OF
POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
FEBRUARY, 1875.
Vol. XV, No. 86
TABLE OF CONTENTS. Page
FOLLOWING THE TIBER.
CONCLUDING PAPER. [137]
SIX MONTHS AMONG CANNIBALS. [ 152]
AN AMERICAN GIRL AND HER LOVERS. by Mary E. Blair. [ 160]
A JAPANESE MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE. by W.E. Griffis. [ 176]
THE LOST BABY. by Clara G. Dolliver. [183]
FEVER. by H.C. Wood, Jr., M.D. [197]
SONNET. by Charlotte F. Bates. [204]
SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF HIRAM POWERS.
by T. Adolphus Trollope. [ 205]
CORN. by Sidney Lanier. [216]
GENTLEMAN DICK. by W. Mackay Laffan. [220]
A SINGULAR FAMILY. by Clelia Lega Weeks. [227]
THE MATCHLESS ONE: A TALE OF AMERICAN SOCIETY,
IN FOUR CHAPTERS. by Ita Aniol Prokop.
PROLOGUE. [236]
CHAPTER I. [236]
CHAPTER II. [242]
THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES OF PARIS.
by Lucy H. Hooper. [ 248]
OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
GYPSY MUSIC IN HUNGARY. by E.C.R.[ 253]
THE "GIORNO DEI MORTI." by T.A.T.[ 256]
MR. MILL'S MOTHER. [260]
NOTES. [260]
LITERATURE OF THE DAY. [262]
Books Received. [264]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
[TEMPLE OF THE CLITUMNUS.]
[THE FALLS OF TERNI.]
[ORVIETO.]
[CIVITÀ BAGNOREA.]
[THE TIBER, FROM ORTE.]
[BORGHETTO.]
[ST. PETER'S AND THE VATICAN, FROM THE FALLS OF THE TIBER.]
[THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO.]
[ISLAND OF THE TIBER.]
[CUPOLA OF ST. PETER'S.]
[THE PINCIO, FROM THE VILLA BORGHESE.]
[SORACTE.]
[VEII, FROM THE CAMPAGNA.]
[TIVOLI.]
[CASTLE AT OSTIA.]
[HEAD OF THE TRAJAN CANAL, NEAR OSTIA.]
[A HALT IN THE BRUSH.]
[IARAT, DAUGHTER OF THE CHIEF OUNDO.]
[A KANACKA FAMILY TRAVELING.]
FOLLOWING THE TIBER.
CONCLUDING PAPER.
TEMPLE OF THE CLITUMNUS.
One branch of the little river which encompasses Assisi is the Clitumnus, the delight of philosophers and poets in the Augustan age. Near its source stands a beautiful little temple to the divinity of the stream. Although the ancients resorted hither for the loveliness of the spot, they did not bathe in the springs, a gentle superstition holding it sacrilege for the human body to lave itself in a stream near its source.
THE FALLS OF TERNI.
They came by the Via Flaminia, the old high-road from Rome to Florence, which crosses the modern railroad hard by. Following its course, which takes a more direct line than the devious Tiber, past Spoleto on its woody castellated height, the traveler reaches Terni on the tumultuous Nar, the wildest and most rebellious of all the tributaries. It was to save the surrounding country from its outbreaks that the channel was made by the Romans B.C. 271, the first of several experiments which resulted in these cascades, which have been more sung and oftener painted than any other in the world. The beauty of Terni is so hackneyed that enthusiasm over it becomes cockney, yet the beauty of hackneyed things is as eternal as the verity of truisms, and no more loses its charm than the other its point. But one must not talk about it. The foaming torrent rages along between its rocky walls until spanned by the bridge of Augustus at Narni, a magnificent viaduct sixty feet high, thrown from ridge to ridge across the ravine for the passage of the Flaminian Way—a wreck now, for two of the arches have fallen, but through the last there is a glimpse of the rugged hillsides with their thick forests and the turbulent waters rushing through the chasm. Higher still is Narni, looking over her embattled walls. It is one of the most striking positions on the way from Florence to Rome, and the next half hour, through savage gorges and black tunnels, ever beside the tormented waters of the Nar until they meet the Tiber, swollen by the tributes of the Paglia and Chiana, is singularly fine.
Where the Paglia and Chiana flow together, at the issue of the charming Val di Chiana, stands Orvieto on its steep and sudden rock, crowned with one of the triumphs of Italian Gothic, the glorious cathedral. After toiling up the ladder-like paths which lead from the plain to the summit of the bluff, and passing through the grand mediæval gateway along the slanting streets, where even the peasants dismount and walk beside their donkeys, seeing nothing within the whole small compass of the walls save what speaks of the narrowest and humblest life in the most remote of hill-fastnesses,a few deserted and dilapidated palaces alone telling of a period of importance long past, nothing can describe the effect of coming out of this indigence and insignificance upon the silent, solitary piazza where the incomparable cathedral rears its front, covered from base to pinnacle with the richest sculpture and most brilliant mosaic.
ORVIETO.
The volcanic mass on which the town is built is over seven hundred feet high, and nearly half as much in circumference: it would be a fitting pedestal for this gorgeous duomo if it stood there alone. But it is almost wedged in among the crooked streets, a few paces of grass-grown stones allowing less than space enough to embrace the whole result of proportion and color: one cannot go far enough off to escape details. An account of those details would require a volume, and one has already been written which leaves no more to be said;[1] yet fain would we take the reader with us into that noble nave, where the "glorious company of the apostles" stands colossal in marble beside the pillars whose sculptured capitals are like leafy branches blown by the wind; where the light comes rich and mellow through stained glass and semilucent alabaster, like Indian-summer sunshine in autumn woods; where Fra Angelico's and Benozzo Gozzoli's angelic host smile upon us with ineffable mildness from above the struggle and strife of Luca Signorelli's "Last Judgment," the great forerunner of Michael Angelo's. It added greatly to the impressiveness that there was never a single human being in the cathedral: except one afternoon at vespers we had it all to ourselves. There is little else to see in the place, although it is highly picturesque and the inhabitants wear a more complete costume than any other I saw in Italy—the women, bright bodices, striped skirts and red stockings; the men, jaunty jackets and breeches, peaked hats and splendid sashes.
The discomfort of Perugia was luxury to what we found at Orvieto, and it was no longer May but December, when it is nearly as cold north of Rome as with us; and Rome was drawing us with her mighty magnet. So, one wintry morning, soon after daybreak, we set out in a close carriage with four horses, wrapped as if we were going in a sleigh, with a scaldino (or little brazier) under our feet, for the nearest railway station on our route, a nine hours' drive. Our way lay through the snow-covered hills and their leafless forest, and long after we had left Orvieto behind again and again a rise in the road would bring it full in sight on its base of tufa, girt by its walls, the Gothic lines of the cathedral sharp against the clear, brightening sky. At our last look the sun was not up, but broad shafts of light, such as painters throw before the chariot of Phoebus, refracted against the pure æther, spread like a halo round the threefold pinnacles: a moment more and Orvieto was hidden behind a higher hill, not to be seen again. All day we drove among the snow-bound hills and woods, past the Lake of Bolsena in its forbidding beauty; past small valleys full of naked fruit trees and shivering olives, which must be nooks of loveliness in spring; past defiant little towns aloft on their islands of tufa, like Bagnorea with its single slender bell-tower; past Montefiascone with its good old story about Cardinal Fugger and the native wine.
CIVITÀ BAGNOREA.
THE TIBER, FROM ORTE.
We stopped to lunch at Viterbo, a town more closely connected with the history of the Papacy than any except Rome itself, and full of legends and romantic associations: it is dirty and dilapidated, and has great need of all its memories. Being but eight miles from Montefiascone, we called for a bottle of the fatal Est, which we had tasted once at Augsburg, where the host of the Three Moors has it in his cellar, in honor perhaps of the departed Fugger family, whose palace has become his hotel: there we had found it delicious—a wine as sweet as cordial, with a soul of fire and a penetrating but delicate flavor of its own—how different from the thin, sour stuff they brought us in the long-necked, straw-covered flask, nothing to attest its relationship to the generous juice at the Three Moors except the singular, unique flavor! After this little disappointment we left Viterbo, and drove on through the same sort of scenery, which seemed to grow more and more beautiful in the rosy light of the sinking sun. But it is hard to tell, for nothing makes a journey so beautiful as to know that Rome is the goal.
BORGHETTO.
As the last rays were flushing the hill-tops we came in sight of Orte, with its irregular lines of building clinging to the sides of its precipitous cliff in such eyrie-wise that it is difficult to say what is house and what is rock, and whether the arched passages with which it is pierced are masonry or natural grottoes; and there was the Tiber—already the yellow Tiber—winding through the valley as far as eye could follow. Here we waited for the train, which was ten minutes late, and tried to make up for lost time by leaving our luggage, all duly marked and ready, standing on the track. We soon began to greet familiar sites as we flitted by: the last we made out plainly was Borghetto, a handful of houses, with a ruined castle keeping watch on a hill hard by: then twilight gathered, and we strained our eyes in vain for the earliest glimpse of Mount Soracte, and night came down before we could descry the first landmarks of the Agro Romano, the outposts of our excursions, the farm-towers we knew by name, the farthest fragments of the aqueducts. But it was not so obscure that we could not discern the Tiber between his low banks showing us the way, the lights quivering in the Anio as the train rushed over the bridge; and when at length we saw against the clear night-sky a great dark barrier stretching right and left, we knew that the walls of Rome were once more before us: in a moment we had glided through with slackening speed, and her embrace enfolded us again.
The Tiber, winding as it does like a great artery through the heart of Rome, is seldom long either out of sight or mind. One constantly comes upon it in the most unexpected manner, for there is no river front to the city. There is a wide open space on the Ripetta—a street which runs from the Piazza del Popolo, at the head of the foreign quarter, to remoter parts—where a broad flight of marble steps descends to the level of the flood, and a ferry crosses to the opposite bank: looking over at the trees and fields, it is like the open country, yet beyond are St. Peter's and the Vatican, and the whole of what is known as the Leonine City.
But one cannot follow the Tiber through the streets of Rome as one may the Seine in Paris: in the thickly-built quarters the houses back upon the stream and its yellow waves wash their foundations, working wrath and woe from time to time, as those who were there in the winter of 1870 will recollect. Sometimes it is lost to sight for half a mile together, unless one catches a glimpse of it through the carriage-way of a palace.
ST. PETER'S AND THE VATICAN, FROM THE FALLS OF THE TIBER.
THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO.
