Chapter VII: Part 7

“Oh, I say! simple, you know! That’s putting it a little strong. The scene you describe is simple and touching, but, as a rule, the services over there are more gorgeous and theatrical than religious!”

“Granted,--St. Peter’s is the stage on which the dramas of the church are played. Why not? Why not use every art to the glory of God--music, the drama, all the rest? There are a hundred quiet parish churches where one can go for devotion and aspiration.”

Patsy’s company is always stimulating, but he rather interfered with my getting all the information I wanted from the monsignore. I did manage to extract the facts that the _Anno Santo_ was instituted by Boniface VIII., in 1300, that it was originally meant to celebrate it every hundred years; that the Romans petitioned to have the time shortened to every fifty years, then to thirty-three years (the supposed earthly life of Christ), and finally to every twenty-five years; that at the five other Basilicas in Rome ceremonies like those at St. Peter’s were celebrated on the same day--a cardinal opening the _Porta Santa_ in each, and that during the _Anno Santo_ plenary indulgence is obtainable by all Catholics who pass a certain number of times in a given number of days, through the holy doors of St. Peter’s, and the five other Basilicas, repeating the appointed prayers.

“Every twenty-five years, you say?” Patsy insisted, “and the last Jubilee was in 1825--how is that?”

“In 1850 and again in 1875 Rome was so unsettled that the observance of the _Anno Santo_ was not expedient,” said the monsignore, shortly.

“Let me see,” mused Patsy; “in 1850 Pius the Ninth was at Gaeta, trying a change of air for his health, and Mazzini was at the head of the Roman Republic. In 1875, Pius still thought that the Dukes of Savoy were only casual visitors and had not yet realized that they had come to Rome to stay. Isn’t that about the size of it?”

“My dear boy,” said the monsignore imperturbably, “_now_ you are talking about things you do _not_ understand.” He talked of other things for a few moments and then went away.

On Christmas Eve the pilgrims began to arrive in torrents, and have been pouring in and out of the city ever since. They will not be allowed to come in July and August--supposed to be the least healthy months. They have gathered from the uttermost parts of the earth hordes of strangers invading Rome as I believe it has not been invaded since the days of Attila and his Huns. From the terrace we see pilgrims from all the Catholic nations of the earth pass to bow the knee and drop the _obolo_ at the feet of the Prisoner of the Vatican. These vast pilgrimages, sometimes several thousand strong--are admirably managed. A dearth of cabs is the first sign we notice of their arrival. The piazza is deserted, not a cab in sight. A little later a procession of cabs, crowded with pilgrims (six to a carriage) and their belongings--the queerest boxes, bales, bundles begin to rattle across the piazza to the vast buildings in the rear of the Vatican where the pilgrims lodge. They usually stay three days; during that time they are received by the Pope, visit all the Basilicas, see the sights, and depart richer in experience and plenary indulgence, leaving the Pope, the shop keepers, hotel keepers, and cabmen richer in money. Each flood gilds (or silver plates) poor old Rome till it shines as it has not shone in years.

I did not suppose there were so many splendid costumes left in the world as have passed through the Piazza of St. Peter’s and under my eyes during these few months! Hungarians in tight-fitting black breeches, jackets trimmed with black astrakhan and long high boots. Herzegovinians with wonderful garments of white sheepskin, embroidered in red silk outlined designs (the woolly side of the sheepskin is worn next the person, the outside looks like parchment), fur-trimmed boots, hair cut square across the shoulders, faces of rapt devotion. The Poles were a superb group, the women wore costumes of striped vermilion and emerald green, the men, scarlet breeches, green jackets, and picturesque woollen caps. There were Cossacks from the river Don, with long, gray woollen caftans down to their heels, high pointed caps, and cartridge belts over their shoulders, they would be ugly customers to come up against on a less peaceful excursion. While driving, we passed one Don Cossack who reminded us so vividly of Taras Bulba, the hero of Gogol’s Iliad of the North, that we followed him for half an hour, as he stalked about the city, looking at the sights as if they were all perfectly familiar to him. He was a giant with a mane of bronzed hair, dark eyes, high cheek bones, and a look of indomitable power, of silent reserved strength, that made the careless casual passer-by seem an effete, over-civilized being. He wore jewel-handled daggers stuck in a waist belt, fastened with turquoises “as big as my two thumbs.” He must be “somebody” at home.

The other evening J. brought home the news that there were a lot of pilgrims lodged in the wing of the Palazzo Torlonia, opposite his studio. The next morning R. and I hurried over to the Borgo St. Angelo to see what was to be seen. The Palazzo Giraud Torlonia, which has a splendid front on the Borgo Nuovo, only a block away from the Rusticucci--has two long wings in the rear, with a courtyard between them, the entrance to both wings being on the Borgo St. Angelo, rather a squalid back street. The studio is a vast room as big as a church on the second floor. When my mother was in Rome, on her wedding journey, she danced in this room at one of the famous balls, given by old Torlonia, the banker prince, the founder of the family, and grandfather of the present incumbent, J.’s landlord. The studio--at the time J. took it the only available one in Rome large enough for his purpose--could only be had by hiring the whole wing, with its three stories, the right to _re-let_ being refused. This makes him master of all he surveys, as the grim, stone-paved courtyard, with its ever-flowing fountain fringed with maidenhair fern, goes with his wing.

