Chapter II: Part 2

The scene is strange. The priests have spread _Il Santo Sepolcro_ around the chief altar. It is arranged in every church more or less fitly, but in every church the details are different, if the main effect must needs be the same. Miniature gardens, meadows, and cornfields, fashioned out of bleached and yellow grasses, with flowers in their midst, cover the marble pavement within the altar rails; and amid the gardens and the flowers little figures of men and women are set talking and labouring in the fields. This is the foreground, and in the near distance perhaps rises a tiny hill, with three nude crosses upon it, while farther back, where the altar is wont to be, rests—among a wealth of flowers and many gaudy trappings—the body of the Christ in its rocky sepulchre. Hundreds of wax candles are alight upon the reredos, and there is a soft yellow radiance in the nave. _Sant’Ambrogio_ is famed for its flowers. To-day pillars of red and white camellias stand high above people’s heads on either side the chancel’s entrance, and down upon its pavement there are spring roses and heartsease, daffodils and bright ranunculus growing among moss and bleached grasses, or shining from out quaintly stiff posies.

People pass in and out of the churches all day. They say their prayers to the Christ in _Sant’Ambrogio_, and then they go on to _La Maddalena_ or to _San Luca_, and say more prayers and gaze on new wonders. This is penance and prayer-time, and people must think a little about the next world, however much they love this one, says the good Catholic! And these Lenten duties are not much harder than festival ones after all, enshrined as they are in sights and sounds and beloved mysteries. _La Madonna della Nunziata_ is another church, holding a place of honour on this day, not so much by reason of her flowers as because of her riches and the great number of her masses. _La Madonna della Nunziata_ is that church of most gorgeous interior, where massive columns of rare marbles bear up a frescoed and heavily-gilded roof. It is rich in costly decoration, in gems and bright colours. The citizens hold it of great account and crowd thither to-day to worship at the _Santo Sepolcro_, though they have flocked from church to church already, and told their beads, and whispered their criticisms and little bits of gossip, saying to themselves the while that the more churches they visit the more ease it will be to their souls. The devout make a long stride towards heaven on Maundy Thursday, but they have a hard day’s work of it all the same, for when they are not on their feet they are on their knees. It is sure to rain the whole time, if not in hearty showers, then with a desponding fine rain out of scirocco clouds; as indeed it ought in answer to the prayers that have bade Heaven send moisture for all the good things of the land which are growing. The devout do not complain. Heaven is forced to weep on this day of woe, and all the green things of nature will spring the better meanwhile, so they trudge contentedly, with veils that are soiled and damp (for the devout are almost always women), and red and green umbrellas, to make some gay-coloured things in the sad streets. They are not even too much fatigued to go to the night ceremony at the Duomo, when the archbishop washes the feet of the pilgrims; and even by that time the excitement has scarcely been enough for them, but they must needs eagerly question one another about the way in which the _Signore_ is laid out in _Santa Catarina_ or in the _Cappucini_. And the prayers must all be prayed before the Sepulchre, its wonders seen and conned over ere the dawn of Good Friday, for then the spectacle must be cleared away to make room for still graver duties. It is no doubt for the greater convenience of Easter preparations that the Roman Church has decreed the Burial should be solemnized before the Crucifixion—but the devout do not seem to have a scruple as to the fitness of this arrangement, and are just as ready for funeral ceremonies as though they had not celebrated the interment beforehand. There are no flowers in the sanctuaries on Good Friday—all day long there is only black drapery and sad music, and bells that must not sound; for the Church would fain tune all to her solemn silence until the mid-day of Saturday, when all the chimes from all the steeples and domes break out together, and the great deep-toned bell of the cathedral peals out afterwards alone. Easter is rung in with the spring.

All over the country, and wherever there is a spare nook in this town of palaces and marble, the peach and almond trees, the Judas and apricot blossoms spread a dainty cloth of colour, while against the rose-tinted flower of fruit-trees, lilacs and banksia roses begin to bloom in contrast. Before the month is out laburnum and acacia will be striving for mastery with the orange-blossoms.

A fresh wind blows over the town upon the morning of Easter-day. Ere the sun has been up an hour house-wives are bargaining on the Piazza S. Domenico for the peas and greens and gaudy tulips. Easter eggs are set out for sale in confectioners’ windows, along the high streets, upon booths in the public ways or smaller shops in the dark alleys. Every child, rich or poor, must have an egg for his Easter morning gift. People go to mass again, but not as they went during Holy Week, for this day is a day of holiday-making proper.

Scarce can a busy marketer spare time from her early purchasing to spend ten minutes before the altar of some church on her way, that she may just save her soul from the neglect of a binding duty, but no one thinks very much of mass and vesper to-day, when the _ravioli_ have to be made before twelve o’clock, and the fish-stalls have yet to be sought far down the town, after the green-market has duly been searched and spoiled. ‘The priests will pray for us to-day,’ say the devout, as they dip their fingers in holy water coming out from Benediction. They loiter awhile before the church door to buy some image, or coin, or rosary as they talk—or some Easter egg of crimson dye; but they are soon home again with the peas and the marjoram and bay for the day’s great dish, with the fresh fish and the lump of lean, solid beef, and the brains and the sweetbread. The dinner must be cooked, or at least superintended, the dinner must be eaten before idleness can begin. But, when the hours have crept well into afternoon, holiday dresses begin to flit gaily through the spring green of trees on the public gardens, holiday voices and holiday jests ring along the broad avenues and under the boughs of budding chestnuts. The sunshine is broad and pleasant, there is no heat to annoy and no curt breeze to ruffle tempers; it is really warm weather. No one wittingly gives a thought to the blushing orchard-bloom or the blue April sky—no one speaks of the fair tulips, the white narcissus, the lilacs and roses that are a-flower, but the light-hearted laugh the lighter all the same for knowledge that the spring-time is back again.