From the wharf of the Ripetta it disappears until you come upon it again at the bridge of St. Angelo, the Ælian bridge of ancient Rome, which is the most direct passage from the fashionable and foreign quarter to the Trastevere. It must be confessed that the idle sense of mere pleasure generally supersedes recollection and association after one's first astonishment to find one's self among the historic places subsides; yet how often, as our horses' hoofs rang on the slippery stones, my thoughts went suddenly back to the scene when Saint Gregory passed over, chanting litanies, at the head of the whole populace, who formed one vast penitential procession, and saw the avenging angel alight on the mausoleum of Adrian and sheath his sword in sign that the plague was stayed; or to that terrible day when the ferocious mercenaries of the Constable de Bourbon and the wretched inhabitants given over to sack and slaughter swarmed across together, butchering and butchered, while the troops in the castle hurled down what was left of its classic statues upon the heads of friend and foe, and the Tiber was turned to blood!
ISLAND OF THE TIBER.
From the bridge of St. Angelo the river is lost again for a long distance, although one can make one's way to it at various points—where at low water the submerged piers of the Pons Triumphalis are to be seen, where the Ponte Sisto leads to the foot of the Janiculum Hill, and on the opposite bank the orange-groves of the Farnesina palace hang their golden fruit and dusky foliage over the long garden-wall upon the river—until we come to the Ponte Quatro Capi (Bridge of the Four Heads) and the island of the Tiber.This is said to have been formed in the kingly period by the accumulation of a harvest cast into the stream a little way above, which the current could not sweep away: it made a nucleus for alluvial deposit, and the island gradually arose. Several hundred years afterward it was built into the form of a ship, as bridges and wharves are built, with a temple in the midst, and a tall obelisk set up in guise of its mast. In mediæval days a church replaced the heathen fane, and now it stands between its two bridges, a huddle of houses, terraces and gardens, whence one looks down on the fine mass of the Ponte Rotto (Broken Bridge), whose shattered arches pause in mid-stream, and across to the low arch of the Cloaca Maxima and the exquisite little circular temple of Vesta. From here down, the river is in full view from either side until it passes beyond the walls near the Monte Testaccio—on one side the Ripa Grande (Great Bank or Wharf), a long series of quays, on the other the Marmorata or marble landing, where the ships from the quarries unload. Here, on each side, all sorts of small craft lie moored, not betokening a very extensive commerce from their size and shape, but quaint and oddly rigged, making a very good fore-or back-ground, according as one looks at the picture. The Marmorata is at the foot of the Aventine, the most lonely and unvisited of the Seven Hills. From among the vegetable-gardens and cypress-groves which clothe its long flank rise large, formless piles, whose foundations are as old as the Eternal City, and whose superstructures are the wreck of temples of the kingly and republican periods, and palaces and villas of imperial times, and haughty feudal abodes, only to be distinguished from one another by the antiquary amid their indiscriminate ruin and the tangle of wild-briers and fern, ivy and trailers with which they are overgrown. On the summit no trace of ancient Rome is to be seen. There are no dwellings of men on this deserted ground: a few small and very early Christian churches have replaced the temples which once stood here, to be in their turn neglected and forsaken: they stand forlornly apart, separated by vineyards and high blank walls. On the brow of the hill is the esplanade of a modern fort, and within its quiet precincts are the church and priory of the Knights of Malta—nothing but a chapel and small villa as abandoned as the rest. After toiling up a steep and narrow lane between two walls, our carriage stopped at a solid wooden gateway, and the coachman told us to get out and look through the keyhole. We were aghast, but he insisted, laughing and nodding; so we pocketed our pride and peeped.
CUPOLA OF ST. PETER'S.
Through an overarching vista of dark foliage was seen, white and golden in a blaze of sunshine, the cupola of St. Peter's, which is at the farthest end of the city, two miles at the least as the crow flies. When the gate was opened we entered a sweet little garden full of violets, traversed by an alley of old ilex trees, through which appeared the noble dome, and which led from the gate to a terrace overhanging the Tiber—I will not venture to guess how far below—more like two than one hundred feet; perhaps still farther. On the edge of the terrace was an arbor, and here we sank down enchanted, to drink in the view of the city, which spread out under our eyes as we had never seen it from any other point. But the custodino's wife urged us to come into the Priorato and see the view from the upper story. We followed her, reluctant to leave the sunshine and soft air, up a stiff winding staircase, through large, dark, chilly, long-closed apartments, until we reached the top, where there was a great square room occupying the whole floor. She flung open the windows, and never did such a panorama meet my eyes. There were windows on every side: to the north, one looked across the city to St. Peter's, the Vatican, the Castle of St. Angelo, the Tiber with its great bends and many bridges, and to lonely, far-away Soracte; westward, on the other side of the river, rose the Janiculum with its close-wedged houses, grade on grade, and on its summit the church of San Pietro in Montorio and the flashing cataract of the Acqua Paola fountain, the stone-pines of the Villa Dolia cresting the ridge above; eastward, the Palatine, a world of ruins in a world of gardens, lay between us and the Coliseum, and over them and the wall, the aqueducts, the plain, the eye ranged to the snow-capped Sabine Hills, on whose many-colored declivities tiny white towns were dotted like browsing sheep; southward, we gazed down upon the Pyramid of Cestius, upon the beautiful Protestant cemetery with its white monuments and dark cypresses where lie Shelley and Keats, upon the stately Porta San Paolo, a great mediæval gateway flanked with towers, and beyond, the Campagna, purple, violet, ultramarine, oceanic, rolling out toward the Alban Hills, which glittered with snow, rising sharply like island-peaks and sloping down like promontories into the plain; and over all the sun and sky and shadows of Italy.
THE PINCIO, FROM THE VILLA BORGHESE.
The prospect from the Priorato surpasses anything in Rome—even the wonderful view from the Janiculum, even the enchanting outlook from the Pincian Hill. But the last was at our very doors: we could go thither in the morning to watch the white mist curl up from the valleys and hang about the mountain-brows, and at noon, when even in January the cool avenues and splashing fountains were grateful, and at sunset, when the city lay before us steeped in splendor. That was the view of our daily walks—the beloved view of which one thinks most often and fondly in remembering Rome.
SORACTE.
But it is in riding that one grows to feel most familiar with the Tiber and all his Roman children, whether it be strolling somewhat sulkily in a line with his banks by the Via Flaminia or the Via Cassia, impatient to get away from their stones and dust to the soft, springing turf; or hailing him from afar as a guide after losing one's self in the endless undulations of the open country; or cantering over daffodil-sheeted meadows beside the Anio at the foot of the grassy heights on which Antemnæ stood; or threading one's way doubtfully among the ravines which intersect the course of the little Cremera as one goes to Veii.
VEII, FROM THE CAMPAGNA.
The last is a most beautiful and interesting expedition, for, what with the distance—more than twelve miles—and the difficulty of finding the way, it is quite an enterprise. As one turns his horse's head away from the river, off the high-road, to the high grassy flats, the whole Campagna seems to lie before one like a vast table-land, with nothing between one's self and Soracte as he lifts his heavy shoulder from the plain—not half hidden by intervening mountains, as from some points of view, but majestic and isolated, thirty miles away to the north. But here, as in every other part of the Campagna, one cannot go far without finding hillocks and hollows, long steep slopes and sudden little dells, and, stranger still, unsuspected tracts of woodland, for the general effect of the Roman landscape is quite treeless. So there is a few miles' gallop across the trackless turf, sometimes asking the way of a solitary shepherd, who looms up against the sky like a tower, sometimes following it by faint landmarks, few and far between, of which we have been told, and hard to find in that waste, until we pass a curious little patriarchal abode shaped like a wigwam, where, in the midst of these wide pastures dwells a herdsman surrounded by his family, his cattle, his dogs, his goats and his fowls—the beautiful animals of the Campagna, long-haired, soft-eyed, rich-colored, like the human children of the soil. Then we strike the Cremera, and exploring begins among its rocky gullies, up and down which the spirited, sure-footed horses scramble like chamois. Thick woods of cork-oak clothe their sides, and copses of a deciduous tree which I never saw in its summer dress of green, but which keeps its dead leaves all through the winter, a full suit of soft, pale brown contrasting with the dark evergreens. Among these woods grow all the wild-flowers of the long Roman spring from January to May—flowers that I never saw in bloom at the same time anywhere else. On banks overcanopied by faded boughs nodded myriads of snowdrops; farther on we held our horses' heads well up as they slipped, almost sitting, down the damp rocky clefts of a gorge whose sides were purple with violets, mingling their delicious odor, the sweetest and most sentimental of perfumes, with the fresh, geranium-like scent of the cyclamen, which here and there flung back its delicate pinkish petals like one amazed: then came acres of anemones—not our pale wind-shaken flower, but brave asters of half a dozen superb kinds. Up and down these passes we forced our way through interlacing branches, which drooped too low, until we had crossed the ridges on either side the Cremera, and gained the valley at the head of which is Isola Farnese, the rock-fortress supposed to occupy the site of the citadel of Etruscan Veii. It is not really an island, in spite of its name; only a bold peninsula, round whose base two rivulets flow and nearly meet. It is called a village, and so it is, with quite a population, but the great courtyard of the fifteenth-century castle contains them all, and the huts, pig-pens, kennels and coops which they seem to inhabit indiscriminately. Except where the bluff overlooks the valley, everything is closed and shut in by rocks and gorges, through one of which a lovely waterfall drips from a covert of boughs and shrubbery and wreathing ferns and creepers into a little stream, which with musical clamor rushes at a picturesque old mill: through another the road from the castle passes through a narrow issue to the outer world. And this stranded and shipwrecked fortress in the midst of so wild a scene is all that exists to mark where Veii stood, the powerful city which kept Rome at bay for ten years, and fell at length by stratagem! Its site was forgotten for nearly two thousand years, but in this century the discovery of some tombs revealed the secret.
TIVOLI.