I received a shock on entering the studio, and looking at the big picture for the first time in days. The little blindfold Love who led the procession of the centuries in The Flight of Time, has been painted out! He now exists only in my memory, and in the cartoon, a red chalk drawing hanging in our hall. Though the composition is better without him, it gave me a pang to find him gone. To console me, I found three portrait studies of the beautiful Lady K.

From the studio windows we could see into the vast high rooms of the opposite ell, which is hired for the pilgrims, when, as on this occasion, they cannot all be accommodated in the huge _lazzaretto_ the Pope built during the last cholera summer. That was in 1884. Naples was decimated by the disease; everybody believed that the cholera would come to Rome (everybody except J., who calmly passed the summer here). The Pope built the great _lazzaretto_ against the cholera’s coming; King Humbert, of the high courage, went to meet the cholera, went to pest-stricken Naples, walked through the hospital wards where the cholera patients lay, spoke comfortably to them, won new glory for the brave house of Savoy, a fresh hold on his people’s hearts. As the _lazzaretto_--it has never been used as such--was not big enough to hold the French pilgrimage, some of it spilled over into the empty wing of the Torlonia Giraud Palace, across the courtyard from the studio.

When R. and I arrived on the scene it was the hour of bedmaking. We could see the neat, light figures of the nuns (to whose care the entertainment of the pilgrims is entrusted) tucking in the sheets, smoothing out the pillows of the long lines of white cots that filled the rooms. On the sidewalk, outside the green door--all our doors in the Borgo seem to be green--sat a group of old men smoking the solemn, after-breakfast pipe. Feeling that we must see the pilgrims at nearer view, we went down to the street and out of our door just in time to meet a rosy young sister as she came out of the opposite door with a little old peasant woman, whose face was wrinkled and brown as an English walnut. The old peasant wore over a full white linen shirt a dark cloth jacket cut square at the bosom, with straps going over the shoulders. The double-breasted jacket was fastened with silver buttons and heavily embroidered in a charming pattern with variegated silks. On her head was a plain white cap of sheer muslin turned back over the ears, and hanging to the shoulders. Under the muslin cap was a sort of gilt skull-cap. She wore a heavy plaited skirt of dark blue broadcloth, sabots painted black, long earrings of filigree gold inset with seed pearls. Even beside the pure linen of the sister, she positively shone with cleanliness.

“Look well at that jacket,” I said to R., “did you ever see one like it before?”

“Why, it is _our_ Breton jacket!”

_You_ perhaps remember that at the old yellow house where R. lives there is a trunk full of “dressing up things,” the theatrical wardrobe of the children, largely made up of the old finery of three preceding generations!

“Did you ever see that cap before?” I asked R.

“Why it’s grandmama’s cap!”

“Long ago, when you were only a baby, grandmother and I passed a summer in Brittany. At Quimper, where we spent some happy weeks, a jacket like that was made for me, and we found the one and only model for grandmama’s cap.”

The little old peasant woman carried a large blue cotton umbrella, with time-yellowed ivory handle and points, a perfect ark, under which three even four generations might take refuge from a deluge. I looked at her so intently, with such a passion of longing memory, that she must have seen something more than common curiosity in my glance, for she gave me a second look less preoccupied, more gentle than the first, and then paused. I grasped the opportunity, and going up to her asked in French how things were at Quimper? She listened patiently, politely, understanding nothing of what I said till I pronounced the magic word “Quimper.” Then the old eyes grew keen and intent. She put out a hand and answered me in a flood of kindly Breton, whose sound only was familiar to me. For some minutes we stood there in the middle of the Borgo St. Angelo, shaking hands, looking intently at each other, first one, then the other repeating the word “Quimper!” To her it meant home; to me, the one thing dearer! Then with a last tightening of the hands we parted. We recognized other of the Breton costumes, from St.-Pol-de-Leon, Douarnenez, the Morbihan, we remembered having seen some of them at the great pardon of Ploërmel. The caps of Quimper are quite distinct from the caps of Quimperle, you understand, though the towns are not far apart!

That afternoon, with a roll of thunder drums and a flash of lightning, the deluge descended upon the Borgo. I rushed to the watch-tower--our upper terrace, to see the storm. From the four quarters of the sky the lightning swords smote at each other; from the soft white clouds above the Castle St. Angelo came rose-colored lightning with a growl; from a purple rack over St. Peter’s a piercing yellow zigzag, like a Saracen blade, followed by the crack of cannon. Veils of rain fell, mixed with the white spray of the fountains, and were driven in smoky sheets across the square. The piazza was alive with pilgrims coming away from St. Peter’s, where service was just over, the steps were black with people. The pilgrims scattered like leaves before the storm; the skirts of women and priests were blown about, like the bewitched draperies of the Bernini statues on the façade of the church. In the midst of the hurrying, scurrying crowd I made out the blue umbrella ark of Quimper, valiantly held up by a tall young peasant; my little old woman--perhaps his mother--paddled along on one side, a stout wench--perhaps his wife--on the other. The cabs were all snatched up in a moment. Down in the Borgo I could see the _gobbo_ waiting for me at our door. I had to keep a pressing engagement and dared not delay till the tempest passed, lest the _gobbo_ and his cab be ravished from my sight. As we rattled along the Borgo Nuovo, I recognized the _parroco_; he was without an umbrella and was getting soaked to the skin. As we would pass his door it seemed the part of friendship to give him a lift.

“Stop!” I cried to the _gobbo_; “the _parroco_ is going our way, we will take him home.”