La Fantesca.

The Servant Wench.

The sky is dull and sad to-day, and so the Mediterranean is grey. Even where the low-lying horizon clouds have parted a little to let through a far-away memory of sunlight, it is only a whiter grey light that outlines the margin of water and sky, and where the sea’s surface is broken into ripples by the softest of stirring breezes, the harmonies of shadows and relief are still in faint and faded colour-scales. It is a scirocco. Dull and sleepy vapours rest on the mountains around and creep down towards the town and the bay.

This picture of the Mediterranean is in shade, and the Mediterranean city lies clouded where Maddalena dwells, so that she is not glad, for her mistress is to give her holiday to-day because Tomasina, the sister’s eldest, is to make first communion, and, please the Virgin, there will be fine doings. The sister is no poor woman; she married the _pizzicagnolo_, or sausage merchant, in Via Luccoli, and can afford to spend a few francs. ’Tis a sad shame indeed that the day be so gloomy, for sunshine lights many a face into smiles that else would be shy and sallow, and sunshine accords well with holiday doings; but as _la donna grossa_, who comes in to help scrub and chatter of a morning, assured our Maddalena, so soon even as six o’clock this day, scirocco does not mean rain and, when the clouds lie so languid on the hills, one may safely don the dress of woollen stuff, for the weather is too heavy even to let the water come down from its skies.

Maddalena’s lady, _la padrona_, lives in a strange place near San Matteo. And San Matteo is considered so strange a quarter for the home of a widow who retains presence enough to have gallants still if she would, that fond relations and neighbours have actually been heard to say _la signora Marini_ must be out of her mind. And yet the _quartiere S. Matteo_, if not fashionable, has beauties of its own. The little church is of old and beautiful design that stands with black and white marble façade on the piazza, and the gateway of the palace opposite is rich without in graceful and elaborate carving, sumptuous within by reason of a staircase weighty with ancient glory. But the widow does not live over the piazza nor in the grimy old palace. Behind S. Matteo’s sanctuary is its cloister, no longer set aside for religious uses, no longer peopled by cowled monks or demure and whitehooded nuns, but the same for shy and tender beauty as in the old days before Italy became a kingdom, and the Church’s institutions had come to be held in ridicule. A carpenter’s shop has grown into shape in the recesses of those sacred colonnades, and a carpenter’s apprentice planes his lathes and sprinkles his shavings beneath the graceful arches, while around and looking down into the little grassgrown courtyard, tall houses stand in a quadrangle, and white linen hangs to dry against the time-tinted marble: but slender columns with twisted stem and fair carven capital still spring frankly from out a daintily moulden base around the green enclosure, and stand in their simple beauty through shade and sunshine of Italy.

And this is where the _padrona_ lives. Our Maddalena has been with her for sole servant wench these seven years past. One day _la signora Marini_ came to the town Orphan Asylum, or _Albergo dei Poveri_, as we call it, and there sought a child whom she might educate to domestic service. Maddalena knew nothing at first; she was but thirteen years old and had had little teaching; but, thanks to the thrifty housewife’s pains and wholesome influence, assisted, as it surely was, by many a sharp word and friendly cuff, thanks also to her own bright wits, the little orphan grew rapidly into a servant of the quickest and deftest—into a maiden of the strongest and comeliest. Not that Maddalena was ever tall. Though, from their first frail babyhood, the poor little foundlings have the best care that such an institution as the _Albergo dei Poveri_ can afford; though they be plentifully nourished by sturdy peasant nurses, according to the country’s custom; yet a mother’s care has never been theirs, nor have fresh field breezes ever fanned their cheeks, and strengthened their growing forms, such as may, perhaps, have greeted the first days of their lives. And so, though the little damsel be a pretty girl in her own style and fit for all life’s work, she wears a sometimes wistful look behind her simple face, and will always be of small and dainty type, though of firm-knit frame and wholesome strength enough. She has a warmly tinted skin with rosy flush, and two round brown eyes wherein the sunlight could dance as it can dance on Mediterranean waves; but to-day—since the beams are hidden that can so brightly catch those blue sea-ripples when they like—curling black lashes veil the bright brown eyes, and they soften their glance and darken their sunlight into wistfulness.

It is three o’clock. The Mistress’s soup has been cooked and eaten, the piece of dry boiled beef is removed at last from table, the dishes are washed up, the last reproof has been administered. Maddalena stands before her lady in all the glory of a new-patterned dress, with silk apron, silken-fringed kerchief, brightly glowing gold brooch and ear-drops, fresh _pezzotto_, whose white muslin folds drape her neck and shoulders—she is ready to go. All blunders and scoldings of five minutes ago are forgotten: the mistress is only a woman, and as a woman she sympathises. Has she not herself smoothed those black braids whose plaits lie round so wondrously? Has she not placed the gold pins to secure the veil, and fastened the kerchief behind? ‘Thou hast a good appearance, in truth,’ she remarks, complacently gazing on her work—for Maddalena is her work, has been her work these years past—and the girl’s blood kindles with pleasure at the praise: _la signora Marini_ knows what’s what, and would not, on _this_ occasion, take the trouble to say what she did not mean!