The scenery differs entirely on different sides of Rome. Here there is not a ruin, not a vestige, except a few low heaps of stone-or brickwork hidden by weeds: on the other, toward Tivoli, much of the beauty is due to the work of man—the stately remnants of ancient aqueduct, temple and tomb; the tall square towers of feudal barons, round which cluster low farm-buildings scarcely less old and solid; the vast, gloomy grottoes of Cerbara, which look like the underground palace of a bygone race, but which are the tufa-quarries of classic times; the ruined baths of Zenobia, where the rushing milky waters of the Aquæ Albulæ fill the air with sulphurous fumes; and, as a climax, the Villa of Hadrian, less a country-place than a whole region, a town-in-country, with palace, temples, circus, theatres, baths amidst a tract of garden and pleasure-ground ten miles in circumference. Even when one is familiar with the enormous height and bulk of the Coliseum or the Baths of Caracalla, the extent of the ruins of Hadrian's Villa is overwhelming. Numerous fragments are still standing, graceful and elegant, but a vast many more are buried deep under turf and violets and fern: large cypresses and ilexes have struck root among their stones, and they form artificial hills and vales and great wide plateaus covered with herbage and shrubbery, hardly to be distinguished from the natural accidents of the land. The solitude is as immense as the space. After leaving our carriage we wandered about for hours, sometimes lying in the sunshine at the edge of a great grassy terrace which commands the Campagna and the Agro Romano—beyond whose limits we had come—to where, like a little bell, St. Peter's dome hung faint and blue upon the horizon; sometimes exploring the innumerable porticoes and galleries, and replacing in fancy the Venus de Medici, the Dancing Faun, and all the other shapes of beauty which once occupied these ravished pedestals and niches; sometimes rambling about the flowery fields, and up and down among the hillocks and dells, meeting no one, until at length, when completely bewildered and lost, we fell in with a rustic belonging to the estate, who guided us back. We left the place with the sense of having been in a separate realm, another country, belonging to another age. The whole of that visit to Tivoli was like a dream. The sun was sinking when we left the precincts of the villa, and twilight stole upon us, wrapping all the landscape on which we looked back in softer folds of shade, and resolving its features into large, calm masses, as the horses labored up the narrow, stony road into a mysterious wood of gigantic olives, gnarled, twisted and rent as no other tree could be and live. The scene was wild and weird in the dying light, and it grew almost savage as we wound upward among the robber-haunted hills. Night had fallen before we reached the mountain-town. Our coachman dashed through the dark slits of streets, where it seemed as if our wheels must strike the houses on each side, cracking his whip and jingling the bells of the harness. Under black archways sat groups of peasants, their swart visages lit up from below by the glow of a brazier, while a flaring torch stuck through a ring overhead threw fierce lights and shadows across the scene. Sharp cries and shouts like maledictions rose as we passed, and as we turned into the little square on which the inn stands we wondered in what sort of den we should have to lodge. We followed our host of the little Albergo della Regnia up the steep stone staircase with many misgivings: he flung open a door, and we beheld a carpeted room, all furnished and hung with pink chintz covered with cupids and garlands. There were sofas, low arm-chairs, a writing-table with appurtenances, a tea-table with snowy linen and a hissing brass tea-kettle. Opening from this were two little white nests of bed-rooms, with tin bath-tubs and an abundance of towels. We could not believe our eyes: here were English comfort and French taste. Were we in May Fair or the Rue de Rivoli? Or was it a fairy-tale?
CASTLE AT OSTIA.
The fairy-tale went on next day, when, after wending our way through the dirty, crooked little streets, we crossed a courtyard and descended a long subterranean stairway to emerge on a magnificent terrace with a heavy marble balustrade, whence flights of steps led down to lower grades, amid statues, urns, vases, fountains, reservoirs, camellias in bloom mingled with laurel and myrtle and laurustinums covered with creamy flowers, cypresses tall as cathedral spires, ilex avenues, and broad straight walks between huge walls of box: the whole space was filled with the song of nightingales, the tinkle of falling water, with whiffs of aromatic shrubs and the breath of hidden roses and violets;—a princely garden, a royal pleasaunce, but in exquisite disorder and neglect; the shrubbery too thick and straggling, the flowers straying beyond their rightful boundaries, the statues stained and moss-grown, the balusters entangled in clinging luxuriance, the fountains dripping through fern and maiden-hair—Nature supreme, as one always sees her in this land of Art. It was the Villa d'Este, famous these three hundred years for its fountains and cypresses. Nor did the wonder cease when we forsook this enchanting spot for the mountain-road which overhangs the great ravine. Opposite, backed by mountains, rose the crags topped by the clustering town and all its towers, arches, niches, battlements, bridges, long lines of classic ruins, and on the edge of the abyss the perfect little temple of the Sibyl; rushing down from everywhere the waterfalls, one great column plunging at the head of the gorge, and countless frolic streams, the cascatelle, leaping and dancing from rock to rock through mist and rainbow and extravagance of emerald moss and herbage, down among sea-green, silvery olives, finally sliding away, between softer foliage and verdure, through the valley into the plain—the immense azure plain, with its grand symphonic harmonies of form and color. O land of dreams fulfilled, of satisfied longing! when across these thousands of miles I recall your entrancing charm, your unimaginable beauty, I sometimes wonder if you were not a dream, if you have any place in this real existence, this lower earth: are you still delighting other eyes with the rapture of your loveliness, or were you only an illusion, a vision, which vanishes like the glow of sunset or "golden exhalations of the dawn "?
HEAD OF THE
TRAJAN CANAL,
NEAR OSTIA.
The Campagna has one more aspect, different from all the rest, where the Tiber, weary with his long wanderings, rolls lazily to the sea. It is a dreary waste of swamp and sandhill and scrub growth, but with a forlorn beauty of its own, and the beauty of color, never absent in Italy. The tall, coarse grass and reeds pass through a series of vivid tones, culminating in tawny gold and deep orange, against which the silver-fretted violet blue-green of the Mediterranean assumes a magical splendor. Small, shaggy buffaloes with ferocious eyes, and sometimes a peasant as wild-looking as they, are the only inhabitants of this wilderness. The machicolated towers of Castel Fusano among its grand stone-pines stand up from the marshes, and farther seaward another castle with a single pine; but they only enhance the surrounding loneliness. Ostia, the ancient port, which sea and river have both deserted, is now a city of the dead, a Pompeii above ground, whose avenues of tombs lead to streets of human dwellings more desolate still. It is no longer by Ostia, nor even by the Tiber, that one can reach the sea: the way was choked by sand and silt seventeen centuries ago, and Trajan caused the canal to be made which bears his name; and this is still the outlet from Rome to the Mediterranean, while the river expires among the pestilential marshes.
SIX MONTHS AMONG CANNIBALS.
A HALT IN THE BRUSH.
Perhaps as good an illustration of the purely absurd (according to civilized notions) as can be imagined is a congregation of cannibals in a missionary church weeping bitterly over the story of Calvary. Fresh from their revolting feasts upon the flesh of their conquered enemies, these gentle savages weep over the sufferings of One separated from them by race, by distance, by almost every conceivable lack of the conditions for natural sympathy, and by over eighteen hundred years of time! Surely there must be hope for people who manifest such sensibility, and we may fairly question whether cannibalism be necessarily the sign of the lowest human degradation. A good deal of light is thrown upon the subject by the writings of the young engineer, Jules Garnier, who was lately charged by the French minister of the interior with a mission of exploration in New Caledonia, the Pacific island discovered by Captain Cook just one hundred years ago, and ceded to the French in 1853.
It is about three hundred and sixty miles from Sydney to New Caledonia, a long, narrow island lying just north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and completely surrounded by belts of coral reef crenellated here and there, and forming channels or passes where ships may enter. Navigation through these channels is, however, exceedingly hazardous in any but calm weather; and it was formerly thought that the island was on this account practically valueless for colonization. Once inside them, however, vessels may anchor safely anywhere, for there is in effect a continuous roadstead all around the island. The passage through the narrow pass of Dumbea, just outside of Noumea, affords a striking spectacle. On each side of the ship is a wall of foam, and the reverberating thunder of the waves dashing and breaking upon the jagged reefs keeps the mind in breathless suspense.
The site of Noumea seems to be the most unfortunate that could be chosen. It is a barren, rocky spot, divested of all luxuriance of vegetation, and the nearest water, a brook called Pont des Français, is ten miles away. The appearance of the town, which fronts the harbor in the form of an amphitheatre, the houses and gardens rising higher and higher as they recede from the sea, tended somewhat to reassure the explorer, who had been wondering that human stupidity should have been equal to selecting in a tropical country, and in one of the best-watered islands of the world, such a situation for its capital. Wells are of little account, for the water thus obtained is at the level of the sea, and always salt. The population has to depend upon the rain that falls on roofs, and as the cleanliness of these is of prime importance, domesticating pigeons is strictly forbidden. This might not be much of a deprivation in most places, but in New Caledonia, of all the world, there is a kind of giant pigeon as large as a common hen! This is the noton, (sic) the Carpophage Goliath of the naturalist.
The hotel at Noumea was a kind of barracks, with partitions so slight that every guest was forced to hear every sound in his neighbors' rooms. M. Garnier, to escape this inconvenience, purchased a garden-plot, had a cottage built in a few days, and so became a proprietor in Oceanica. Before setting out on his exploring expedition into the interior he tried to interest the government in a plan for cisterns to supply the city with water—a project easy of execution from the natural conformation of the locality. But his scheme received no encouragement from the old-fogyish authorities. They were at that moment entertaining one which for simplicity reminded Garnier of the egg problem of Columbus. This was to distill the sea-water. He made a calculation of the cost of thus supplying each of the sixteen hundred inhabitants with five quarts of water a day, which showed that the proposition was impracticable under the circumstances.
From the showing of official accounts, this French colony of New Caledonia must be one of the most absurd that exists. The military and naval force far exceeds in number the whole civil population; and this, too, when the natives are quiet and submissive, few in number, and fast dying out through the inordinate use of the worst kind of tobacco, pulmonary consumption and other concomitants of civilization not necessary to enumerate. Contrast this with the rich and populous province of Victoria, which has only three hundred and fifty soldiers; with Brisbane, which has only sixteen to a population of one hundred thousand; and finally Tasmania, which has only seven soldiers for two hundred thousand colonists!
It was believed formerly that New Caledonia was rich in gold-mines, and the principal object of the expedition of M. Garnier was to discover these. After one or two short excursions in the neighborhood of Noumea he set out on an eight months' journey through the entire eastern portion of the island. The plan which he adopted was to double the southern extremity of the island, sail up the eastern coast between the reefs and the mainland, as is the custom, stopping at the principal stations and making long excursions into the interior, accompanied by a guard of seven men. This plan he carried out, though some parts of the country to be explored were inhabited by tribes that had seldom or never seen a European. His testimony as to the almost unexceptionable kindness of the natives, cannibals though they are, must be gratifying to those who accept the doctrine of the brotherhood of man. Of the natives near Balarde he says: "The moment you land all offer to guide your steps, and in every way they can to satisfy your needs. Do you wish to hunt? A native is ever ready to show you the marsh where ducks most abound. Are you hungry or thirsty? They fly to the cocoanut plantation with the agility of monkeys. If a swamp or a brook stops your course, the shoulders of the first comer are ever ready to carry you across. If it rains, they run to bring banana-leaves or make you a shelter of bark. When night comes they light your way with resinous torches, and finally, when you leave them, you read in their faces signs of sincere regret."
Captain Cook, in his eulogies of these gentle savages, probably never dreamed that they were anthropophagi, and if he had known the fact, his kindly nature would have found some extenuation for them. Cannibals, as a rule—certainly those of New Caledonia—do not eat each other indiscriminately. For example, they dispose of their dead with tender care, though they despatch with their clubs even their best friends when dying; but this is with them a religious duty. They only eat their enemies when they have killed them in battle. This also, in their code of morals, appears to be a duty. Toussenel, in his Zoölogie Passionelle, has a kind word even for these savages: "Let us pity the cannibal, and not blame him too severely. We who boast of our refined Christian civilization murder men by tens of thousands from motives less excusable than hunger. The crime lies not in roasting our dead enemy, but in killing him when he wishes to live."
