A little way beyond on the same street is the house of Bianca Capello, from whose windows her delicate, fascinating face looked forth for men's undoing. Whether or not Bianca looked out from these windows "to see the Duke go by," as Mrs. Browning says, it was from her balcony here that she attracted the admiration of her first husband, Pietro Bonaventuri, with whom she eloped, and near this house he was murdered to give place to a princely suitor. The story of Bianca's marriage with the Grand Duke Francesco, of which we found accounts in several books at the all-embracing Vieusseux's, reads like a chapter of the "Arabian Nights." Never, surely, were wrong-doing and shame so gilded and glorified!--gilded literally, as the bodies of men and women were painted with gold that they might represent the deities of Olympus in the nuptial procession of Bianca, whose own car was drawn by real lions, while to other chariots were harnessed horses and buffaloes dressed in the skins of wild animals to represent griffins, unicorns, and elephants.

At the corner of the Via Toscanella an old wall marks the site of "the darksome, sad, and silent house" where Boccaccio lived and wrote.

As we regained the Piazza Pitti and turned for one more look at the Casa Guidi windows, Angela was indiscreet enough to say what I had been thinking all the time: "After all, it does not look much like a palace, although Mrs. Browning dated some of her letters from the Palazzo Guidi. It's just like an ordinary apartment-house." Zelphine vouchsafed no word in reply to this irreverent criticism, but with a withering glance at Angela strode before us along the Via Guicciardini and across the Ponte Vecchio, her head in the air and her thoughts doubtless "commencing with the skies," which were of Italy's bluest this evening. The emotions of the day had evidently been quite too much for Zelphine. She left us abruptly after dinner, and shut herself up in her own room, "to think great thoughts," Angela said, while we more practical travellers turned to our Hare and our Baedeker to plan out a campaign for to-morrow.

I forgot to tell you that we went across the river this afternoon to the little American Church on the Piazza del Carmine, where there was a short service, after which we had quite enough daylight to study Masaccio's interesting frescoes in the Cappella Brancacci of the Church of the Carmine near by. There is something intensely realistic and hopelessly sad in Masaccio's Expulsion from Paradise. Here despair and anguish are portrayed in every feature and line; our first parents really suffer, as Masaccio represents them being driven by an avenging angel from the Paradise in which, according to Filippino Lippi's panel near by, they seem to have lived in a placid and rather dull content before the Fall.

Angela reminds me of the lateness of the hour and of our early start for Vallombrosa to-morrow, whither we have elected to spend two of Katharine's holidays, thus breaking through our resolve at the very start, you see, and leaving Florence for two whole days; but as you are already familiar with my sentiments on the subject of changes of plans, I offer no apology, especially as Katharine says that one really cannot do justice to Vallombrosa in a hurried day's journey.

XV

AN EARTHLY PARADISE

HOTEL CROCE DI SAVOIA,
VALLOMBROSA, May 10th.

The day has been spent in driving, walking, and climbing hills, yet we seem to feel no fatigue, so invigorating is this air, "mountain air, sheathed in Italian sunshine," as Mrs. Browning aptly described it. Vallombrosa is three thousand feet above Florence--small wonder that we have been ascending skyward since we drove away from Pelago this morning!

Zelphine's pet project was to stop over night at the hermitage of Il Paradisino, which is on a rock more than two hundred feet above the old monastery of Vallombrosa; but here again Katharine's common sense stood us in good stead. The inn at Il Paradisino is, she says, wretchedly kept, so we have adopted her plan and are spending the night here in comfort. We climbed up to the hermitage and chapel this evening for the sunset view of the valley of the Arno, in which Florence lies. In the far distance we could see the strangely indented line of the mountains of Carrara, with Mount Cimone, and other remote peaks of the Apennines.

Zelphine found a copy of Mrs. Browning's letters _chez_ Vieusseux, that good friend of all English-speaking travellers. We have brought the first volume with us, and are thus enjoying, in Mrs. Browning's good company, the charms of this region which she described so vividly.