The sky has not lightened with the growing day nor have the clouds taken their load off the mountains, the scirocco is still in the air, so that marble is less white and colour less brilliant along the streets, but the shadow is a tender shadow, and we do not mourn the searching sunlight. To-day is a great day at the Church of San Siro; the first communion has been given there this morning to hundreds of children, who now parade the streets in gala dress before going home to join in festivities of quite a secular nature. The girls have white dresses—satin, silk, or muslin, according to their degree, with bridal-seeming veils and flowers—the boys wear, probably, their first cloth suits and carry bouquets of flowers, of which they are half ashamed. Maddalena hurries on, smiling complacently. In every little white-robed girl she sees her own little niece, Tomasina, who has also been this morning at San Siro, and in every escorting damsel behind she sees herself walking beside the mamma, for is not she the aunt of a first communion girl? It is not far from San Matteo to Via Luccoli, and soon the little servant has climbed a dark winding stair, has pulled a feeble bell-rope on the _5to piano_, has been admitted and warmly embraced by many female relations, in the midst of an admiring throng that is gathered round the little furbelowed and perfumed doll, who stands beside her mamma. ‘What luxury!’ says everybody, and congratulations pour from all sides upon the firstborn and the firstborn’s parents, who have thus safely borne her to years of discretion and the Church’s bosom. But she, poor infant, meanwhile, being but nine years old, listens wondering, and sure only of her new frock and her own importance, and of the comfits which are soon to be hers.

Voices rise shrill, and jokes fly merrily. Maddalena is not of the maddest among the guests. She stands now apart, softly conversing with a young man from Rivarolo, who keeps a baker’s shop, and is in no way to be despised. The shadow of the scirocco has not passed from her eyes, and the heavy lids lie but half folded away, with long lashes sweeping downwards; but the young man from Rivarolo does not seem to mind that sleepy gaze, and has just made up his mind that last Sunday shall not be the only time he follows a little maiden into the church of Saint Ambrogio, when she goes to early mass! Now the board is spread in this large, scantily furnished hall, where the floor is of red brick and the walls of yellow cement, and the curtains of soft and faded calicoes; sixteen people sit down to eat _ravioli_ and stewed beef and truffles, to drink sour _Monferrato_ wine, and to break their teeth over hard sugar-plums. They are all very free and friendly, and talk loudly, all but Maddalena, who prefers to speak in whispers, but then she is sitting beside the baker. When the evening is over it is this same baker who walks with her slowly, in the darkness of eight o’clock, up the steep of Via Luccoli, and along the broad way of the Carlo Felice, till they reach the point where a narrow, brick-paved and rapid descent runs down into San Matteo. ‘_Brava!_ thou com’st home to time,’ says the mistress, when she opens the door to the servant-wench. And then they discuss the party and the presents, the viands, the dresses, the conversation, and all the scandal that can possibly be gathered from so humble an affair. ‘Well, thou hast amused thyself; to-morrow there will be plenty to do, my child,’ says the _padrona_, as maid and mistress retire to sleep.

And there _is_ plenty to do indeed! _La signora Marini_ has an entertainment in honour of her name-day, and _la signora Marini_ likes to make a show, while being at the same time economical. Mistress and maid climb the steep hill betimes in the morning to have the pick of the market produce in the Piazza San Domenico, and both are a good hand at a bargain and a better hand still at a little friendly wrangling to small purpose. Maddalena is all day long plucking fowls, shredding beans, sorting rice, washing lettuce, rolling paste, stirring _minestra_—graver kitchen duties the housewife attends to herself—and when the dinner is under way the hall must be swept, and the girl has her mistress’s hair yet to do, and her own little slip-shod person to make neat! ‘_Dio_, how the ribs ache!’ says Maddalena, and while she says it the feeble door-bell tinkles—the guests are there!

Every man and woman, however, has a word and a jest for the serving-maid, which words and jests re-assure her a good deal, so that by the time the _padrona_ is ready seated, among the company, at the long board with the coarse tablecloth, she is herself again, and, handing the viands, confidentially informs each guest of its chief ingredients, recommending her own favourites to favoured ones in the party. Only, when all are served and comfortably eating, Maddalena does not blush to sit down on the soiled old chintz settee with the vegetable dish in her lap. She can keep just as sharp a look-out over the wants of the table, and feels no way guilty of neglecting any duty—in fact, if reproved would have known quite well how to answer that she had been on her feet all day and was tired. But no one makes any complaint. People, on the contrary, are not afraid to exchange a friendly word now and then with the winsome waitress; and even when the guests are gone and the mistress goes into the kitchen to discuss the party’s success, Maddalena gets no scolding, either for her freedom of manner in the dining-hall, nor because ‘that young man of Rivarolo’ is there, having been brought by a third party in the shape of the charwoman. Indeed the lady gives countenance to this affair by her presence, and when the house is locked up, and both are alone again for the night, the talk between them is just as much of ‘_him_’ and his prospects as of the boiled beef and roasted capons, and of the success of the _tagliarini_ as second course.