During M. Garnier's expedition he met the chief Onime, once the head of a powerful tribe, now old and dispossessed of his power through the revolt of his tribe some years previous. At that time a price had been put upon his head, and he took refuge in the mountains. There was no sign of discouragement or cruelty in his manners, but his face expressed a bitter and profound sorrow. There was not a pig or a chicken on his place—for he would have nothing imported by the papalés, or Europeans—but he gave his guests a large quantity of yams, for which he would accept no return except a little tobacco. When, however, Garnier tied a pretty crimson handkerchief about the head of Onime's child, who danced for joy at the possession of such a treasure, the old chief was visibly moved, and gave his hand to the stranger. Two years later this old man, being suspected of complicity in the assassination of a colonist, was arrested, bound in chains and thrown into a dungeon. Three times he broke his chains and escaped, and each time was recaptured. He was then transported to Noumea. M. Garnier happened to be on the same ship. The condition of the old man was pitiful. Deep wounds, exposing the bones, were worn into his wrists and ankles in his attempts to free himself from his chains. Three days later he died, and on a subsequent examination of facts M. Garnier became convinced that Onime was innocent of the crime charged against him. On the ship he recognized Garnier, and accepted from him a little tobacco. Tobacco is more coveted by these people than anything else in the world, and the stronger it is the better. The child almost as soon as he can walk will smoke in an old pipe the poisonous tobacco furnished specially for the natives, which is so strong that it makes the most inveterate European smoker ill. "Gin and brandy have been introduced successfully," but the natives as a rule make horrible grimaces in drinking them, and invariably drink two or three cups of water immediately to put out the fire, as they say.
These natives speak a kind of "pigeon English." It would be pigeon French, doubtless, had their first relations been with the French instead of the English. The government has now stopped the sale of spirituous liquors to the natives, and recommended the chiefs to forbid their subjects smoking until a certain age, but no precautions yet taken have had much influence upon their physical condition. They are rapidly dying out. The most prevalent disease is pulmonary consumption, which they declare has been given them by the Europeans. Fewer and fewer children are born every year, and in the tribes about Poöbo and some others these are almost all males. Here is a curious fact for scientists. Is not the cause to be found in the deteriorated physical condition of the women? Mary Trist, in her careful and extensive experimentation with butterfly grubs, has shown that by generous feeding these all develop into females, while by starving males only appear.
M. Garnier believes that the principal cause of the deterioration and decay of the natives in New Caledonia is the terrible tobacco that is furnished to them. "Everybody pays for any service from the natives in this poison." A missionary once asked a native convert why he had not attended mass. "Because you don't give me any tobacco," replied this hopeful Christian. To him, as to many others, says M. Garnier, going to church means working for the missionary, just as much as digging in his garden, and he therefore expects remuneration. The young girls in regions where there are missions established all wear chaplets, for they are good Catholics after a fashion, and generally refuse to marry pagans. This operates to bring the young men under the religious yoke. Self-interest is their strong motive generally. The missionary makes them understand the value of his counsel in their tribes. It means their raising cocoanuts for their oil, flocks of chickens and droves of hogs, for all of which they can obtain pipes, quantities of tobacco, a gun, and gaudy-colored cottons. When the chiefs find that their power is gradually passing from them into the hands of the missionaries, they only smoke more poisonous tobacco, expose themselves all the more to the weather through the cheap fragmentary dress they have adopted, and so the ravages of consumption are accelerated. Pious Christian women, who have always given freely of their store to missionary causes, begin to see that the results are not commensurate with their sacrifices—that their charity, even their personal work among heathens, teaching them to read and write and study the catechism, to cover their bodies with dress and to love the arts of civilization, can avail little against the rum, tobacco and nameless maladies legally or illegally introduced with Christianity.
During one of M. Garnier's excursions into the interior he came across one of the sacred groves where the natives bury their dead, if hanging them up in trees can be so designated. His guides all refused to accompany him, fearing to excite the anger of the manes of their ancestors. He therefore entered the high grove alone. Numerous corpses, enveloped in carefully-woven mats and then bound in a kind of basket, were suspended from the branches of the trees. Some of these were falling in pieces, and the ground was strewn with whitened bones. It seems strange that this form of burial should be chosen in a country where at least once a year there occurs a terrible cyclone that destroys crops, unroofs houses, uproots trees, and often sends these basket-caskets flying with the cocoanuts through the air.
In New Caledonia there are no ferocious beasts, and the largest animal is a very rare bird which the natives call the kagon. When, therefore, they saw the English eating the meat from beef bones they inferred that these were the bones of giants, and naïvely inquired how they were captured and what weapons of war they used. The confidence and admiration of these children of Nature are easily gained, and under such circumstances they talk freely and delight in imparting all the information they possess. Among one of the tribes near Balarde, M. Garnier noticed a young woman of superior beauty, and made inquiries about her. This was Iarat, daughter of the chief Oundo. The hornlike protuberances on her head were two "scarlet flowers, which were very becoming in her dark hair."
IARAT, DAUGHTER OF THE CHIEF OUNDO.
This poor little woman had a history. It is told in a few words: her father sold her to the captain of a trading-vessel for a cask of brandy. The "extenuating circumstances" in this case are that Oundo had been invited on board the captain's ship, plied with brandy, and when nearly drunk assented to the shameless bargain. When Oundo became sober he repented of his act, and the more bitterly because the young girl was betrothed to the young chief of a neighboring tribe. But he had given his word, and was as great a moral coward as many of his betters are, who think that honor may be preserved by dishonor. Nearly every coaster has a native woman on board—some poor girl of low extraction, or some orphan left to the mercy of her chief and sold for a hatchet or a few yards of tawdry calico; but the daughters of chiefs are not thus delivered over to the lusts of Europeans. The case of Iarat was an exception. These coasters' wives, if such they may be called, are said to be very devoted mothers and faithful servants. All day long they may be seen managing the rudder or cooking in the narrow kitchen on deck.
The vessel in the service of M. Garnier left him at Balarde, near the north-eastern extremity of the island, but, having determined to explore farther north, he applied to Oundo, who furnished him with a native boat or canoe and two men for the expedition. In this boat were stowed the camping and exploring apparatus and cooking utensils, and three of his men, who were too fatigued by late excursions to follow Garnier on foot. The canoe was not very large, and this freight sunk it very low in the water; yet as the sea was perfectly calm, no danger was apprehended until, a slight breeze springing up, a sail was hoisted. The shore-party continued their course, exploring, digging, breaking minerals, etc., generally in sight of the canoe, which M. Garnier watched with some anxiety. Suddenly, Poulone, his faithful native guide, exclaimed, "Captain, the pirogue sinks!" There was no time to be lost, for one of the men could not swim at all, and the other two but indifferently. Fortunately, the trunk of a tree was found near the water, some paddles were improvised, and this primitive kind of boat was quickly afloat, with the captain and Poulone on board. The canoe was some rods from the shore, but the three men were picked up, having been supported meanwhile by their dark companions. The latter did not swim ashore, but the moment they were relieved from their charges, and without a word, set about getting the canoe afloat. As to the cargo, it was all in plain sight, but more than twenty feet under the limpid water. This was a great misfortune. Some of the instruments were valuable, and could not be replaced. If not recovered, the expedition to the north of the island must be abandoned. In this strait Garnier despatched a messenger back to Oundo, asking the old chief to come to the rescue with all his tribe. "I did not count in vain," says he, "upon the generosity of this man, for very soon I saw him approach, followed by the young people of his tribe." He listened to the recital of the misfortune with every sign of sympathy.
"Oundo," said M. Garnier, "I expect that you will once more show your well-tried friendship for the French people by rendering me a great service. Do you think you can recover these things for me?"
"Oundo will try," replied the chief simply. He then addressed his people and gave his commands. In a moment, and with a loud cry of approbation and good-will, they dashed into the water and swam out to the scene of disaster.
It is a fine sight to see these natives of Oceanica, the best swimmers in the world, darting under the water like bronze tritons. They generally swim beneath the surface, coming up from time to time to breathe, and shaking the water from their thick curly hair. M. Garnier followed the natives on the log that had served as a lifeboat, and to encourage them by example undressed and threw himself into the water. The work commenced. Twenty or thirty feet is not much of a dive for a South Sea Islander. Every minute the divers brought up some object with a shout of triumph. They were in their element, and so spiritedly did they undertake the task that women, and even the children, dived to the bottom and constantly brought up some small object. The three guns of the men, their trappings, the heavy box of zoological specimens, all the instruments, were brought up in succession. Even the sole cooking-pot of the expedition and the tin plates were recovered. The work occupied some six hours. M. Garnier thanked the chief and his brave people, who when the work was finished returned to their huts as quietly as they came. And this chief was the man who had sold his daughter for a keg of brandy!
Another chief, named Bourarte, the head of a great tribe near Hienguène, deserves a few words. He was a chief of very superior experience and intelligence. He had studied civilization diligently, enjoyed the society of Europeans and knew that his people were barbarians. His story is a most touching one. He said: "I always loved the English. They treated me as a chief, and paid me honestly for all they received. One day I consented to go with them to their great city of Sydney. It was there that I learned the weakness of my people. I was well received everywhere, but I longed to return. It was with pleasure that I saw again our mountains and heard the joyful cries of welcome from my tribe. About that time your people came. I paid little attention to them at first, but because one of my men killed a Kanacka who was a protégé of the missionaries there came a great ship (the Styx) into my port. The captain sent for me. I went on board without fear, but my confidence was betrayed. I was made a prisoner and transported to Tahiti. It was six years before I saw my tribe again: they had already mourned me as dead. I will tell you what happened in my absence. My people prepared for vengeance: the French were apprised of the fact. They came again. And as my people, filled with curiosity, flocked to the shore, the French fired their cannon into the crowd. My people were frightened and fled into the woods. Your soldiers landed, and for three days they burned our huts, destroyed our plantations and cut down our cocoa trees. And all this time," added the old chief with a heavy sigh, "I was a prisoner at Tahiti, braiding baskets to gain a little food, and the grief that I suffered whitened my head before the time."
After a long pause, during which the old Bourarte seemed lost in thought, he said, "It is true that my people revenged themselves. They killed a good many, and among them one of your chiefs. What is most strange about this war is, that three English colonists, who lived peacefully among us by their commerce and fishing, were taken by the French and shot. Another Englishman, Captain Paddon, to whom I had sold many a cargo of sandal-wood, on learning the fate of his compatriots, fled on board a little boat with one Kanacka and a few provisions, got out to sea, and, as I have been told, actually gained the port of Sydney." This, it seems, is a historical fact. It was a boat without a deck, and the distance is three hundred and sixty marine miles!