Although we did not set out from Pelago at four in the morning, nor journey in a sledge drawn by white oxen, but in a carriage, even in this less picturesque conveyance we felt that we were ascending the heights of Paradise, and were awed into silence by the rugged grandeur of the scenery, the hills with their heads among the clouds, the dense pine forests and the beech and chestnut woods hanging from the mountain sides. We were at times reminded of Switzerland, although some of our fellow-travellers found a stronger likeness to Norway in the black ravines, gurgling waters, and mountain torrents; but alas and alas! as we drew near the summit, instead of Milton's

"Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view,"

we found that most of the fine trees which once adorned the ascent had been ruthlessly destroyed. They tell us that a public-spirited and beauty-loving Englishman offered to pay a fair price for some of the goodliest trees if they might only be left standing in their places; but the offer was refused, and the vandalism continues. How you will mourn these noble trees when you come here!--feeling, as you do, that the wanton destruction of trees is a crime near to that of homicide in the category of sins. Yet, in the midst of this wholesale destruction, a school has been established for the training of foresters. It is to be hoped that this Foresteria, which occupies the old monastery buildings, may disseminate so much light that in the future trees may be preserved as well as planted. We were told that thousands of trees had been planted within a short time.

With the suppression of the monastery many of the characteristic features of Vallombrosa have disappeared, and so we may not see the place as the Brownings saw it when they came here in the summer of 1847. Do you remember how they were ingloriously expelled from the monastery at the end of five days, as Mrs. Browning says, "by a little holy abbot with a red face, who was given to sanctity and had set his face against women"? We could well understand what it would have been to those lovers of nature to spend two months, as they had planned, in the midst of the majestic beauty of this mountain paradise. We long inexpressibly to stay a week here and then take a couple of days for La Verna, where again one comes upon footprints of St. Francis and his brothers, but we all learned from our school copybooks that "time and tide wait for no man," and we have promised to be in Florence to-morrow night to meet Bertha and Mrs. Robins, who are to join us in a trip to the Certosa on the following day. Zelphine and I make solemn vows, as we have done in many other entrancing spots, that we will return to Vallombrosa some day and stay as long as we wish. These resolves comfort us, and yet--and yet--do we ever have "the time and the place and the loved one all together," especially the time? To-morrow we shall be up betimes to enjoy the early morning view from Il Paradisino, with the clouds rolling away beneath our feet to show us once again the dome of our beloved Santa Maria del Fiore above the shoulder of a hill, a sight which it is worth while climbing mountains to see, and if the day is fine, and here days usually are fine, we may even catch a glimpse of the glistening sea beyond Florence and its hills.

PENSION C., FLORENCE, May 12th.

We found Ludovico's cards on our return from Vallombrosa. He had come quite unexpectedly on military business, so he says, for of course he returned later in the evening and we had a long talk with him. He proposes to act as our guide here, as in the old Roman days, and is planning a number of delightful excursions for us. As the sun is very hot now we are glad to spend our mornings in the galleries and churches, which are delightfully cool.

This morning, to our surprise, and also, I think, to Ludovico's, the Marquis de B. appeared. He also has come upon military business, being in the army, like most young Italians of good family. Indeed, as Ludovico ingenuously remarked, the other day, "There is nothing else for us to do, unless we go into the Church or marry an American heiress; and neither of these," with perfect sang-froid and not a trace of embarrassment, "is to my taste."

Although there is nothing in the least alarming in the appearance of these sons of Mars, I must confess that their arrival has filled me with misgivings. Ludovico still bears himself with the air of frank camaraderie that charmed us when we first met him. The Marquis is formality itself, his manners simply perfection as such; what lies beyond and beneath an exterior so impressive I have never been clever enough to discover. Both of these young men address much of their conversation to Zelphine and me, after the polite Continental fashion, yet neither one misses a glance or a movement of Angela's, and they both furtively watch each other. It is interesting and exciting, and would be amusing were I not the chaperon and temporary guardian of this apparently unconscious charmer.

It is not easy for such good Americans as we are to adapt our tongues to foreign titles, and for some inexplicable reason "marquis" is much more difficult for us "to handle," as Angela says, than "count," and the Italian "marchese" is quite impossible. Ludovico has relieved our embarrassment by telling us that it is quite immaterial whether we call his friend "marquis" or "count," as they have both titles in his family, and several others beside.