It is not a one-sided interest either. Maddalena has all her mistress’s concerns just as much at heart, and the concerns of her mistress’s aunts and uncles, and nieces and cousins as well. If the _tagliarini_ had not been a success, or the lady had failed to get her due of compliment, the girl would have cried as copiously as when her own new dress was spoilt, the first time of wearing, by the water-squirts in the Pallavicini Garden at her sister’s wedding! And when _la signora Marini_ had on that violet silk just new for the Corpus Domini procession, Maddalena could not refrain from a friendly ejaculation when she opened the street door to her—even though two strange gentlemen had accompanied her back from church! It is she who greases and plaits her lady’s hair on occasions less grand than those for which _la pettinatrice_—or female hair-dresser—is summoned. Maddalena can do a little of everything, and everything quite passably well, from the mending of a bell-rope with a hairpin to the crimping and ironing of fine muslins, the coiling of plaits, the stewing of fowls, the rolling of paste, the sweeping of rooms, and last, but certainly not least, the nursing of sick folk. When _la padrona’s_ aunt had the typhus, who so deft, so patient, and so tender as the little servant wench? And when the child of the first-floor lodger had to have leeches put on for inflammation, did not the doctor say that he couldn’t have done it better himself than did Maddalena? To which she had answered, ‘No—nor half so well, being but a miserable man.’ Of course she must needs have her cryings, and scoldings, and ill-humours, and many is the time she has vowed to run away from the home she loves so well; but when all’s said and done there is surely no happier place than the _4to piano_ of that house in S. Matteo where mistress and maid live, and laugh and cry and squabble so thoroughly.

Il Negoziante.

The Shopman.

Carnival has been and gone, Lent is over and Easter festivals, with sunny smile, have opened the gate to Spring. Upon the country that spreads around our goodly Riviera city, the flush of almond blossoms still lies rosily, to fade soon into the paler tones of pear and apple and cherry bloom. The trees are budding, to help with their faint green for contrast, but the green that is fullest at this time lies over the fresh, brown earth, where spring crops have come to life and are growing fast in the keen, sunlit air. Nursery gardens spread fair and far about the town, with little white and trellis-covered cottages in their midst for the husbandmen—gardens that have neat furrows intersecting them for water-supply, and that make a rich show in market produce. This is towards Albaro, on Genoa’s eastern side, and the low front of Albaro’s hill is adorned with many a white old palace and the slender columns of marble _loggias_ that are fresco-painted within. From the town’s ramparts these many marble buildings have a great effect, that stand amidst green gardens, with roofs lying upon a bright sky, and—walking along the straight and dusty road that makes, towards the sunrise, for the sea-shore, and is flanked on both sides with arbutus trees—the white colonnades of the _Paradiso_ palace are before you all the time to make you remember for ever after the look of marble arches on a green hillside and a strong blue sky.

Among the streets the spring cannot make itself quite so well remembered, nor can the sun have such an effect, but here, as elsewhere, April, May, and even March have quite another beauty from January. The sunlight is dashed even across the dark narrowness of Via San-Luca, and streams across the Piazza Soziglia to light upon the very counter of Signor Giordano’s shop. Surely bargains must be the less sharply driven, and the smiles of fair purchasers the more persuasive! But then Tuesday is the night of _la marchesa Bice’s_ ball, and one must make one’s profit when one can, for in a small town, where the people are proverbially stingy, ’tis not every day that business is to be done!

_Il Signor Giordano_ is a great man in Genoa. He has the largest shop for the novelties of fashion, and is moreover almost the only one of the first _negozianti_ who go to London as well as to Paris for spring and autumn modes. On the other hand, he is not _too_ expensive! He has his own interest at heart, of course, but he thinks to further it better by a judicious lowness of price than by an assumption of foreign exorbitance, as some others do. Then he is not impervious to female flattery, and something can be done with him in this wise! The windows of Signor Giordano’s shop are of plate-glass. Years ago there were no shops in Genoa that had plate-glass for windows, that had any windows at all in fact, just as there were no _cittadine_, or cabs, in the streets, and private carriages were so few that one could tell them all apart by their liveries: just as there were no gas lanterns but only oil lamps in the public thoroughfares. Even now the shops that have real plate-glass windows are few enough, and those that have them so broad and so fine as Signor Giordano are fewer still. His premises are large, large for a provincial town of Italy—and his young shopmen are civil, his goods deftly displayed in the window; all these advantages go to make the store in Via Soziglia one of the town’s favourites. So to-day it is well beset with female customers—prudent and economical mammas, eager daughters, placidly lavish young matrons, who are the most acceptable of all to Signor Giordano—everybody wants some adornment, great or small, for the coming festivity. A neat brougham stops at the door, whence there steps a slim-figured and pale-faced little dame, tastefully dressed in the latest of Paris fashions. ‘It is the _Contessa Capramonte, per Bacco_,’ says the foreman in the front shop to the great Signor Giordano, who is reading his _Corriere_ behind. [The _Corriere_ is the great mercantile paper.] ‘Excellent! Show her those new gauzes that we had last night;’ then advancing to meet this most graceful of customers, ‘Your servant, madam,’ bows the vender of fashions to their wearer; ‘what might be your ladyship’s pleasure this afternoon?’