A KANACKA FAMILY TRAVELING.
The result of the exploring mission of M. Garnier was not a discovery of gold-mines, as so many had hoped. He is of the opinion that gold deposits are scarce in the island. His report of the natives is on the whole favorable, and confirms the testimony of missionaries and others, that they are superior savages, easily civilized and Christianized, but from some cause or combination of causes fast dying out before the advance of civilization. In some respects they are less rude than other South Sea Islanders, but they treat their women in much the same way. M. Garnier gives us a photograph of a New Caledonia family on the road, the head of the family, a big, stolid brute apparently, burdened only with his club, while his wife staggers along under the combined load of sugar-canes, yams, dried fishes and other provisions.
A more revolting, but also, happily, a far rarer sight, was that of a cannibal banquet, of which M. Garnier was a concealed witness. The scene was a thicket in the wildest portion of the country, and only the chiefs of the tribe, which had just gained a victory over its enemies, took part in the feast. A blazing fire threw its bright glare on a dozen figures seated around huge banana-leaves, on which were spread the smoking viands of the diabolical repast. A disgusting odor was wafted toward the spot where our Frenchman and his companions lay perdu, enchained by a horrible fascination which produced the sensation of nightmare. Directly in front of them was an old chief with long white beard and wrinkled skin, who gnawed a head still covered with the singed hair. Thrusting a pointed stick into the eye-sockets, he contrived to extract a portion of the brain, afterward placing the skull in the hottest part of the fire, and thus separating the bones to obtain a wider aperture. The click of a trigger close to his ear recalled M. Garnier to his senses, and arresting the arm of his sergeant, who, excited to indignation, had brought his musket to his shoulder, he hurried from a scene calculated, beyond all others, to thrill the nerves and curdle the blood of a civilized spectator.
AN AMERICAN GIRL AND HER LOVERS.
In the spring of 1869 I was induced, for the sake of rest and recreation, to take charge of a young American girl during a tour in Europe. This young girl was Miss Helen St. Clair of Detroit, Michigan. We two were by no means strangers. She had been my pupil since the time when she was the prettiest little creature that ever wore a scarlet hood. I have a little picture, scarlet hood and all, that I would not exchange for the most beautiful one that Greuze ever painted. Not that her face bore any resemblance to the pictures of Greuze. It had neither the sweet simplicity of the girl in "The Broken Pitcher," nor the sentimental graces which he bestows on his court beauties. It was an exceedingly piquant, animated face, never at rest, always kindling, flashing, gleaming, whether with sunlight or lightning. Her movements were quick and darting, like those of a humming-bird. Her enunciation, though perfectly distinct, was marvelously rapid. The same quickness characterized her mental operations. Her conclusions, right or wrong, were always instantaneous. Her prompt decisiveness, her talent for mimicry and her witchery of grace and beauty won her a devoted following of school-girls, to whom her tastes and opinions were as authoritative as ever were those of Eugénie to the ladies of her court. School-girls, like college-boys, are very apt in nicknames, and Helen's was the "Little Princess," which her pretty, imperious ways made peculiarly appropriate.
I do not know how her parents dared trust her to me for a year beyond the sea, but they did. We set off in high enthusiasm, and Helen was full of mirth and laughter till we were fairly on board the steamer in New York harbor, when she threw herself on her father's breast with a gesture of utter abandonment that would have made the fortune of a débutante on any stage in the world. It was so unlooked-for that we all broke down, and Mr. St. Clair was strongly inclined to take her home with him. But so sudden was she in all her moods that his foot had scarcely touched the shore before she was again radiant with anticipation.
I will not linger on the pleasant summer travel, the Rhine majesty, the Alpine glory. September saw us established in the city of cities—Paris. Everywhere we had met throngs of Americans. Neighbors from over the way in our own city greeted us warmly in most unexpected places. But we had not crossed the ocean merely to see our own countrymen. In Paris we were determined to eschew hotels and pensions and to become the inmates of a French home. Everybody told us this would be impossible, but I find nothing so stimulating as the assertion that a thing can't be done. Two weeks of eager inquiry, and we were received into a family which could not have been more to our wish if it had been created expressly for us. It was that of Monsieur Le Fort, a professor in the Medical College, a handsome elderly man with the bit of red ribbon coveted by Frenchmen in his buttonhole. Madame Le Fort, a charming, graceful woman midway between thirty and forty, and a pretty daughter of seventeen, completed the family. With great satisfaction we took possession of the pretty rooms, all white and gold, that overlooked the Rond Point des Champs Élysées.
My little princess had found a prince in her own country, and, considering the laws of attraction, his sudden appearance in Paris ought not to have been a surprise to her. But, to his discomfiture, and even anger, Helen refused to see him. She had bidden him good-bye at home, she said; they would not be married for three years, if they ever were: she was going to devote herself to her music; and she did not wish to see him here. When he had completed his studies and their engagement was announced (it was only a mutual understanding now) there would be time enough to see each other at home. Excellent reasoning! but a fortnight later a tiny hand slipped between my eyes and the Figaro a little note on which I read:
"DEAR FRED: I think I should like to say good-bye again.
Yours, HELEN."
The dark eyes looked half shyly, half coaxingly into mine.
"Well," said I, "Katrine will mail it for you."
The next day I saw for the first time Mr. Frederic Denham. He was tall and slender; with a sallow complexion, rather dull gray eyes and black hair, by no means handsome, but sufficiently well-looking to please a friendly eye. In his manners there was a coldness and reserve which passed for haughtiness. He was said to possess great talents and ambition, and Helen had the fullest belief in his genius and success. Not Goethe himself was a greater man in her eyes.
I had frequent opportunities of seeing them together, for, according to French ideas, nothing is more improper than to leave a young man and woman a moment by themselves. Was it my fancy that he seemed too much absorbed in himself, too little sensible of the rare good-fortune which made him the favored lover of the beautiful Miss St. Clair? It might be so, but others shared it.
"What ails the American?" asked Madame Le Fort. "Is it possible that he is not in love with that fascinating young creature? Or are all your countrymen so cold and inanimate? Elle est ravissante, adorable! I cannot comprehend it."
"Probably," I replied, "he has too much reserve and delicacy to make a display of his feelings in the presence strangers."
But I was not satisfied. The more I watched them, the more I perceived a lack of deference to her opinions and respect for her judgment—an irritating assumption of superior wisdom, as if he had worn the visible inscription, "I will accept homage, but not suggestions. Offer incense and be content." Would the little princess be content? I saw symptoms of rebellion.
"Do you think I am a little fool, Madame Fleming?" she asked with heightened color and impetuous tone, turning suddenly to me while they were conversing apart one evening.
November came, and we were launched on the full tide of Parisian society. Mr. Denham had gone to Germany to complete certain scientific studies, and he left his fair betrothed with a parting injunction not to dance with any foreigner. As well shut her up in a cell! Nowhere is there such a furore for dancing as in Paris. Every family has its weekly reception, and every card of invitation bears in the corner, "On dansera." These receptions are the freest and gayest imaginable. Any person who has the entrée of the house comes when he feels inclined. Introductions are not indispensable as with us: any gentleman may ask a lady to dance with him, whether he has been formally presented or not, and it would be an affront to decline except for a previous engagement. The company assemble about ten, and often dance till three or four in the morning. In any one house we see nearly the same people once a week for the whole winter, and such frequent companionship gives a feeling of intimacy. It is surprising how many French men and French women have some special artistic talent, dramatic or musical, and with what ready good-humor each contributes to the entertainment of the rest. In every assembly, with all its sparkle of youth and gayety, there is a background of mature age; but though a card-room is generally open, it never seems to draw many from the salons de danse.
In these salons the little princess entered, at once upon her royalty. Her dancing was the poetry of motion. She sang, and the most brilliant men hung over her enraptured. "She was like Adelina Patti," they said, "but of a more perfect and delicate type of beauty. What wonderful eyes, with the long thick lashes veiling Oriental depths of liquid light! How the music trickled from her fingers, and poured from her small throat like the delicious warble of a nightingale! What a loss to art that her position precluded her from singing in the opera! Not Malibran or Grisi ever had triumphs that would equal hers." Eminent painters wished to make a study of her face. Authors who had received the prizes of the Academy for grave historical works sent her adulatory verses. "May I—flirtation—wid you—loavely meess?" asked one of "the immortal forty," displaying his English.
It grew rather annoying. I was importuned with questions, such as "Will you receive proposals of marriage for Miss St. Clair?" "What is her dowry?" "Are you entrusted to find a husband for her abroad?" I was tired of answering, "Miss St. Clair will probably marry in her own country." "Her parents would be very reluctant to consent to any foreign marriage." "I cannot tell what Mr. St. Clair will give his daughter. It is not the custom to give dowries with us, as with you."
One evening we saw at Madame Le Fort's reception a young man so distinguished in appearance that he was known as "le beau Vergniaud." He was six feet in height and well made, with abundant chestnut hair, dark hazel eyes, clearly-cut, regular features, and a complexion needlessly fine for a man. From that time he was invariably present, not only at Madame Le Fort's, but wherever we went.
One day Helen said to me, "I made a silly speech last evening. I was dancing with M. Vergniaud, and we were talking of that charming Madame de Launay. I said, 'I should think she might be happy, having an elegant house in Paris, a château in the country, and such a handsome husband so devoted to her.' And he rejoined instantly, very low, 'My dear Miss St. Clair, can I not give you all this?' It was not fair to take advantage of me in that way."
"What did you say?"
"Oh, I laughed it off. I did not think he was in earnest, but he spoke to me again before he went away."
That afternoon Madame Le Fort came into my room with the look of one who has something important to communicate. "I have been wishing to see you," she said. "M. Vergniaud has taken me into his confidence. He has formed a serious attachment to Miss St. Clair, and wishes to make her his wife. It is a splendid alliance," she continued, warming with her theme: "if he had asked for my daughter I would give her to him blindfold. He belongs to one of our old families. You should see his house on the Avenue de Montaigne. Have you never seen him driving with his superb horses in the Bois de Boulogne? He has an estate with a fine old château in Touraine, a family inheritance. His character and habits are unexceptionable too," she added by way of parenthesis. "It is not often that you find all that in a man of twenty-six. So handsome besides!"
"True," said I, "but you forget Mr. Denham."
"On the contrary, I remember him too well to conceive the possibility of his being a rival to René Vergniaud."
"But did you mention him to M. Vergniaud?"