This morning we spent in the Church of San Lorenzo, where the first Cosimo de' Medici is buried. In one of the chapels are some statuettes by Donatello and in the other the world-famous Medici tombs, the thoughtful Lorenzo, the most expressive of all marbles, and beneath him, the Dawn and Twilight, the former the finest of the four statues, the effort of waking from sleep being plainly revealed in every line. The narrow niches in which these masterpieces are placed are so out of all proportion to their size and grandeur that, as Ludovico pointed out to us, they seem to be slipping off the pitiable pedestals which support them. Do you remember what Ruskin said of these impressive figures? To him they spoke "not of morning nor evening, but of the departure and the resurrection, the twilight and the dawn of the souls of men." Zelphine and I think that those few lines give the _motif_ of the statues better than any of the elaborate descriptions that have been written about them.

May 13th.

Ludovico and Count B. accompanied us to-day on our morning stroll through the galleries. Ludovico has the excellent taste in art that seems born in these Latins, and draws our attention to the best pictures in each gallery without recourse to guide or catalogue. Count B. doubtless has good taste also, but it is not in the line of antiques at present, as he seldom withdraws his eyes from Angela's face, except when she expresses admiration or asks him some question, when he reveals his knowledge of Florentine history and tradition by long, erudite, and somewhat tiresome explanations. This morning when I expressed my preference for the Raphael Madonnas over and above all others, the Count delivered himself quite sententiously of Vasari's opinion of Andrea del Sarto's work, especially of the Madonna del Sacco, which we saw again yesterday at the Annunziata, that "for drawing, grace, and beauty of color, for liveliness and relief, no artist had ever done the like," after which he repeated Vasari's story of Michael Angelo writing to Raphael that there was "a certain sorry little scrub of a painter going about the streets of Florence who would bring the sweat to his [Raphael's] brow, if he had his chance." You know the tale; Browning refers to it in his "Andrea del Sarto." The Count told this story with a glint of humor in his handsome eyes that I have never seen there before. Zelphine says that I am not quite just to Count B. I am willing to admit that he is taller and handsomer than Ludovico and has more the air of a _grand seigneur_; but then I like Ludovico far better, and no matter what the Count says or whom he quotes to support his arguments in favor of the Del Sarto Madonnas, for tenderness and motherliness we must always come back to the Raphaels. Our two companions found us this morning lingering before the lovely Madonna with the Cardinal-bird, which in its sweetness and domesticity is, I think, only equalled by the Belle Jardinière of the Louvre. Zelphine agrees with the Count in his estimate of Del Sarto, but Angela and Ludovico are quite in sympathy with me in their loyalty to Raphael. When the work of both these great masters is so supremely beautiful, it seems absurd to be discussing their comparative merits so hotly. Which side would you take, I wonder?

We crossed the Arno by the picture-gallery of the Ponte Vecchio, a passageway lined with portraits of dead-and-gone kings and queens, dukes and princesses, many of these latter proud Spanish ladies with whom the crafty lords of Tuscany allied themselves. How luxurious and beauty-loving were those Medici princes! Not content with a noble gallery of paintings on each side of the river, Cosimo spanned the distance between them with a third, having already turned the Florentine butchers out of the lower part of the Ponte Vecchio and given their stalls to goldsmiths, whose successors still display their wares here. Half-way across we stopped before the large windows cut in the sides of the bridge, which frame in a fine view of the heights of San Miniato upon one side and on the other of the windings of the Arno and the Cascine with its trees and shrubbery. From the bridge, by many stairs, we reached the vast salons of the Pitti Palace, which contain priceless treasures of art with which photographs and engravings have made us all familiar. We passed from one glorious Raphael to another, pausing before a superb Del Sarto or Murillo in a state of rapturous delight, until, as we stood before Fra Bartolommeo's Marriage of St. Catherine of Siena, beautiful in composition, drawing, and relief, a pleasant English voice at our side said, "Rather nice, is it not?"