And soon the hopeful comer is on the usual high wooden stool before the counter, all the new Paris gauzes displayed for her choice, with a dark and tall and perfumed young man to show them off, and the proprietor himself close at hand to take advice of, to jest and chat with besides, as these Italian ladies are never afraid to jest with their social inferiors. ‘Pretty,’ ejaculates she, admiringly, as the tall young man crushes and drapes a citron-coloured gauze the better for the sunlight to catch and beautify it! ‘But with that stuff I shall need a silk dress of the colour besides; it will cost me too much!’ ‘Truly your ladyship has the love of fun,’ laughs fat Signor Giordano at her elbow; ‘we know pretty well what the _Contessa Capramonte_ has for money!’ ‘Truly,’ pouts the pretty lady; ‘_you_ are a good husband one can see. Do you not reflect on the face which that sour-visaged Count will make when I bring him the bill, and have no more money, of the poor pittance he gives me, to pay it with? Oh, but _I_ must reflect upon it, however!’ ‘The bill will not arrive yet awhile, and then, when the Signor Conte sees your ladyship in that dress, whose colour fits so perfectly to the complexion, which is the talk of our town——!’ ‘Come, have a care,’ laughs the lady back again, but with no foolish blush. Then considering, while the fatal look of indecision comes slowly to her pretty face, ‘for the rest you are right, Signor Giordano; no colour suits me so well, and with an assortment of tea-roses——’ ‘And the diamonds of the Capramonte family,’ puts in the great man, dexterously. ‘Yes, with the diamonds, perhaps,’ ruminates she. ‘Holy Madonna! it will be a sight for men to come from far and wide to see,’ murmurs the gauze vendor, fervently, and the dark youth ejaculates, ‘I believe it!’ as he is paid to do.

‘Well, I suppose I must,’ sighs the customer, and then there comes a question of quantity, and the Signor Giordano’s advice is again required about the number of metres for skirt, tunic, scarf and bodice, the which great matter cannot be decided until the manner of making have also been chosen, for _la Contessa_ says that for economy she is going to have this dress made at home by her maid! It is pretty well certain the matter will be settled and unsettled over again at least twenty times by maid and mistress when the latter gets home, but meanwhile it pleases her to discuss it with the shopman, so forty metres are at last pronounced to be the necessary amount, and the lady can always have more afterwards, remarks the perfumed shop-youth with appropriate judgment.

‘Two francs a metre, you said, did you not?’ asks the Countess, innocently, watching the soft silk stuff being measured out. ‘Dear madam, no; three francs,’ corrects Signor Giordano with all suavity, and still the pale-coloured folds pass quickly through the hands of the tall young man. His thumb is on the great scissors, he has counted the forty metres, but ‘Stop, stop!’ cries the lady’s eager voice; ‘I must do without the dress, then—for certainly all _that_ money, 120 francs, _Dio_, never shall I obtain it from my husband! Pity,’ adds she, rising gracefully, and replacing the high stool in its place, ‘for the colour suits me to perfection, and the stuff pleases me; this satin stripe is new, and looks well—but 120 francs—heaven forbid!’ ‘Eh, well,’ concedes the shopman, glancing at his humble satellite over the counter, ‘what do you think? For _such_ a customer it would be worth while to make a reduction, is it not true? She would make such a figure, _per Bacco_! Let us make it two francs and eighty centimes. For _you_ I will make a sacrifice,’ adds _il Signor Giordano_, with an admiring bow, ‘only’—and this in a lower tone—‘her ladyship will not mention the price.’ The concession is indifferently well received. Scoffs the customer, with a pretty toss of her small head, ‘I do not jest! Two francs a metre, or else I buy my dress elsewhere; and if I cannot find another to my taste, I stay at home to-morrow night.’ This is said poutingly, and master and man utter at once a deprecating ejaculation. ‘Two francs!’ pleads the former; ‘sweet lady, I couldn’t do it! If heaven had but been more generous to me, how proudly would I have made a gift of the thing which has been fortunate enough to please you, but——’ ‘Preposterous!’ laughs the beauty,’what a good thing that I know you! Well—make it two francs and thirty _centesimi_! You will not? Oh, well, I find my dress easily elsewhere. And there are to be many ladies of great beauty at _la marchesa’s_ on Tuesday night. I should have required silk for the skirt too!’ These parting shafts are sent home as the lady retreats gracefully to the door. ‘_Addio_,’ nods she, and the plate-glass swings to behind her, the citron-coloured gauze is folded away off the counter. Yet both vendor and purchaser know well enough it will be out again in a trice, and addressed, moreover, to the Palazzo Capramonte.

So sure, in fact, is the shopman of this that when, five minutes later, another and less constant customer sees, admires, and would purchase that frail fabric, he is not afraid positively to state that forty _metri_ of it are sold to the Contessa Capramonte; he is not ashamed either, when asked the price by this next customer, to give it only as two francs and fifty _centesimi_, but then this second lady is a foreigner, and will not bargain, and the Signor Giordano knows exactly how much to put on, because he knows how much a Genoese lady will have off before she buys. Is it waste of time? Not at all, the shopman will tell you—only part of the day’s work.

The _Contessa_ walks leisurely from Soziglia down the Via de’ Orefici, and goes into a jeweller’s shop in this jewellers’ street, where, over lumps of pale pink coral and finely-wrought trinkets of silver and gilt-silver filigree, she plays her play over again, to come out triumphant with a necklace, whose dainty lumps and loops and wires are cunningly fashioned into leaves and roses. The necklace is not for herself, for a Genoese lady despises the produce of that darkly, strangely winding street, where the booths stand out freely to view, and glitter with the light silver wares, or are rich with the red heavy coral; but bargaining comes to her as second nature, so she has fought none the less bravely over the trinket because the commission is for a foreign friend. Thoughts of that dress have not strayed from her mind all the same, and before the _Contessa_ drives out of Soziglia the citron gauze has been purchased for two francs and fifty _centesimi_ the _metro_, which was the exact sum on which Signor Giordano meant they should meet from the beginning; and silk to match, and flowers, and ribbons have been added to the bill, all for something more than the one, for something less than the other said at first. So _la Contessa_ goes home to her palace at Carignano, where banksia roses are blooming against the wall, and pink and white fruit-blossoms in the _villa_, while a purple Judas-tree is a-flower before the house. And the Signor Giordano goes home to the flat in Castelletto, where, though it is five storeys high, flowers still bloom upon the terrace and over the _pergola_, for winter is past, and we are in spring-time.