"Yes, and he was greatly disturbed at first, but when I told him that he had no expectation of marrying for two or three years to come, he laughed and said it was of no importance. M. Vergniaud would like to be married in a few weeks, as is the custom with us, but I suppose it will take longer to adjust the preliminaries on account of her parents being across the Atlantic. What dowry has my little jewel?" (The inevitable question, always put with as much simplicity and directness as if one were asking the time of day.)
"I do not know," I replied. "It is so contrary to all our notions. I do not think there is a man in America who in asking a father for the hand of his daughter would inquire how much money he was to have with her. It would be considered an insult."
"Perhaps Mr. St. Clair would prefer to settle an annuity on his daughter. Is that the way the thing is managed in your country?"
"It is not managed at all. A man gives his daughter what he likes, or he gives her nothing but her bridal outfit. It is never a condition of the marriage."
"How strange all that is! One can hardly believe it in France. We set by a sum of money for Clarice's dowry almost as soon as she was born, and it would be a hard necessity that could compel us to diminish it by a single sou. If you would like it, in a couple of days I can give you an exact inventory of all M. Vergniaud's property and possessions. I could guarantee that it will not vary twenty napoleons from the fact. We do everything so systematically here."
"Thanks! I think it will hardly be necessary. I do not know that Helen likes him particularly."
"Nobody admires that little paragon more than I—I should be frantically in love with her if I were a man—but she had better think twice before rejecting such a parti as René Vergniaud, especially if she has no dowry. You will surely not permit her to do so without communicating with her father? He will understand her interests better."
"In this case I shall let her do just as she pleases, as her father would if he were here."
Madame Le Fort's look of amazed incredulity was truly comical. What ought I to do? I queried. On the whole, I decided to do the easiest thing—wait.
The next day I was honored with a call from M. Vergniaud. He believed that Madame Le Fort had spoken to me of his profound attachment to the lovely Miss St. Clair—the most passionate, the most devoted. Might he hope for my influence with her father and mother? The matter of dowry was indifferent to him: his income was sufficiently large, and, alas! he had no parents to consult. Would I favor him with Mr. St. Clair's address and a few words of introduction to him? He should be under everlasting obligations to me, and if there was anything he could do to show his gratitude, his appreciation—
I interrupted these protestations: "I doubt if Mr. St. Clair would consent to any marriage which would separate him from his daughter, however advantageous it might be in other respects."
"My dear madame, who asks it? I have no business or profession: we could easily spend a part of every year in America if it were desirable."
"That would certainly make it easier, but it will be better to defer writing till we have some intimation of Miss St. Clair's sentiments. Her father will be guided chiefly by her inclination."
"It is a nice country for young girls, America," said he with a smile. "I shall do all that is possible to win Miss St. Clair's favor, for life would be worthless without her." And he bowed himself gracefully out.
Is it possible that Helen will be indifferent to this young Antinous? thought I. Poor Mr. Denham would have small chance with me if I were in her place.
An hour later the concierge sent up to me an exquisite bouquet of violets and white camellias, with the card of René Vergniaud and a folded note: "If Madame Fleming does not think it improper, will she be so kind as to give these flowers to my beautiful queen?"
M. Vergniaud had asked Madame Le Fort's permission to call on Miss St. Clair. "Certainly not," she replied. "I am astounded at such presumption! But you may call to see me. To-morrow evening we go to the opera, and Wednesday to Madame Perier's, and Thursday is my reception, and Friday we have tickets to Phèdre at the Français. Saturday, then: it is the first evening we have free."
We were all assembled in the salon as usual after dinner when M. Vergniaud was announced. The little princess was radiant. She had never been merrier in a school-girl frolic or more ready with gibe and jest and laughter. She sang her best songs, putting her whole soul into them—"Si tu savais comme je l'aime." René Vergniaud was so dazed that he came near bidding farewell to his senses for ever. He evidently thought that all this brilliancy was for him, and was in such a rapture of delight that he never noticed Madame Le Fort's repeated glances at the clock, and was only roused by the polite invitation to come again. He was not too disconcerted to make a charming apology, like a true Parisian, and tore himself away.
Late as it was, as soon as we were in our own little parlor I could not forbear saying, "I was surprised at you to-night, Helen. How could you run on so? Madame Le Turc there, too! and you know the young French girls never open their lips to say more than 'Oui, monsieur'—'Non, monsieur,' to a gentleman. What will M. Vergniaud think?"
"I don't care what he thinks," flinging herself down on an ottoman with her head in my lap; "but I do care what you think, Madame Fleming. Did I behave so very badly? I didn't mean to, but I was resolved he should not get a chance to talk any nonsense to-night; and he did, after all. I hate being made love to before a whole room full. I had to laugh or else cry." And the little fairy dissolved in a shower of tears, like another Undine.
Another week went by. On Saturday afternoon Helen asked, "Will you be so kind as to take me to the little Protestant church beyond the Arc d'Étoile this evening, Madame Fleming? I should like so much to hear that good M. Bercier."
"So should I. But you have not forgotten that M. Vergniaud will be here."
"I am under no obligation to entertain Madame Le Fort's callers."
"But you know, Helen, that he comes for your sake. It is well for you to consider that the future Madame Vergniaud will have in some respects a more brilliant position than perhaps any man in our country could offer you."
"I know all that, and I don't pretend to say that I should not like it. I am ashamed of being so worldly, but to have a superb establishment and all this charming Parisian society, and give a grand ball whenever I liked, would be just paradise. And to have it all in my grasp, and not be able to take it, is too aggravating. It is so vexatious that the right man never has the right things."
We went to church. M. Vergniaud called, but recollected an engagement which took him away early. Monday evening he dropped in again just after dinner: "Do not let me derange you in the least, je vous en prie, madame. I come early because I am engaged to three balls to-night."
Miss St. Clair could hardly have been more mute and statue-like if she had been born and bred in France, where in the presence of gentlemen young girls silently adhere to their brilliant mothers, whose wit and grace and social tact make the charm of the Parisian salons. Apparently, the French consider that the combined attractions of youthful faces and sprightly conversation would be too much for any man, and mercifully divide the two. And this leaves them helpless before a little American girl, laughing, talking, jesting, teasing, till, bewildered by such a phenomenon, they are swept down so easily that one is reminded of Attila's taunt to the Romans, "The thicker the grass, the quicker it is mowed."
This social etiquette was very irksome to my little firefly, who seemed always opening and shutting her wings. In the course of the evening M. Vergniaud slipped into her hand, unperceived by any of us, a closed envelope with the whisper, "Put it in your pocket. Do not let any one see you."
She opened it deliberately: "M. Vergniaud is so kind as to give me his photograph, Madame Fleming. Do you think it a good likeness?"
The mystery which French people are fond of attaching to harmless trifles is inconceivable. One evening, in the earlier part of our stay in Paris, a cousin of Miss St. Clair's, who was in the same hotel with Mr. Denham, called on us, and when he was taking leave she held out an unsealed note: "Will you give this to Fred? Don't forget it."
Madame Le Fort was thunderstruck: "Is it possible? Send a note to a young gentleman right before Madame Fleming and all of us!"
"Why," said I, "do young people never write notes to each other in France?" "Not openly like that—little three-cornered notes to slip into the hand while dancing."
"This is the way to fold them," said Clarice, taking up a small sheet of paper. "You see that will just fit into the hollow of the hand, and nobody could ever see it."
"I like our way much better. What is done openly is not half so mischievous."
"Nor half so interesting," rejoined Clarice.
The nimble hours danced on, as they had a trick of doing in Madame Le Fort's salon. "I am afraid you forget the three balls, M. Vergniaud."
"How can you be so cruel, mademoiselle? I shall only make my compliments to the hostess and dance one set at each. I never do more except when I come here."
A few days later I asked Helen, "Have you made up your mind what answer to give M. Vergniaud? He intends to write to your father. He was speaking to me about it again to-day."
"I won't have him writing to my father," she replied with her wonted impetuosity. "I will not have my father worried about nothing. It would be a month before I could set it right."
"He seems to be very much in love with you. He says he shall be in despair, wretched for ever, if you reject him."
"So they all say. I don't believe a word of it, and I can't help it if they are. I can't marry more than one of them, and I don't believe I shall ever marry anybody. I won't be persecuted to death."
The little princess was irritated. Something had evidently gone wrong. It soon came out: "I had a letter from Fred this morning—a very disagreeable letter."
"Indeed! You have not yet answered it, I suppose."
"No: he will have to write differently from that before he gets any answer from me. I am not going to be lessoned and scolded as if I were a little girl. Father never does it, and I will not submit to it from him" After a pause: "He is not so much to blame. It is that odious Mr. Wilkins, who keeps writing to him how much attention I receive, and all that. As if I could help it! Poor old Fred! We have known each other ever since we were children."
That explains it, I thought. "Helen, if you have decided to say no to M. Vergniaud, the sooner you say it the better."
"I have said it, and he doesn't mind it in the least. I wish you would tell him: you always speak so that people know you are in earnest and can't help believing you."
"Very well, Helen. I will ask Madame Le Fort to tell him that his suit is hopeless, and that he must not annoy you by persisting in it."
Early in February the Belgian ambassador, M. le comte de Beyens, and Madame la comtesse, kindly took charge of Miss St. Clair to the imperial ball at the Tuileries. She had never looked more charming than in the exquisite costume of pale rose-colored faille, with a floating mist of white tulle, caught here and there by rosebuds that might have grown in Chrimhild's garden. The airy figure, so graceful in every motion, the well-poised head with its flutter of shining curls, the wonderful dark eyes, the perfect eyebrows, the delicious little mouth where love seemed to nestle—when she had vanished "it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music." Madame la comtesse congratulated me on her appearance, and afterward on her success. The emperor had distinguished her in a very flattering manner, and Eugénie, looking earnestly at her, said to the comtesse, "Nothing is so beautiful as youth," perhaps beginning to regret her own. No one had made so decided a sensation.
At Madame Le Fort's next reception there was a sudden influx of new guests—a young Belgian baron of old historic name, slim and stiff as a poker; a brisk French viscount, who told me that he had been connected with the embassy at Washington, and had quite fallen in love with our institutions; an Italian chevalier, a Russian prince.
Ugliness has its compensations, thought I. Nobody makes such a fuss over a pretty girl at home (they are not so uncommon), and I will never bring one to Paris again. Thank Heaven! we are going to Italy soon.
The piercing Tramontane came down upon us in the Bay of Naples with so fierce a blast that we doubted if we were not in Iceland, and were glad to make our escape to Rome, where we found an asylum in the Hôtel de Minerve, not far from the Pantheon. Many of the old palaces and convents of Italy have been transformed into hotels. This was the ancient palace of the princes of Conti. I was so captivated by the superb dining-room that the quality of the dinners made but a faint impression. What! eat in the presence of all those marble goddesses, looking down upon us, serene and cold, as if from their thrones on the starry Olympus! Or if I turned my eyes resolutely away from Juno, Ceres and Minerva, they were sure to be snared by the dancing-girls of Pompeii stepping out from the frescoed walls, or inextricably entangled in the lovely garlands of fruit and flowers that wound their mazy way along the borders.