“There is no use in stopping,” said the _gobbo_. I insisted. Sulky and grumbling he drew up just outside the hospital of the Santo Spirito. The water was rushing through the gutter like a small millstream.

“Jump in, _padre_, we will take you home.”

“No, no. Thank you--it is impossible!”

I persisted.

“Drive on!” he cried impatiently to the _gobbo_. To me more gently, “It would not do for me to be seen driving with a lady.”

As the _gobbo_ whipped up the old white horse, a crowded carriage containing four women and two foreign-looking priests passed us. I looked back at the _parroco_; he shrugged his shoulders, his lips formed the words, “What can you expect? They are French!”

“What did I tell you, _Signora mia_?” murmured the _gobbo_. “It would have been a scandal for the poor _parroco_ to be seen driving with you!”

Wasn’t that slap at the French nice? The _parroco_ served his two years in the army when he was young; he is a good Italian, a son of the soil, a son of the Church. The passions of his race are strong in him, and in spite of his cassock he hates a Frenchman!

Coming home late that evening we found behind our door a small wallet lined with coarse red morocco. It contained nothing but memoranda of modest expenditures:

Cab, one franc.

Candles, six sous.

Tobacco, fifty centimes.

Rosary of amethyst beads (for Berthe), four francs.

Souvenirs of Rome, seven francs, etc.

Crabbedly written on the flyleaf was the address of a priest of Vaucluse. _Vaucluse!_ Isn’t that a name to conjure with? We read the poor priest’s case as easily as his simple record of expenses. No people are quite so attentive to the pilgrims as the “light-fingered gentry.” The thief who stole the pocket-book, after taking out whatever of value it contained, threw it into our doorway to be rid of it. J. has sent it by post to the priest at Vaucluse; it will at least help him to make up his accounts.

“Souvenirs,” always a staple of Roman trade, are more in evidence in the shop windows than ever. The French pilgrims buy a great many souvenirs. We saw our old friend from Quimper in a shop in the Borgo. To get another look at her, and to show her to Patsy, who was with me, we went in and looked at souvenirs. Besides the “articles of religion” there were semi-religious articles; spoons, pens, pins, a thousand useless nothings bearing the triple crown, the keys of Peter, the sacred initials. The shop-keeper laid a tray full before Patsy, who turned them over indifferently. “Fancy keeping stamps in this,” he held up a box with the white dove of the _Spirito Santo_ inlaid upon the cover, “or cutting _Punch_ with that!” he displayed a paper knife with the figure of the Lamb. “I say, you know, the common use the shop-keepers put these sacred symbols to is more than I can stand!”

The shop-keeper thought he understood; we caught his whisper to his wife, “They are not Christians, they are Saracens!” to us he said, “Have patience, sir, here is your affair!”

He opened a drawer under the counter. It contained the same souvenirs, the same boxes, spoons, pens, paper-knives, what-nots, with Mahomedan symbols, instead of Christian--the crescent, the star, the scimitar, the monogram of the prophet.

“No, not quite our affair,” said Patsy. “We are not Mahomedans.”

The shop in which we were chaffering is in the very shadow of Peter’s dome; the bells in the clock tower were ringing the _Ave_.

The cry is, Still they come! Pilgrims, pilgrims, pilgrims. By just sitting tight on our terrace and using our eyes, the uttermost parts of Christendom have been brought to us. Sardinians, for instance. When Patsy came back from his moufflon hunting trip in Sardinia, and talked familiarly about “Sards,” we were devoured with curiosity to see them for ourselves. A week after, the “Sards” arrived in force. They are more like Corsicans, or even Spaniards, than like Italians; they have grave, dark, impassive faces, and an expression of sombre reserve. The men’s dress is in keeping with their character; a black woollen, knitted bonnet, like a sailor’s cap, hangs on one side to the shoulder, close-fitting jacket, leggings, and sash, all black. Their coarse homespun linen shirts, made very full in the bosom and sleeves, and worn without starch, are a great improvement on the dreadful stiff, white armor in which our men encase themselves for their sins! The “Sards’” only ornaments were silver buckles worn at the knees and on the shoes.

One morning J., who had started early for the studio, came back to tell me that a group of Filipinos had just gone over to St. Peter’s.

“How do you know they are Filipinos?”

“I don’t _know_; they look like two Filipino art students who used to be in Rome. One of them was named Luna. He was the best draughtsman in the studio; he beat everybody at drawing; seemed to have a dash of the Japanese dexterity.”

“Was he any relation to General Luna?”

“Only his brother,” said J. Now that is Rome, and that is J.!

I hurried over to St. Peter’s and caught up with the Filipinos before they had made the third chapel of prayer. They are small, swarthy men; their faces show a strange mingling of races, something of the Malay, he Mongol, the Latin, with a fourth element I did not recognize,--rather deadly looking folk, I thought, but very devout in their behavior at church.

When royalty comes to the Vatican there is a deal of pother. The morning of the King of Siam’s visit to the Pope, we were waked at dawn by the carts fetching the royal yellow sand, and the men spreading it thick over the streets where the wheels of royalty were to pass. The King, whom we saw perfectly, is a fierce-looking little fellow; he was dressed in quite the most lovely uniform I have ever seen; white broadcloth, embroidered in gold. Do you suppose their good clothes are any mitigation to the _ennui_ of sovereigns? I should think they might be.

Easter Sunday, 1900.