We turned to see a fresh-faced girl, who addressed this remark to the typical John Bull _en voyage_. We waited, like her, for the reply which came slowly, in a gruff voice.

"Yes, rather. A pastel?"--and in just such a tone as one might have spoken of a chromo. An Englishwoman standing near, from the London cockney district but evidently with an appreciation of art, looked at the girl compassionately, and ejaculated, "Poor lidy!" Whether the pitying tone was in consequence of the girl's art-limitations or because the pretty creature was the bride of the dull, red-faced giant, with whom she walked away, hand in hand, we shall never know, for just at this moment we heard a clock striking one. How the morning had sped away!

"It will be quite impossible to get back to the pension in time for luncheon," said Angela. Upon which Count B., with elaborate courtesy, begged us to honor him by breakfasting with him in a little garden-café near the entrance to the Boboli Gardens. The luncheon had all been ordered in advance, this being, as we afterwards discovered, a cleverly arranged plan of the Count's and Ludovico's, and there was nothing to do but accept the invitation as graciously as it was given.

The little garden had been converted into a bower of roses, and the table was a dream of beauty, covered with exquisite flowers, sparkling glass and silver, and, not less important to hungry sight-seers, the menu was delicious. It was all like a fairy feast to which we had been bidden by Prince Charming himself. Zelphine said she would not be surprised to see a white cat or a genie appear at any moment.

"Priest and book are what we are in more danger of than white cat or genie," I whispered, as I bent over the table to admire some rare lilies that adorned its centre.

I feel as if a spell of enchantment were being spread around Angela's path, and yet she talks and laughs and is as free as air, never by word or look revealing which of her suitors she prefers, or whether she has a penchant for either. The modern girl is a study, as you well know, and Angela is not the least interesting one that I have met.

After luncheon the Count proposed that we should stroll over to the Boboli Gardens. Here in one of the marvellous pergolas, where, by the careful clipping and training of the ilexes, a refreshing twilight shade is to be found at high noon, we sought refuge from the scorching heat of the sun. Again it appeared that our host's thoughtful care had preceded us, as camp-chairs awaited us in this green bower, and here coffee and ices were served to us as if by magic, which we enjoyed in the coolness of our pergola, from which we looked forth upon the terraces beneath us, where the horse-chestnuts are covered with pink feathery bloom, and upon the old amphitheatre, the fountain, and the "cyclopean massiveness" of the walls of the great Palazzo Pitti.

The amphitheatre was filled with children at play and nurses with babies, as it always is on the free days at the Boboli.

"Why are the boys catching so many crickets and putting them in cages?" asked Angela of Ludovico.

For several days we have noticed the children in the Cascine busily engaged in catching crickets, on the grass and among the bushes. Some of the boys go off with dozens of them, sometimes in large cages, but more frequently in a number of pretty little cages of wire or wood, all strung on a stick, a single cricket in each one.

"Yes," added Zelphine, "what is the meaning of all this catching of crickets?"

"For Grilli Day, of course," said Ludovico, laughing heartily at the idea of our not knowing anything so well known. "On the feast of the Ascension, to-morrow, you will see what the boys do with the _grilli_, and you will be buying _grilli_ like the rest."

"And why should I buy crickets," asked Angela, "especially as I don't like them at all?"

"For luck, of course, signorina; everybody buys the _grilli_ for luck." And then Ludovico sang, in his light, gay Italian fashion but in a voice in which a minor chord seemed to dominate the gay notes:

"'Grillo, mio grillo!
Si tu vo' moglie dillo!'"

To our surprise, the Count joined in Ludovico's song, in a rich bass voice that resounded through the little pergola and brought a crowd of urchins to our retreat with their hands full of _grilli_ in cages. The Count laughed good-humoredly, and presented each one of us with a caged _grillo_, saying, "For luck, ladies; if the _grilli_ live, the luck will be good; if not," with a shrug, "it may be good all the same."

He then insisted that Angela should buy him a _grillo_ in a cage, which she did laughingly, but which he received quite seriously, looking as if he intended to guard it with his life.