One evening, while we were waiting for one of the endless courses of a table-d'hôte dinner, my wandering eyes were caught by the most perfect human head I had ever seen. It seemed that of the youthful Lord Byron, so well known in busts and engravings—the same small head with high forehead and clustering dark-brown curls, the perfectly-moulded chin, the full, ripe beauty of the lips. The eyes were a deep blue, but I thought them black at first, they were so darkly shaded by the thick black lashes. I am convinced that Byron must have had just such eyes, for some of his biographers describe them as black and others as blue. When he rose from the table I saw a slight, well-knit figure of exquisite proportions, like the Greek god of love. (Not Cupid with his vulgar arrows, but the true heavenly Eros. I saw him once in the Museum at Naples, and again in the Vatican. Is it Love, or Death, or Immortality? I queried, and then I knew it was the three in one.) I soon learned that the youth whose ideal beauty had impressed me so strongly was the Count Francisco de Alvala of Toledo in Spain. I fancy that his eyes were as easily attracted to beauty as mine, for the next day he was my vis-à-vis at table; not for the sake of looking at me, I was well aware, but on account of my beautiful neighbor. However, he sought my acquaintance with the grave courtesy becoming a grandee of Spain, and naturally gained that of Miss St. Clair also.
It is the most natural thing in the world to make acquaintances in Rome. People talk together of the things they have seen or wish to see: they go to the same places by day, and in the evening they meet in the ladies' parlor to compare their impressions. The young count never failed to join us in the evening. He had always something to show us—prints of his home in Spain, articles of virtù that he had bought, sketches that he had made, for he was a good amateur artist.
A group of young people of different nations generally collected on these occasions, and the conversation often turned on the usages peculiar to their respective countries.
"In Spain I could not greet a lady with a simple good-evening," said the count. "I should say, 'Permit the humblest of your servants to lay himself at your feet,' or something like that."
"Why do you not say it to us?" asked a bright-eyed Canadian girl.
"Well, it might be a little awkward if you should happen to take it literally. In Spain it is the merest commonplace."
"If such exaggerated phrases are frittered into commonplaces, and the most impassioned words grow meaningless, what can a Spanish gentleman find to say when his heart is really touched?" I inquired.
"I fancy we should find some very simple words to say it in," said the boy, flushing like a girl. "But I do not know—I have never learned."
"Talk some more," commanded the little princess.
"If a pretty young lady is walking in our streets a mantle is often flung suddenly in her way, and proud and happy is its owner if she deigns to set her dainty foot upon it."
"What do they do that for? Because the streets are so muddy?" inquired an obtuse young woman. But nobody volunteered to enlighten her.
"Cannot we go to Spain?" asked Miss St. Clair. "I should like to see a modern Sir Walter Raleigh."
"If the señorita should appear in our streets they would be strewn with mantles," said the young count gallantly.
"Would you throw down yours for me to step upon?"
"Surely, señorita."
"I'll come, then. It must be of velvet, mind."
"Yes, studded with jewels."
I loved the beautiful youth. His presence was like a poem in my life, and if it ever occurred to me that the familiar intercourse of the young people might not be altogether prudent, I dismissed it with the thought, He is only a boy.
There was to be an illumination of the Coliseum. We were going of course, and Count Alvala begged that I would honor him by making use of his carriage on this occasion. "Thank you, but I have already spoken to Piero to come for us."
"Oh, but we can send him away. You will find my carriage more comfortable, and it will be in every way pleasanter," he urged beseechingly; but my negative was peremptory.
Eight o'clock came. Miss St. Clair and I descended to the court of the hotel, but where was Piero? "It is singular. He was never late before, but I am confident that he will be here presently. We have only to wait a little."
The minutes went by, and they were long minutes. It was awkward waiting in so public a place. The count had joined us with his friend, an Italian marquis some thirty years of age, with whom we had a slight acquaintance. The count's handsome equipage was drawn up near us. There was no Piero.
"I really think you had better accept my young friend's carriage. It would be a pity to miss so grand a spectacle," said the marquis.
We entered the carriage. The count wrapped us in a magnificent feather robe, such as the Montezumas wore, for the April nights in Rome are chill, however hot the sunshine. It was strange to see the Forum, ordinarily solitary and desolate, now thronged with an eager multitude on foot and with numerous open carriages, in which were seated ladies in full dress as at the opera with us. Arriving at the Coliseum, we left the carriage and passed through the huge portal. The gloomy arches were obscurely seen in the dusky Roman twilight, when suddenly, as if by magic, every arch and crevice of the gigantic ruin glowed, incarnadined, as if dyed with the blood of the martyrs that had drenched its soil. There were salvos of artillery, bursts of military music and a few vivas from the multitude. A brilliant spectacle, but the tender beauty of moonlight harmonizes better with the solemnity of ruins.
Rapt in the memories that the scene awakened, I paid little attention to the monologue of my Italian friend, when I was suddenly roused by the question, "Did you ever see a prettier couple?"
"Who?" I asked absently.
"There," he rejoined, pointing to the count and Miss St. Clair, who preceded us.
"He is too young," I replied, but the question was asked so significantly that it disturbed me a little, and I resolved to be more cautious than heretofore.
The next morning Piero appeared with his carriage to take us to the Baths of Caracalla. He hoped madame did not lose the illumination. He was wretched to disappoint madame: he begged a thousand pardons. His little boy was taken violently ill: he was forced to go for the doctor; madame was so good.
The truth flashed upon me: "Piero, how much did the count give you to stay away last night?"
A gleam of humor twinkled in his black eyes, but it was speedily quenched: "I do not understand what madame wishes to say."
It happened that a friend and country-woman at our hotel was taken ill with typhoid fever, and amid the anxieties of her sick room the incipient love-affair was almost forgotten. I no longer spent the evenings in the parlor. One day Miss St. Clair showed me a tiny satin bag beautifully embroidered, with a soft silken chain to pass around the neck. "What can it be for?" she asked.
"Why, Helen, it is an amulet. Where did you get it?"
"The count gave it to me. He had the loveliest set of Byzantine mosaics and pearls which he wished to give me; and when I would not accept them he seemed so hurt that I did not like to refuse this trifle. What do you suppose is in it."
"A relic of some saint, without doubt. He thinks it will protect you from fever perhaps."
Like most Americans, we were desirous of seeing the pope, and Count Alvala obtained for us the necessary permission. We were to be received on a Saturday at eleven. We went in the prescribed costume, black silk, with the picturesque Roman veil thrown over the head. From the foot of the Scala Regia, (Royal Staircase) one of the papal guard, in a motley suit which seemed one glare of black and yellow, escorted us to the door of a long corridor, known as the Loggia of Raphael, where we were received by a higher official in rich array of crimson velvet. About seventy persons were seated in rows, facing each other, along this gallery, nearly all laden with rosaries to be blessed by the Holy Father. We waited till my neck ached with looking up at the exquisite frescoes, fresh and tender in coloring as if new from the hand of the master, when the pope appeared, attended by a cardinal on each hand. We fell on our knees instantly, but not till I had seen an old man's face so sweet and venerable as to make this act of etiquette a spontaneous homage. He passed slowly down the line, saying a word or two to each, and extending his hand, white and soft like a woman's, to be kissed.
Pausing by the young count, who was kneeling beside me, he said impressively, "Courage and faith have always been attributes of the house of Alvala. Your fathers were good children of the Church, and you, my son, will not be wanting in any of the qualities of your race."
When he had passed us we rose from our knees, and I could observe him more closely. He wore a close-fitting white cap on his finely-shaped head; a long robe of white woolen cloth buttoned up in front, with a small cape of the same material; a white sash, gold-embroidered at the end; a long gold chain around his neck, to which was attached a large golden cross; a seal ring on the third finger of his right hand; and red slippers. Soft snowy locks fell from under the white skull-cap over a noble forehead, which years and trials had left unwrinkled. Black eyebrows and the soft dark eyes made a pleasant contrast to the whiteness of hair and brow, and his smile was so sweet and winning that I scarcely wondered to see two Catholic ladies prostrate themselves and kiss his feet and the hem of his white garment with a rapture of devotion from which his attendants with difficulty rescued him. He lingered longest by a pretty boy four or five years old, and there was a pathos in the caressing, clinging touch of his hand as it rested on the child's head that called to mind an old love-story of the handsome Count Mastai Ferretti when he wore the uniform of an officer of the guards, and had not yet thought of priestly robe or papal crown. I wonder if he remembers the fair English girl now?
Having completed the round, he made a brief address, the purport of which was that he was about to give us his blessing, and he wished that it might be diffused to all our families and friends, and be not for the present moment only, but extend through our whole lives and abide with us in the hour of death; "But remember," said he with a kind of paternal benignity, "that the gates of paradise open rarely to any who are without the communion of the Holy Catholic Church. Sometimes perhaps—sometimes—but with great difficulty." He extended his hands. We dropped on our knees and received the blessing of this benign old man, whom the larger part of Christendom revere as the earthly head of the Church. As we were making our way through the stately columns of the colonnade which forms the approach to the Vatican I saw the count glance at the amulet which Helen wore. "What is in it?" I asked.
"A relic of the blessed Saint Francis, my patron," he replied.
"It will lose its efficacy on the neck of a little heretic like Miss St. Clair," said I with a purpose.
"It will do her no harm," said he coldly.
Monday I was at the table d'hôte the first time for a week. I found the count seated next to Miss St. Clair. It was very simple, she explained to me afterward. A lady occupied his seat one day, and he came round to the only vacant one, which happened to be next hers. I am a very guileless person, but I think Vincenzo had an excellent reason for letting it happen. Helen was on my left hand as usual, and the Italian marquis on my right.
"I am sorry for that boy," said he to me: "he is very unhappy."
"The young count? What is the matter?"
"Don't you see? He is madly in love with your bewitching little American. It is his first impression, and he takes it hard. Well, he will have to learn like the rest of us."
"I hope you are mistaken;" and I glanced uneasily at my young neighbors, who were too much absorbed in their own conversation to heed that between the marquis and myself.
"That is impossible. He raves to me about her. It is very pretty too—a perfect idyl, all poetry and romance—eternal, unchangeable, and all that boyish nonsense. We older men know better. But monsignore will be here soon, and he will look after him."
"Who is monsignore?"
"The archbishop of Toledo, his guardian. He has been here, but some diocesan matter called him home. He will be back anon, and then the count will dine at home. As to that, he does now, and delicious dinners they are, too. He only makes a pretence of eating here, just to have a chance to see his little divinity."