We thought we had seen Rome crowded before, but we had not! During the past week, the crowds have been almost inconceivable. By Wednesday all the bathrooms at the Grand Hotel that could be spared had been turned into bedrooms. Last night a pair of travellers slept in the red plush cushioned elevator, and two in the big comfortable hotel omnibus. Cabs are a rare commodity--even the _gobbo_ has deserted us and hired himself out by the week to the pilgrims. The electric cars (did I tell you they had put these pests in under our very windows?) are so jammed that we go for the most part “shanks’ mare.” Many of our friends have let their apartments, and gone away for the rest of the season. We could have got a good price for ours; but in spite of the undeniable inconvenience (the cost of provisions has almost doubled), we would not have missed the experience. The city has been a Babel of foreign tongues, a kaleidescope of foreign faces and costumes. One tastes life as from a goblet filled and brimming over with sparkling, heady wine. That old gogpate, Z----, has let his villa, carriage, servants, even his precious Antonio, the best cook in Rome. He said to J., “I cannot afford to stay in Rome when the price of _filet_ has doubled and I can get my whole year’s rent by letting the villa for three months.”

“We cannot afford _not_ to stay in Rome when it is so interesting,” said J. There you have the two ways of looking at life--the Philistine’s and the artist’s!

We have taken part in a canonization--there remained but that--of all the ceremonials on “that stage of the Church” incomparably the most sumptuous we have seen. When I heard that the new saint’s name was La Salle, stirred by memories of Parkman’s “Discovery of the Great West,” I insisted upon having tickets to one of the private tribunes. I confess it was a disappointment to find that we were making a saint of the wrong Lasalle, _not_ our own René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, but another doubtless excellent person described as “a distinguished educator priest.” You have heard about so many ceremonies that I will only speak of the _river_ of bishops! I did not suppose there were so many bishops in the world. They passed down the vast church in a line of seething white and gold, stretching from the entrance down the nave to the very chair of Peter behind the high altar. Every bishop carried a tall white wax torch, whose yellow flame lighted up his white and gold vestments, his gold-tipped mitre and crozier. I shall never forget that dazzling splendor! I have seen so many of these great pageants that I am rather _blasée_ about them, but those gorgeous bishops in their immaculate white and gold robes outshone even the arrogant vermilion cardinals, the purple canons with their gray fur capes--even that man of ivory and iron, Leo XIII., carried aloft in the Sedia Gestatoria, on the shoulders of six crimson lackeys, the triple crown blazing on his head.

On the 31st of May I happened in to Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, a dear church, built on the ruins of an ancient temple of Minerva. Fra Angelico is buried here (how can his native Fiesole spare his bones)? There is an ancient Greek sarcophagus, with Hercules taming the Nemean lion in relief; there is a picture of Torquemada, the terrible confessor of Isabella; there is an adorable flower-bespattered tomb carved by that sweetest of statuaries, Mino da Fiesole, and a hundred other “features”! In the piazza outside stands an engaging marble elephant, with the smallest of Egyptian obelisks on his back; altogether the place is a good example of what one is forever harking back to,--Rome’s golden blending of things Greek, Egyptian, classic, pagan, early Christian, renaissance, and rococo!

In the pulpit who should be thundering away, whacking the dusty crimson cushions till the beautiful old carved pulpit shook, but our friend the _parroco_! He seemed so much in earnest that I paid two cents for a chair and sat down to listen to him. His subject was the erudition of Mary, “the most learned woman,” he said, “who has ever lived. Her knowledge of languages--she spoke at least twenty--proves this. She is known to have talked with Moabites, Samaritans, Egyptians, and other persons, to the number of twenty different nationalities.” The hypothesis that some of these persons may have spoken Aramaic, Mary’s own language, was not admitted by the preacher.

Coming out after church, I overheard one well-dressed _contadina--senza cappello_ (without a hat), a social grade is marked by the wearing of a hat--say to another peasant woman,--

“My son has preached a new sermon on the Madonna on each of the thirty-one days of her month. He has done well.” I thought he had!

It was the _parroco’s_ mother. She had the same soft dark eyes, the same mouth, the same smile--the mother for whose sake, as he himself told us, he became a priest. “_Poverella_,” he said, “it was her wish; I am all that she has; how could I disappoint her? and she believes that one day I shall receive the cardinal’s hat!”

He had come as he always does, the Saturday before Easter, to bless the house. Pompilia and Filomena had been on their marrow-bones for a week, rubbing, scrubbing, polishing, setting the house in order for the rite. On the kitchen dresser the prescribed food to be eaten on Easter Sunday was neatly arranged: eggs and _mortadella_ for breakfast; lamb, green peas, a certain broth made with lemon and eggs, served only on this day of the year, and the sweet dish already prepared,--what the Italians call _zuppa Inglese_, and we call Italian cream! In a vase were carefully preserved the blossoms of wall flowers, stocks, and violets, from the sepulchre of Holy Thursday at the church near by in the Piazza Scossa Cavalli; these, according to tradition, must deck our Easter dinner table. It was four o’clock when the _parroco_ reached our house. He was very smart in his neat beretta,--a high, square, black silk cap,--his best white linen cotta trimmed with handsome lace, freshly starched and ironed. It was “done up,” I’ll be bound, by that good brown mother of his. He was followed by an imp of a boy with the oddest snub nose, and hair growing almost down to his eyebrows, who made the responses and carried the silver holy-water vessel by a pair of enchanting wrought handles. We formed a procession, headed by the _parroco_ and the imp; next came the _padrona di casa_ (myself); behind me walked Pompilia the cook in the time-honored striped black silk which I had given to Nena, and she, “_per miseria_,” had sold to the cook; after her, Filomena, the prettiest girl in the Borgo, in her best blue frock and a rose in her hair; the procession was brought up in the rear by Nena,--the witch, the snuff-taker, the footman, the mainstay and comfort of the whole household. She had borrowed a clean apron, smoothed her rough, gray hair, and redeemed her coral beads and gold earrings from pawn at the Monte di Pieta. There were flowers everywhere in the house, the terrace had been rifled, roses, roses, roses, red, pink, saffron. In the very best vase were a single white rose from my mother’s favorite tree, the Catherine Cook, and one mammoth pink one from Captain Christy. We marched first to the salon, the most honorable room. The _parroco_ dipped a silver sprinkler in the lustral water, which he sprinkled in four directions, north, south, east, west, saying as he did so, “Bless, O Lord, this place, that in it may be health, chastity, victory, virtue, humility, goodness, sweetness, the fulness of law and thanksgiving, and may this blessing abide in this place and upon all those who dwell herein.”