Zelphine, her thirst for knowledge still unsatisfied, asked for information as to the origin of this curious custom.

"It is a custom of great antiquity," replied Ludovico, which, as we have learned by experience, is his method of silencing troublesome American questions that he is unable to answer. The Count, who appeared to be in an especially genial mood, then told us many stories and legends about the _grilli_, in which fairies and princesses figured quite prominently and goodness was rewarded and wickedness punished after the charmingly judicial fashion of fairyland. One of the prettiest of these tales we found afterwards in Mr. Leland's "Legends of Florence," in the form of a poem called "The King of the Crickets."

About four o'clock a delightful breeze sprang up, and Ludovico proposed that we drive to San Miniato. The suggestion was made apparently on the spur of the moment, and yet when we descended from our airy height to the street below, carriages were awaiting us, not ordinary cabs but fairy coaches fit for princesses.

The drive through the Porta Romana and along the hillside road of Le Colle was enchanting. The church which Michael Angelo called "La Bella Villanella" is beautiful in its simplicity. After we had admired _some_ of the frescoes on the walls--not all of them--and the exquisitely wrought marble screen and pulpit, and explored the crypt with its twenty-eight columns, we were glad to go out upon the marble steps and enjoy from thence the view of Florence in the distance, and the intervening hills covered with olive-groves and vineyards. Count B., who had lingered with Angela in the lovely cypress avenue that leads to the church, joined us on the terrace and took us back into the nave to show us the chapel tomb of young Cardinal Jacopo of the royal house of Portugal, with its beautiful low reliefs by Luca della Robbia. Descanting eloquently upon the virtues and charity of the Portuguese cardinal, who died at an early age, Count B. led us down the steps of the church and out upon the Piazza Michelangelo, where the David stands, as best becomes him, _en plein air_. You know that the original marble, of which this is an admirable copy in bronze, was sculptured for the Piazza della Signoria. It is now carefully guarded from the elements in the Belle Arti. This noble figure is the embodiment of glorious, inextinguishable youth and strength, and is to me the most inspiring of Michael Angelo's statues.

Zelphine and I walked around the piazza to view the statue from all sides, while Count B. and Ludovico took turns in trying to keep the sun off Angela, whose complexion seems to require unusual care in these days!

"Is there any other American girl who could resist all this devotion and a title to crown it?" asked Zelphine.

"You seem to have decided this important question for Angela," said I. "What makes you think that she will turn a deaf ear to Prince Charming's suit?"

"I cannot say just why. Angela is charmingly polite and appreciative, and yet----"

At this moment, having suddenly recalled the fact that we existed, Ludovico came over to point out to us the beauty of the Duomo from this hill-top, Giotto's pink tower glowing to rose in the warm sunset light.

Ludovico looks rather sad and distrait, to my thinking; his views may differ from Zelphine's, whose "and yet--" may be variously construed by the three onlookers who anxiously await developments.

Ascension Day, otherwise Grilli Day.

Zelphine and Angela, with the two cavaliers of the party, started off early this morning in a great stage-coach to breakfast _al fresco_ in some pretty garden after the Florentine fashion. The idea of a festival here seems to be to breakfast or to dine anywhere in space except at home; consequently all Florence seems to be breakfasting abroad. The little dairies in and about the Cascine are surrounded by so many tables filled with family parties and gaily dressed folk that they look like huge bouquets of many-colored flowers. It is delightful to see people take their pleasure after so natural and simple a fashion as they do in these Latin countries. To be out of doors, with ever so simple a menu before them, seems to make a _festa_ for these light-hearted people.

Although I admire the Florentine custom, I was glad to stay at home to-day to write letters and to sit in the Cascine, as I am doing this minute, where the great trees spread "their webs of full greenery" above me and the children are playing all around on the grass.