La Pettinatrice.

The Hairdresser.

Marrina has her hands full to-day; for though it is quite too hot for early May—so hot that the first whiteness and crispness of a _pezzotto_ is gone before the week is out—there is to be a ball to-night, and a ball in the sad old halls of the deserted Royal Palace; the king is coming to Genoa—the king and the people’s favourite, our much-loved Princess Margherita. Even the sparing Genoese do not grudge a little money to be brightest and happiest on such an occasion. The people and the shops are gay—the very streets, and walls, and houses seem to shine with joy of the prospect; illuminations are preparing in the public ways, the stalls of the _fioraje_ are well stocked, and on the Acquasola the trees are a-flower, bright with green and wide spreading, the air is sweet with acacia-scent and laburnum. Marrina lives without the city’s gates, on the side towards the great cemetery. Why she lives there, who knows, as she often says? For, although the way into town is not further than even a buxom woman, like herself, can comfortably do in half-an-hour, it is more trouble than it is worth, this being obliged to pick up one’s petticoats, and turn out along the dusty highway every blessed morning of one’s life—whether the sun be hot or the _Tramontana_ bleak—just to coil, and plaster, and construct aloft those heavy black masses of the Signora De Maroni’s hair! But, then, if one always had a reason for everything one did, _Madonna_, life would be a purgatory indeed! This is Marrina’s philosophy, and, indeed, the rents are not so high without the walls, and one has a breath for one’s money in summer time, if a colder blast in winter.

This morning there is little room for complaint of any sort. The weary-white valley of the Bisagno opens out to the sea, and is, perhaps, not beautiful in itself, because the shingle of its river’s bed lies around so wide with so small a thread of water in its midst; but, on either side of it, and beyond the dusty roads which hem its margin, green slopes rise gently with palaces on their sides where they are nearest the town, and with fruit trees in blossom and chestnut trees in leaf, on the opposite slopes of Albaro, which the market gardens of _manenti_ make green the sooner. Pinkest peach bloom is over, but the cherry and the pear, and the tender-toned apple-blossom have not cast all their flowers yet, while the may and the blackthorn spread white and pink patches on hedge-rows inland, and, on the mossy turf of the Quesia Valley some two miles ahead, violets bloom beneath bright chestnut trees, and primroses on banks and boulders, faint narcissus breathes a scent where the air plays freely, and cowslips hang their heads in the sunshine. _La Pettinatrice_ does not often see these things, it is true, for her own house stands nearer town upon the high road, where the Bisagno is thick with the soap-suds of many washerwomen who flog clothes upon hard flint, as they stand in its stream. But she has an aunt who lives up there where the water flows clean, and glides off mill-wheels into deep, green pools, and she has plucked the faintly streaked tulips from out the new spring wheat, and she knows the bloom of the fruit trees, though she is a town woman born and bred.

The dust lies thick on the road; although the summer has scarce begun, the sun shines hotly down, and Marrina is minded to spend two _soldi_ that she may escape both dust and heat in a very insecure and closely-packed conveyance that runs to the Virgin’s gate of Porta Pila. Yet the sun is on Marrina’s broad back worse than ever, the dust whirls in her face from the open door and the flies are numerous, but a little altercation with the omnibus inmates makes up for all this and more. There is a man who carries the most fragrant of truffles with stale fish in a basket, and another who has just eaten freely of garlic and onions, but both of them discourse well with the comely _pettinatrice_, and she finds no fault in them. Marrina is a well-preserved woman of some thirty years. She is, perhaps, a little more showy-looking than some, even of the town-women of her age—that comes from her life amongst many classes, and a little also because Marrina has no husband, no home of her own, and no children. She has a shapely figure, that is a little too short for its size, a full round throat which the sun has burnt brown, a face that is one shade whiter than the throat, and a fine head of black crimped hair, whereon her own craft is amply displayed; her mouth is large, with full red lips and white teeth, her cheeks are rosy, her eyes twinkle proudly, and she wears white thread stockings and black shoes; her petticoats set out richly from her broad hips, her dress is gaily patterned, her kerchief falls aside a little at the neck, her hands are plump and smooth.