Whether by chance or intention, a few drops fell upon a group of family portraits hanging on the wall. Our dear sunny chamber was next blessed, then the dining-room, the den, finally the servants’ quarters and the kitchen. In each room the prayer was repeated, the water sprinkled. The _parroco_ was in a hurry, he could not wait to taste a _gocciatino di vino_ or a bit of the _pizze_ Filomena’s mother had sent us from her home in Umbria,--there were many more houses to be blessed before nightfall. We went with him to the door, shook hands, slipping into his palm a small envelope--the imp carried openly the silver plate in which I dropped his share of the modest offering, then with hasty bows and smiles and “_buona pasqua_ (happy Easter)” the pair of them clattered down the long _travertina_ staircase, past the recumbent Etruscan ladies, with their button-like eyes, who guard our stair, leaving me to enjoy our clean, sweet-smelling house. On the terrace an hour later, drinking in the glory of the sunset, came an odd sense of the fitness and familiarity of it all. This blessing the house, the food, the penates, the tools, the effigies of ancestors is the Little Ambervalia Pater describes so deliciously in Marius, the Epicurean; there is, too, an echo in it of the Vestalia, the festival in honor of Vesta, held at the house of the Vestal Virgins on the 9th of June, “after which the temple was closed for five days for ceremonial cleansing!” At home, in God’s own country, the ceremony survives under the name of spring cleaning. It was a wonderful stormy sunset; St. Peter’s and the piazza seen in this ferment of light and shadow recalled a curious allegorical design of Bernini’s, in which the two curving wings of his colonnade are made to suggest the arms of Christ’s Vicar, spread out to enfold the world, Angelo’s dome being worked in as a sort of papal tiara floating over the whole.

XIII

THE QUEEN’S VISIT

PALAZZO RUSTICUCCI, ROME, Easter, 1900.

“Buona Pasqua!” said Filomena, when we came into breakfast this morning. Her Easter offering lay on the table, two hard-boiled eggs in a little basket of twisted bread at each plate. Soon after, Pompilia brought her inevitable _regalo_, a pair of lilac tissue paper fans (she has a relative who works in the paper factory). As I passed the door Pompilia’s annual basket of flowers, sent by her cousins every Easter, was brought in. Ignazio, the gardener, met us on the terrace with a pot of the biggest violets I have ever seen.

“Only yourself, Signora, and the Princess Doria, in all Rome, have these magnificent violets, the last novelty from Londra. The Prince has just introduced them. His gardener is my friend; _così_ I am able to offer this _bel’ vasino di fiori_!”

A little later, Lorenzo, Villegas’ factotum, arrived with a basket of lemons from the Villino garden, covered with their own glossy green leaves and intoxicating blossoms; the petals are thick, pink outside, white inside, like orange flowers, only larger, and with a less cloying perfume.

We were up on the terrace in time to see the Host carried through the street; that was not allowed when we first came to live in the Borgo Nuovo. Little by little the old picturesque ceremonies of the Church are creeping back. It is a pretty sight. First march lovely little girls in white, scattering flowers; then come acolytes, deacons, young clerics--I am hazy about their titles--swinging censers, carrying the crucifix and banner; the arch-priest bearing the Sacrament in a golden monstrance, over which he holds protectingly the sides of his long, stiff, embroidered vestment, above his head a white and gold _baldacchino_ supported by four young priests. The whole procession, children, acolytes, priests, attendant women in black veils, went singing across the piazza of St. Peter’s and down our street under a rain of pink and green disks of tissue paper thrown from the windows in lieu of flowers. Across the street Giuseppe, the baker, in white cap and drawers, naked to the waist, stood at his shop door cooling his heated body. Behind him in the dark shop as the boy opened the oven door and fed the flame with armfuls of brushwood, we caught the roar and blaze of fagots in a fiery cavern.