I was rejoicing in the beauty and restfulness of this lovely spot, having up to this time escaped the vendors of _grilli_, when several boys approached me with their crickets in especially pretty cages. "Quanto?" I asked, pointing to a dainty wire cage. "Una lira," was the reply. This was too much by half, and having managed to reduce the price to the proper sum, I handed the boy a lira, and waited for the change with the cage in my hand. The small salesman seemed to have considerable difficulty in finding the desired change, turned out his pockets, questioned his companions, and finally rubbed his eyes hard and began to weep piteously. At this moment a policeman appeared, and asked the boy what troubled him, when he, accomplished actor that he was, pointed to the cage in my hand, and explained that I had taken his wares and not paid him the half lira demanded. To prove this he pointed to his empty pockets. What he had done with my lira, whether he had swallowed it or deposited it with a confederate, I know not. The policeman, looking very stern, asked me for an explanation, which I gave in the best Italian that I could muster, feeling quite sure that had Zelphine been there, her ready tongue and eloquent gestures would have convinced that distrustful policeman of my innocence. An Englishwoman who had witnessed the transaction approached, and gave in her testimony in much better Italian than mine, all to no purpose.

By this time quite a crowd had gathered around us, all deeply interested. The boy, encouraged by a sympathetic audience, wept copiously and repeated his tale of woe; the big policeman looked at me threateningly. My English ally repeated her explanation, and seeing that it made no impression, and the lira not being in the boy's hands, she whispered to me, "You had better pay him again for the cage; the policeman is evidently on the boy's side, and between them they may make a disagreeable scene for you." "Never," I replied, resolutely, "but he shall have his cage again," handing it to the little gamin, saying, "I have paid for it twice already, but you may have it."

The scene was already sufficiently disagreeable, and, supported by my English friend, I made my way to another part of the Cascine, with visions of a Florentine court and jail floating through my mind.

"That is one of the stock tricks of these gamins," she explained. "It would have been all right if you had given him the half lira at once, but with the whole lira in his hand there came the temptation to keep it all. These people see so little money, a lira is quite a fortune to them."

The _grilli_ had certainly brought me no luck, and I now carefully avoid looking at a cage, although I do want one of the pretty little wire ones to take home with me. Perhaps Ludovico will get me one. When he joined me later and heard of my experience, he was so indignant that if he could have laid hands on that small actor it is doubtful whether his histrionic powers would have been allowed to develop to maturity. The humor of the situation did not appeal to him, as it did to Angela and Zelphine.

May 16th.

As Ludovico and Count B. do not speak of leaving Florence soon, we conclude that the military affairs that keep them here must be of a rather protracted nature. They do not, however, complain of the delay, nor do we. To be escorted by two devoted cavaliers through palaces and villas and gardens of delight is an experience that one might wish to prolong indefinitely. Halcyon days are these, truly, and if storms and rain come, it is only at night, as we awake each morning to find the sun shining upon the rose-garden beneath our windows and a new day of pleasure beckoning us on.

We have had some charming afternoons in the villas near Florence. Yesterday we went to Sesto in a tram that starts from the Piazza del Duomo, and from Sesto a short walk brought us to Castello. This royal villa, which once belonged to the Medici, is full of family portraits, and some of its beautiful rooms look really home-like--"as if one could live in them," Angela said, which remark seemed greatly to amuse Count B., who has, I fancy, spent all his days in such cold, formal apartments as are to be found in most of these palaces. It was in the gardens, however, that we were tempted to linger. Those of Castello are elaborately laid out and adorned with fountains and statues, and now with the orange and lemon trees in blossom are filled with delicious fragrance. We stopped so long on the terrace under the great ilexes and beeches that the twilight had begun to fall and the nightingales to sing before we started homeward. _Usignuoli_ Ludovico calls these birds of the night. He and the Count were so pleased with Zelphine's delight over Castello and its nightingales that they insisted upon taking us this afternoon to Petraja, an even more elaborate villa on the heights above Castello. In this villa, which is on the southern slope of the Apennines, Scipione Ammirato wrote his celebrated history of Florence. In the last century Petraja was elaborately fitted up by Victor Emmanuel II. for Madame Mirafiore, for which reason, probably, it has not been a favorite residence of the royal family of Italy, and its lovely gardens and terraces are enjoyed only by tourists and occasional visitors.

XVI

FIESOLE

FIESOLE, Tuesday, May 17th.