The gate-keeper at Porta Pila, the host of the Osteria degli Amici, at the corner, the woman who sells fried fish two steps further on, all greet _la pettinatrice_ as she comes across the drawbridge, with swinging gait, to turn up the first road on the right. La Signora De Maroni is the first to have her hair dressed, for she is a constant customer; but other thoughts and wider plans are rife in Marrina’s brain to-day, and she bestows but scant attention on this lady’s well-greased plaits. The morning’s unfailing gossip loses none of its excellence, however, for the grist is more rather than less plentiful to the mill. ‘Does _vossignoria_ call to mind the linendraper’s wife who used to rent the little house with the _pergola_ here above the convent?’ ‘That little red-haired one? Well, what of her?’ demands the lady sharply. She is a fine woman for her years, and has a handsome pile of hair, but _hers_ is black, which is common-place, and besides the linendraper’s wife is ten years younger! Marrina knows all this. ‘_Giusto_,’ she answers glibly, ‘what a wit your worship has, to be sure! Red it _is_—red enough to scare the devil! Well, they’ve made a failure, they don’t live up here; they’ve only got a bit of a place now—you should see what a misery—down in Via Giulia!’ ‘Truly,’ murmurs La Signora De Maroni, well pleased. ‘I should think she wouldn’t be on the Acquasola to see the Princess, then?’ ‘I believe you, she won’t,’ laughs Marrina, crimping a poor handful of front hair as she speaks! Then, taking a hairpin from between her teeth, where it has been held for convenience, and placing it firmly through the towering structure of her victim’s head, ‘She’s too vain to show herself without a new silk dress! It’s quite ridiculous at her age! If it were yourself now, one would understand!’ ‘Go away with you,’ laughs the flattered dame, now holding the hot irons ready, to have the little flat curls of long usage made and plastered upon her forehead! ‘Yes, yes, it is true,’ continues Marrina, ‘and yet what is youth good for, I say? Only to play the fool. See there that new bride of Signor Parini, the goldsmith! People made such a noise of her youth and her beauty—only fourteen years old, and a wife! Well, how does she use it? Not been a mother three months, and a mere chit of sixteen as she is, before they do say’—and _la pettinatrice’s_ voice sinks to an impressive whisper which la Signora De Maroni alone is able to hear.

But the daily erection is done, and Marrina has no time for gossip this morning. ‘Does _vossignoria_ go to the opera to-night to see the Princess?’ she asks, rolling down her sleeves again. ‘Eh, _povera me_! No, indeed I do not,’ answers the lady! ‘Not even for a joke could I persuade that wretch of a De Maroni to hire me a box! And he that everyone tells me is so rich. Shame on him!’ Marrina laughs loudly. ‘They are all so, those husbands,’ she says. ‘The Virgin defend _me_ from one!’ And with a ‘_dunque domani_,’ she is gone. La Signora De Maroni has neither so interesting a head nor so interesting a conversation as many whose hair she will do this day, for Marrina has twisted and combed and greased those black locks every morning for the last five years; so, swiftly running down the ninety-four dark and dirty steps, perhaps not with the lightest of footfalls, she is glad to greet the cobbler again, who stitches in the portico, and to be out in the spring air. There are two more subscribing clients to be finished off, and after that who knows how many chance heads of ladies who are going to the Princess’s ball?

The next customer lives up one of the fine new streets. She is not so rich as the De Maroni, but she is noble, and has better hair—hair that it’s a pleasure to stick the pins into, as la _pettinatrice_ has been heard to say. Lilacs are blooming, with snowy guelder roses behind the tall railings of private gardens in Via Serra, and the banksia buds have grown so wildly that their long and flowering sprays fall back over the wall into the street. Marrina plucks a blossom with which to greet her customer. It is not hers to pluck, but why should that signify, any more than it can signify she should make fun of the _bourgeoise_ De Maroni with this younger and prettier rival of the aristocracy, telling of the grey hairs that lie underneath, if only you lift the well-greased black ones, and of how that old husband of hers refused to spend his money to take her to the opera. ‘And with reason,’ says Marrina for comment; ‘if the poor devil must needs spend money, ’tis natural he should prefer to spend it for a pretty face.’ Then the lady laughs, and quite agrees, and they fall to the discussion of this one and that one—for this customer is young, and has her many gallants, and Marrina is always very useful for gossip and scandal. _La signora_ is going to the opera, and then to the ball—not with her husband, of course—and must needs consult Marrina about her toilet, for a _pettinatrice_ sees the costume of many a fine lady, and can advise so as to make or to mar many an evening’s happiness.

On this occasion the pretty countess gets many a hint, and knows what most of the _marchese_ will wear to-night, so that she is able still to devise—with _la pettinatrice’s_ help—some extravagance that shall outvie them all. Fortunately for her, she is a favourite with Marrina, and may trust just a little more to the discretion of Marrina’s tongue than all the poor ladies who confided the secret of their toilets to her yesterday—because, though her hands will work amongst hair till far into the coming night, Marrina dressed many a head yester eve, whose owner sat upright in a chair till this morning—nor thought anything of it—for appearance sake! ‘Amuse yourself, Signora Contessa, and have a care for that poor little marquis of last week, now that you have a new gallant,’ says Marrina, deftly placing the last pile. ‘_Dio_, what time I waste with you,’ adds she, as the church clock strikes! And she is down the stair, down the street almost with the thought, and out into the flower-strewn Acquasola, where the air is flushed with summer sunshine, and waxen blossoms stand stiffly amid the broad leaves of horse-chestnuts in the sloping avenue. La Marchesa Tagliafico lives on the Salita dei Cappucini, where she can see the flowering creepers against the tall old wall of the Villetta de’ Negri opposite, that is now the new Acquasola, where she can hear the rush of the cascade, and scent the limes and acacias off the public-gardens, and watch the nobility driving round of a warm Sunday evening; where she is close to the ancient Church of the Cappucini, besides, and can stand beneath its cypresses two minutes after leaving home, to visit its _Presepio_ at Epiphany or its _Santo Sepolcro_ in Holy Week, to hear its _Frati Predicatori_, to attend mass and buy waxen images on all or any of the _festas_. La Marchesa is one of the devout; nevertheless she is to be at the ball to-night, and Marrina is to do her hair.