Giuseppe, a radical (the _parroco_ says a Freemason, that means sure damnation) stood at his door as the procession passed and nodded to his little girl, the prettiest of the attendant cherubim, dropping rosebuds. It is pleasant to see one’s daughter chosen before others, and religion is an excellent thing in woman, according to Giuseppe’s philosophy. The crisp, appetizing smell of his hot bread suggested luncheon, which, in honor of the _festa_, was served on the terrace. The atmosphere has been ecstatically clear and golden all day, the view sublime, snow-clad peaks in the distance, the foreground purple, hazy, delicious. The bells of St. Peter’s (silent since Holy Thursday) have made constant music in the air. A fine day, with a trifle too much breeze for dignity; it blows the girls’ curls and draperies, even the scant skirts of the young priest pacing back and forth on the monastery terrace across the way, breviary in hand. He always ignores our presence, looks through us as if we were made of glass; but I catch him gazing with longing eyes at our roses and lilies that nod and gossip behind their screen of ivy; at the passion flowers and honeysuckles, haunts of the bee and butterfly. He knows as well as we do every stage of our roof garden’s history since that day six years ago when we potted the pink ivy geranium and the white carnation from the Campo di Fiori, the beginning of this earthly paradise. We have had a great deal of rain lately, which has been good for the yellow and orange-colored lichens that enamel the tiled roofs all about us, and alas! very good for slugs and snails. As to wall flowers, they simply ramp from every crack and cranny of the gorgeous _cinque cento_ cornice, with its sharp-cut egg and dart (symbols of life and death), fragments of which still cling to the inner walls of our courtyard. The wild flowers run riot over the Corridojo di Castello, the quaint old fortified passage leading from the Vatican to the Castel Sant’ Angelo. The Corridojo, built of tufa stone, is two stories high; the upper story is open like a loggia, the lower closed, with little slits to let in the light. Just behind our Palazzo the Corridojo crosses a back street by an enchanting arch, with the arms of the Pope who built or restored it carved on a stone escutcheon. In the old days the passage was used in time of danger as an escape from the Vatican to the fortress of Sant’ Angelo; the Pope himself always kept the keys, according to Patsy, who dropped in for tea and _maritozzi_ and gave us a discourse on the subject.

“Who keeps the keys now?” I asked.

“_Chi lo sa?_ Since 1870 the Corridojo has been walled up. I once got a peep into it. ’T is going to wrack and ruin, which is a shame and disgrace.”

“Whose fault is it?”

“_Chi lo sa?_ Lay it to the municipality,--they deserve a few extra curses thrown in for luck, on account of the artificial rockwork with which they are defacing the Pincio and the Janiculum.”

“Perhaps the Corridojo is no-man’s-land, now that the Vatican belongs to the Pope and the fortress to the King?”

“_Chi lo sa?_” said Patsy again. “When the Italians came to Rome they meant to leave the Borgo under the temporal control of the papacy. Consequently at the first plebiscite (October 2, 1870) no urn was provided for the Borgo’s vote. You don’t suppose a fellow like that,” he pointed to the baker, “would let such a little thing keep him out of United Italy? The first returns of the day were brought in from this, the fourteenth, _rione_ (ward), by two strapping fellows, who marched up to the Capitol carrying between them a big urn with the votes from the Borgo. I have heard that your friend the baker’s father was one of them.”

“And this morning that man’s granddaughter walked in the procession of the Sacrament!”

“For the matter of that, here comes Prince Nero’s grandson wearing the King’s uniform. Both Blacks and Whites, _Dio grazie_, are fast fading into Grays.”

Beppino, very stiff in his military togs, was shown up on the terrace by Nena the shabby, who always manages to open the door to fashionable visitors.

“How do you like your service, Beppino? Your uniform is very becoming,” I began.

“I don’t like it at all! Fancy being obliged to clean one’s own horse, to polish one’s own boots--it’s not to be endured!”

It has to be endured; and, moreover, Beppino is enormously improved by his six months’ endurance of the obligatory military service. Those fiery brown eyes of his have grown serious.

“Is it true that you voted at the last election?” asked Patsy.

“It is true,” said Beppino.

“How did your grandfather take it?” Patsy persisted.

“I asked the Prince’s leave,” Beppino replied. “He said that for thirty years he had obeyed the Pope and abstained from voting, that he was too old to change his politics, but that I was free to do as I liked.”

“How do you account for such an extraordinary change of heart?”

“It’s all the Queen’s doing; she is so good; she is so clever. We Italians owe more to her than to any one alive to-day!”

Beppino is the son of the son of one of the stoutest pillars of the Church.

“_Avanti la caccia_ (On with the chase)!” Patsy and I had been snail hunting when Beppino came up.

“Here is a sharp stick; if you run it round under the edge of the flower-pot you will get them quicker. Snail, I condemn you to the parabolic death!” Beppino threw a large fat snail out over the terrace wall. “That’s the easiest way; it spares our feelings and gives the snail a chance for his life. He disappears in a parabolic curve; he may fall upon a passing load of hay and be carried away to batten upon other rose-leaves.”

Suddenly, like thunder out of a clear sky, there appeared upon the peaceful terrace the _parroco_, with two black-a-vised French priests, preceded and announced by Nena. The _parroco_ apologized; he said the gentlemen were anxious to see our view. The elder Frenchman never looked at the view at all, but examined the walls of the palace in a way I did not like. The _parroco_ is always a welcome, if scarcely an easy guest. I hated his friends; they glanced with so indifferent an eye at the flowers and seemed so much more interested in the chimneys that J. and Lorenzo had cleverly contrived to keep me warm. When at last the three black figures disappeared down the terrace stairs, we other three drew a long breath.

“Good riddance,” said Patsy.

“You have not seen the last of their cassocks nor them,” said Beppino (he had an English nurse and governess, and speaks rather better English than most people). “I believe they mean to buy the palazzo over your heads. When will your lease be up?”

“In September; but we have the right to renew.”

“No Roman lease holds in case of sale,” said Beppino. “You will find that clause in your contract. You will see I am right. Some time ago _Sua Santita_ requested such religious orders as had no house in Rome to establish one here. During the _Anno Santo_ many have acted on the hint and bought property in Rome. I heard my grandfather say there were some French monks looking out for a place near the Vatican. This is just the sort of thing that would suit them.”

Was not that a thunder clap? Characteristic too that Beppino, the astute Roman, should first suspect it. When J. came home from the studio and heard of the priests’ visit, he said: “Beppino is right; the Palazzo Rusticucci will be transformed into a monastery. They have already turned Mr. Vedder out of his studio after twenty years; we shall be the next to go.”

I can’t and won’t believe that this may be our last Easter here. Just as terrace and house have grown to fit us like soul and body, to be turned out into the bare, ugly world of hotels,--impossible!

The other day when I was at the studio J. told me that in consequence of the disappearance of ten francs he had finally decided to part with Pietro. He has often arrived at this decision before, but the creature, with a sort of uncanny second sight, always disarms him just in time by some act of faithfulness, some pretty attention; for Pietro is one of those Italians with a real genius for service. I happened to be at the studio when he applied to J. for the place and overheard their conversation.

“Signorino,” Pietro began, “you are my unique hope; do not abandon me, the poor _disgraziato_ you have befriended so long: I regard you as my father.” (Pietro is at least twenty years older than J.)

“Where have you been all this time?” J. asked.

“Signorino, it is necessary for me to tell you the truth, or some unsympathetic person might do so: I have been in prison, though I am quite innocent.”

“What were you charged with?”

“It was that affair with Fagiolo the model; you perhaps remember.”

“The time you bit Fagiolo in the leg and gave him such a _coltellata_ (stab) that he had to be sent to San Giacomo (the hospital)? I remember.”

“_La storia era molto esaggerata, però non potevo mai vedere quell’uomo_ (The story was much exaggerated, but I never could bear the sight of that man).”

J. remembered the affair, and thought Pietro had been rather hardly dealt with.

“Since I was discharged it is impossible to find employment; nobody wants a man, however innocent, who has been in prison.”

“Where is your wife?”

“_Aimé!_ was there ever so unfortunate a man? Zenobia, who, as you know, is a good seamstress and my sole means of support, broke her leg yesterday; this morning they carried her to the hospital of the Santo Spirito.”

J. engaged him on the spot, and Pietro has been in charge of the studio ever since. He has done very well; the only trouble has been that small sums of money, cigarettes, and boxes of matches are always disappearing. J. has spoken several times to Pietro about it. He always denies having taken anything. J. feels very half hearted about sending him away; he says that it will be impossible for the man to get another situation if he dismisses him for stealing. Besides, except for the pilfering, Pietro is the very man for the place; he takes good care of the studio, knows all about cleaning palettes and washing brushes, keeps the courtyard neat and full of such growing things as can exist with the little sun that penetrates to it, and is devoted to J.’s happy family, which just now consists of Checca, the lame jackdaw, bought from some boys in the street who were tormenting her, a pair of ducks, a stray black dog, and the prettiest maltese kitten you ever saw.

The jackdaw, a most diverting bird, is as curious as a coon. The other day she flew up on the easel from behind and pecked a hole in the picture on which J. was working. She put her closed bill through the canvas, then opened it wide, which made a straight up and down tear, to which the creature put her ridiculous eye and peeped through to see what J. was doing.

“Do you really think Pietro is the thief?” I asked. “It would be too suicidal in him to throw away his last chance!”

“Just what Pietro says,” answered J., “but who else can it be? There is a Yale lock to the door with two keys; I keep one, Pietro the other.”

While we were talking about him, Pietro came in to move an old stove which had stood in the corner of the studio all winter without being lighted. J. is sending it with other household stuff to the auction room. As Pietro moved the stove its door swung open and out rolled a quantity of cigarettes, matches, silver and copper coin, paint rags, orange peel, and among the rubbish a brand new ten-franc note.

“Caw, Caw!” screamed Checca, flapping across the floor and scolding at Pietro.

“_Ah! Madonna dei setti dolori!_” Pietro, swearing horribly, fell upon his knees, clasped his hands, invoked every holy thing he knew.

“_Santa Maria, eccomi vindicato! Ah ladrone! Ah birborne_ (Behold me vindicated. O thief! O villain)!”

“Caw, Caw!” screamed Checca, pecking at Pietro’s legs. He was at first ready to wring her neck; then he grew lachrymose and tender.

“_Ah! Ah! Pietro sfortunato! Guardi, Signora mia_, was I not born unlucky? First I am sent to prison on the false oath of a rascally man. _Adesso, anche la gazza m’inganna, mi perseguita_, (Now even the jackdaw deceives me, persecutes me)!”

Plumped down on his knees there in the middle of the studio, poor Pietro began to cry like a baby. It ended in his getting the ten-franc note as a _mancia_, and Checca’s being so stuffed with good things that she is in a state of coma and on the verge of apoplexy. Truth really is stranger than fiction. I never before had much faith in the Jackdaw of Rheims.

June 10, 1900.

As we sat at dinner last night a messenger from the Casa Reale was announced. J. went out to receive him in person. He had brought a letter from a great personage at court to say that the Queen would come to the studio the next day to see J.’s decoration for the Boston Public Library. That was rather short notice for such an honor, but we did all we could to make the old barrack of a studio fit to receive the dear and lovely lady. We were up at dawn. Pietro had already turned the hose on the brick paved floors and stone steps. The first thing in the morning we were warned by the police that no one, not even our servants, must know of the visit beforehand, so we gave it out that Lord Curry, the British Ambassador, was coming to the studio, which was quite true. J. had called up the Embassy, and Lord Curry had promised, by telephone, to be on hand.