Even _la pettinatrice’s_ goodly strength is well-nigh spent and her fingers greased to the bone, before the last head is finished off, for, in spite of her only having taken half-an-hour’s rest to see the Princess drive round the gardens, it is midnight long past when the final touch is put to the final Marchesa. The day’s work is over, but Marrina does not go home to the tall house on the dusty road beyond Porta Pila. She too must have her night’s recreation. Who would expect the love of folly to be spent in a woman of that figure and those eyes, even though her calendar count thirty birth-days? But after the gas-lit night, the summer sunshine still comes back, bright and pure, and fresh apple-blossoms blow beside _la pettinatrice’s_ home.

Fisher-Folk.

When the high road of the eastern Riviera has left the town behind a space, and has even travelled clear of the last palaces without the walls of the city of marbles—when it has crossed that tongue of Albaro’s Hill that divides the waves, and, having left sea behind in Genoa’s Bay, comes back to more sea that laps freely upon a free and rocky coast—when it has coiled closely round corners and skirted precipices for many a mile—it comes, on its way, across a little town where the hills rise abruptly behind, and the orange groves are thick around, and the villas of nobles lie sumptuously upon the shore.

There have been many little towns, scarcely larger than villages, all along the road from Porta Pila, and many a lovely palace standing in its garden and fruit-groves along the coast—so many, indeed, that even a quarter of a mile has not been left untenanted by man-kind; but Nervi is a prettier place than any of the other places since Albaro’s villas were left behind. The hills that stand for background to it are straight hills and fairly wooded, yet they are not the best features in its beauty, for, excepting from the sea, no one has seen their shapes impressively, so close do they rise, looking down upon the village. Nervi’s loveliness is in her gardens, with the palms and pines that grow there, and the stately palaces whose time-tinted marble walls stand in the midst; it is in her lemon orchards and orange groves, where the breeze blows laden with scent in the flowering time, and the pale or golden fruit hangs heavily-gorgeous through the early spring days; it is in her rocky beach, where the changing sea laps for ever and is never the same, where fishers spread their nets, and children wade and play, and the wonderful water-line is broken and perilous because of the cloven rocks that lie guarding it.

The little straight street is not beautiful, though its barber and dressmaker and its _Fabbrica di paste_ be indispensable to the dwellers round about, and though dirty shops and tall houses, because strange, have often been called picturesque; the Mediterranean lies hid from Nervi’s street, and, when one is on the Riviera the Mediterranean is the thing most powerful to charm. But, on the sea-shore, street and barber and shops are forgotten. The sun gleams on white wave-crests that temper the sea’s blue on some breezy spring day; the sun lies scorching the weed-grown jagged rocks, the sloping slate rocks that slide far down beneath water that grows green near shore; the sun sweetens the oranges, and makes the flowers more luscious of scent, and the fishermen lay their nets. Though Nervi is a village where rich folk have their dwellings and marble steps lead down to the water for bathing, there are hamlets near around, of poorly squalid mien and strangest name, where fisher-folk live and fisher-children hunt crabs and shell-fish in the bays.

Walking along the winding way that creeps round the lip of little gulfs, and dives into dark crevices of crags—or along the way that, being poised midway aloft upon the cliff some hundred feet above the water, leads from Nervi to the fishing village of Bogliasco—you might see Maso, perhaps, out at sea in his broad and tanned old boat, spreading nets for the night’s fishery, or, further on, from off the smoother shingle, Paolo pushing out upon the coming wave, with the children standing by to help with shout and laughter, and the women with parting joke or reproof.

May is near to her end now, and the long evenings make summer again. The water is warm, because the sun has lain upon it all day, and blue with a memory of the clouds overhead, that are paling now in the waning lights. A golden glamour comes down upon the waves; the sun is near to setting. Paolo stands in the sea, making ready to push off; his brown, broad feet upon the yellow shingle are broader, but not browner, beneath the green water that reaches to his knee where the striped hose rolls up; the golden light strikes across his face on its way to the bright group upon shore and to the bright spring green over the hill beyond. He is a tall man and strongly built, but his face is battered and seamed; they call him in the fishery ‘the furrowed one,’ but he is liked well enough notwithstanding, and, truly, that careworn face has a kindling eye and an honest smile. Paolo is a married man. That mischievous urchin is his own first-born, who leans against the boat with his calves in deep water—as the calves of the rising generation are apt to be; his hard young hands are eager to help, his keen black eyes look for the signal. And that is Paolo’s wife—that broad-hipped woman with the full, free figure, who waits upon the beach with the swaddled infant in one arm and the year-old boy clinging to her skirt; all the other children play around, they are waiting to see father away.

Now his ropes are coiled, his nets are in order; Gian-Battista has arrived leisurely—Paolo’s lazy nephew, who helps in the fishery. When his lighter skiff has also been made ready, two strong pairs of hands—that nine-year-old boy helping lustily—start both old crafts out to sea. Paolo leaps in swiftly, the oars are dipped, and the golden sun sinks a little lower upon the horizon. ‘_Andiamo bambini!_’ calls Maddalena shrilly, only she calls it in strangest dialect, to the loitering children. And by the time she has dragged the younger and driven the elder up the short, steep slope of beach on to the jagged rocks beyond, that lie beneath the village, the boats have pulled a mile out to sea, and Paolo has sunk his nets for the tunny fishery.