We telephoned the Signora Villegas asking if she could spare Lorenzo, who turned up at eleven with, I should think, every flower the Villino garden contained. The bouquet for the Queen I made myself of flowers from the terrace, gardenias, passion flowers, and maidenhair fern. We sent over to the studio from the house the fine old Portuguese leather armchair in which my mother sat to Villegas for her portraits some rugs, and the gold screens Isabel and Larz brought us from Japan.

You never saw a more squalid street than the Borgo Sant’ Angelo. I very much doubt if the Queen had ever entered so queer a door as the little antique green studio door with the modern Yale lock. The studio is up two long flights of stairs, with an iron railing, quite like a prison stair. If we had been given longer notice we could have done more to make things presentable; but that was a mere detail. The main thing was that the afternoon was fine, the light perfect. The days here are so much longer than at home that the hour named, six o’clock, was the very best in the twenty-four to see the pictures. We had never really believed that the Queen would come to the studio, though we had heard of her interest in seeing the work. There is a sort of tradition that the royal family very rarely come over to the Borgo, out of regard for the feelings of the Pope. During the day one and another secret service man in plain clothes arrived in the Borgo on their bicycles, and lounged about the street corners or in the cafés. At five several _guardie_ in uniform arrived. We went over to the studio at half-past five in order to be in time to receive Lord Curry. J. went by the Borgo Nuovo and stopped at the front of the Palazzo Giraud Torlonia (the studio, you remember, is in the rear of the palace, with an entrance on the back street, Borgo Sant’ Angelo) to ask the proud young porter of the Torlonia to open the studio door, and generally stand by us. The Haywards, who live on the _piano nobile_, are the swells of the Borgo; they pay the proud young porter his wages, and they are in close relation with the Vatican. Fortunately they were out of town and never knew that we borrowed their porter to open the door to the Queen.

“The _Ambasciatore Inglese_ and other _personnaggi_ of importance are to visit my studio presently; do me the favor to open the door for them,” said J.

“_Volontiere, Signore mio, un momento_; I will change my coat and be with you instantly!”

The nearest way from the front of the Torlonia to the back is by the Vicolo dell’ Erba, a narrow little alley which runs beside the palace. We never use it--’t is so evil smelling, badly paved, and generally poverty stricken--unless we are in a great hurry. J. being pressed for time naturally took the _vicolo_. He happened to be wearing a red cravat,--in Italy, especially in Rome, supposed to be the badge of the anarchists and avoided by the Romans, and, one would fancy, by the anarchists accordingly. Of course all the _guardie_ of our quarter know the _pittore Inglese_ by sight, but the extra ones detailed for the day did not. Hurrying through the _vicolo_, J. ran round the corner into the Borgo Sant’ Angelo, and into the arms of one of these extraneous _guardie_, ordered to be on the lookout for suspicious characters. His eye caught the red cravat.

“_Scusi, Signore_; where might you be going in such a hurry?”

“I am going to No. 125, Borgo Sant’ Angelo.”

“You have business of importance there, or you would not be in so much haste?”

“Yes; I am late for an appointment.”

“With whom?”

“That is a private matter and one which does not concern----”

At this hectic moment the proud young porter came hurrying along the _vicolo_, buttoning his gold-laced coat as he ran. He took in the situation at a glance, and with the exquisite tact of his people went bail for the _pittore Inglese_ without seeming to do so.

“Is there anything I can do for you in the studio, Signore, before their excellencies arrive?” he asked.

“You know this gentleman?” demanded the _guardia_ suspiciously.

“Know him! I have known him all my life! It is the gentleman who occupies the studio in the rear of the palace.”

“A thousand pardons, Signore,” said the _guardia_, with a magnificent military salute. J. had to thank the porter for not having been detained as “a suspicious person” during the time of the Queen’s visit to his studio.

A minute or two before the appointed hour we all went down into the vestibule. There was an odd hushed feeling in the street: a watering cart had just passed, the square gray cobble-stones were still wet, the air moist. Pietro had found time to pull up the weeds and grass from the pavement (worn into ruts by centuries of cart-wheels) in front of our door, and to clear away the bits of water-melon rind which the boys of the Borgo use as roller skates, in a game that I believe is indigenous to our quarter. Just as the bells of the Castle Sant’ Angelo were ringing six, we heard the jingling of chains and the sound of tramping horses. We were all on the sidewalk as the carriage with the scarlet liveries drew up before the studio. The proud young porter, his hand on the knob of the studio door, made the most sumptuous bow as the footman opened the door of the landeau. Lord Curry handed out the Queen,

From a pastel drawing in the Collection of Mrs. David Kimball]

presented J., then gave her his arm and led her up the dreadful long stair. Her lady in waiting, the Duchess Massimo, and the gentleman of the court in attendance, followed, looking aghast and rather scornful at the queer steps; but the royal lady never flinched; she walked up the stairway with as gay and light a step as if she were treading the red carpet of the Quirinale. Once in the studio one lost sight of the royal personage in the _connoisseur_, the lover and patron of art. It is no wonder that the artists look upon her as their friend. To her art is one of the serious concerns of life, one of the matters which it is her duty as a sovereign, as the mother of her people, to foster by every means in her power.