"He was here when we came."
"True, but only for a day or two while his house was put in order. The house is well worth seeing—one of the finest on the Corso. It is not open to strangers, but if you would like to see it—"
"Certainly not," I interrupted, a little irritably, the more so from the consciousness of having been a somewhat careless chaperone. I was coming sharply up to the line of duty now, at all events.
"Helen," said I when we rose from the dinner-table, "do not go into the parlor now. Come into my room a little while, please.—Well, Helen," I resumed when we were seated by the pleasant window, "I have seen so little of you for a week past that you must have a great deal to tell me."
"I do not know," she replied. "I have been out every day with the Glenns, just as you arranged for me, and I have been in the parlor in the evenings, and sometimes I sang, and one night there was a French gentleman—"
"How about the young count? The Italian says he is very much in love with you. Do you know it?"
"He has told me so often enough, if that is knowing it," with a quick, impatient toss of the small, graceful head.
"Oh, Helen!" I cried in real distress, "and what did you say to him?"
"Why, what could I say in that great parlor, with everybody looking on? I just hushed him up as well as I could. There is the tall English girl and that sharp-eyed Miss Donaldson, who are watching us the whole time. It is real mean in them," excitedly. "And the count doesn't mind letting everybody know how much he admires me. In fact, he is proud of it, like one of the old knights, who used to wear their ladies' favors as openly and proudly as they bore their knightly banners."
"This will never do, Helen. Don't you see that this boy is not like the gay Frenchman that you danced with last winter? René Vergniaud was a man of the world: he could take care of himself. But this beautiful boy, with his intensity of feeling, his ideal passionate love—You must not play with him," I exclaimed vehemently.
"I am not playing with him: I never do anything to make him like me. He comes and talks to me, and I just make myself as agreeable to him as I can, that is all."
That is all, is it, you little mischief? thought I. As if that were not the very refinement of coquetry! But I prudently refrained from saying it, for a tempest of hot tears began to fall, and she sobbed, "Oh, Madame Fleming, I did not think I was going to forfeit your good opinion. What can I do? I can't help his liking me. I like him too, and that makes me feel so badly."
"Do you like him better than Mr. Denham?"
"Better than Fred?" in a tone of surprise. "Why no, of course not: I have known Fred always."
"The best thing will be to tell him of Mr. Denham."
"Oh no, I never can."
"I will, then."
"Don't, I beseech you. We shall go away soon, and that will be the end of it. Promise me you will not. I would rather tell him myself if I ever have a chance."
I looked in to see my invalid friend, and then descended to the parlor, where I found the young count almost alone. He looked up eagerly as I entered: "I thought Miss St. Clair was with you. I have been waiting for her all the evening."
"Indeed!"
"I told her at table that I wished to see her particularly this evening."
"Perhaps she did not understand you."
"Oh yes, she did. You would not let her come?" with a sudden lighting up of the expressive face.
"I did not forbid her coming: I did not know that you were waiting for her."
Then with sudden boyish candor and a happy smile on his animated countenance "I thought you might have observed that I come here so often because I like to talk with Miss St. Clair. But you never can know how dearly I love her."
"I am sorry."
"Why?" with a naïve surprise.
"She is older than you."
"How old is she?"
"She will be twenty in May."
"And I am nineteen this very week. What is one poor little year?—not a year," gleefully.
"But the difference in religion?"
"An obstacle, I grant, but not an insuperable one. My uncle married an English lady, a Protestant, and they have been very happy together."
"But I think there is another man," I stammered, surprised at finding my outposts carried so easily.
"You do not mean to say that she is compromised with any man?" almost fiercely.
"I do not know what meaning you attach to that word," for the count's imperfect French was not always intelligible. "There is a young man, the son of a neighbor, who has admired her a long time."
"Oh, he admires her?" with a curl of the exquisite lips, as if to say, "Who does not?"
"But I think she may like him a little."
"Why do you torture me so? Tell me at once that they are betrothed," cried he, pale with concentrated anger.
He thought she had trifled with him, I knew instantly, but quietly said, "I cannot tell you exactly in what relation they stand to each other, but I think Miss St. Clair would if she found an opportunity to speak with you."
"You do not know how I have tried to make opportunities. I go everywhere, hoping to see you, and I have never met you—not once. Won't you ask her to come down to-night?" coaxingly, like a child.
"Not to-night: it is too late."
"I must see Miss St. Clair to-night."
"Impossible."
"I must see Miss St. Clair. Find out for me when I can see her. I will go with you," in a white heat of passion. (We had been alone for some little time.)
I took the arm which he held out, not a little agitated by the excess of emotion which thrilled and quivered through his youthful frame, as he hurried me up the broad stone staircase and along the wide corridors that led to our rooms. What business had I to meddle? How should an old fogy like me know anything of the love-affairs of this generation? The girl would have managed more wisely than I, I reflected, by no means jubilant over the result.
"Wait here;" and I walked on to Miss St. Clair's door, opened it, and there sat Helen in her pretty white wrapper, bathed in the moonlight, serene as a star, as if there were no passionate young heart breaking in waves of anguish at her feet. "Helen, the count is in the corridor, and he will not go till I have told him when you will see him."
"How can I? You must think for me."
A hasty consultation. The count was standing where I had left him: "We shall be at the Sistine Chapel to-morrow at two o'clock."
He bowed and was gone.
I did not sleep well that night. A pretty person I am to take charge of a young girl! I wonder what Mr. St. Clair would think if he knew I had made an appointment for his daughter to meet a young Spaniard? On the way, however, I admonished Helen, as if no misgiving of my own wisdom had ever crossed my mind: "You must be firm with him. Tell him so decidedly that he cannot doubt you really mean it."
"Yes," said she, "but I do dread it so. I can't bear his thinking that I encouraged him."
"Then you did?"
"I didn't mean to, but I do like him; and I didn't think of his taking it so to heart. Men are so strange! You think you have a charming friend, and then they will go on just so, boys and all, and you have to take them or lose them; and you can't take them. It is too bad!"
We were at the door. The keeper opened it, and there stood the count waiting for us. It was not the first time we had been in the wonderful chapel. Fortunately, there were very few persons there on this afternoon—none that we knew. I sat down to look at the grand frescoes: Helen and the count walked on to the farthest corner. I looked at the Cumæan Sibyl, the impersonation of age and wisdom, and wished, as I glanced at the youthful figures talking so earnestly in the distance, but not a murmur of whose voices reached my ear, that she would impart to me her far-reaching vision of futurity. I gazed on the image of the Eternal Father sweeping in majestic flight through the air, bearing the angels on His floating garment as He divides the light from the darkness. I saw Adam, glad with new life, rising from the earth, because the outstretched finger of his Creator gave him a conscious strength. I looked at "The Last Judgment," grown dim with years, till every figure started out in intensity of life, and it seemed as if the faces would haunt me for ever.
And yonder still progressed the old, ever-new drama of love and anguish, with its two actors, who seemed scarcely to have changed their position or taken their eyes from each other. At length they walked slowly toward me with more serenity of aspect than I had dared to hope.
"Shall we go into the picture-gallery?" asked the count.
"I think we may have time to walk through it," I answered. "It is half-past three."
"Is it possible that we have kept you waiting so long?" they asked simultaneously.
"An hour and a half is a short time in a place like the Sistine Chapel," I remarked sententiously.
As soon as we were alone I drew Helen to the confessional: "Did you tell him about Mr. Denham?"
"Yes, everything, and he was so noble. I am so sorry. The tears stood in his eyes, and he said, 'I suffer, but I am a man. I can bear it.' Then he thanked me for dealing so openly with him. He never once hinted a reproach. And I deserved it," she said with unwonted humility. "I never felt before how wicked it is to flirt just a little. He is not selfish, like some people that I know;" and my thought followed hers. "I don't know but I am a little goose to let him go so. If he were only twenty-three years old, and I were free—"
The next day we saw nothing of the count, but early Thursday morning Vincenzo knocked at my door with a note, in which Count Alvala informed me that he was my son, and begged earnestly to see the beautiful Miss St. Clair once more: he would never trouble me again. It was the only day on which we could see the Palace of the Cæsars, and would I be so good as to permit him to meet us there? I hastily penciled a few words: "I am waiting for Dr. Valery. I shall probably stay with my sick friend to-day, and Miss St. Clair will not go out without me," and sent the line by Vincenzo, happy to be rid of the importunate boy for this time.
Two hours later, when the doctor had pronounced my friend better, and I had promised Helen a walk amid the ruins of the Palatine, which I did not like to leave Rome without seeing, I went down to the roll, coffee and eggs which constitute an Italian breakfast, and there sat the count as vigilant as a sentinel. "You will go?" said he with a smile.
"I think we may," curtly.
"I shall perhaps meet you there."
When we reached the Farnese gate he was waiting there, which made the "perhaps" superfluous. We had a long ramble over the lonely hill, stretching out like a green New England pasture, but where from time to time we came unexpectedly upon flights of steps which led to massive substructures of stone, foundations of ancient palaces, and to excavated halls paved with mosaics and lined with frescoes more beautiful than those of Pompeii. There were many statues, more or less mutilated, and stately brick arches laden with a wealth of flowering shrubs, and here and there thickets of tall dark cypress trees, harmonious with ruins. My young companions were rather silent, but I fancy their thoughts were not engrossed with old historic lore. I made a conscientious effort to force mine into the ruts of association which I had supposed to be inevitable in such a spot, but the bright sunshine, the delicate blue of the distant Campagna, the living gladness of earth and air were too strong for me, and I inwardly applauded a lively American girl who interrupted her droning guide with the incisive "I don't care a snap for Cæsar."
On reaching the gate after our three hours' ramble I consigned Miss St. Clair to some friends who were waiting for her, and stepped into the count's carriage. He seemed to feel bound in honor not to speak of love to Miss St. Clair since the revelation of the Sistine Chapel, but he must have a little solace in talking to me about it. "It would be easy," said he, "if she were not fiancée, but that makes it difficult—very difficult indeed. I am glad it is not going to be for three years: that is a long time, a very long time." Then, with a sudden illumination of face and a delicious intonation of the musical voice, "Perhaps they will never marry: perhaps it will be another man—I." (Blessed infatuation of youth, with its wonderful perhapses, which never come to maturer years!)
"One of these years I shall hope to hear that you are married to a beautiful lady of your own country and your own religion."
"You never will."
"Oh yes, you will be astonished to find how easy it is to forget."
"I come of a constant race," said he proudly. "My father loved my mother, and they sent him all over the world to forget her, but he came home in five years and married her."
"Even if it were otherwise possible (which it is not), the difference in religion ought to prevent it. How could so good a Catholic as you distress your family by marrying a heretic?"
"Perhaps she would be a Catholic." (I noticed that he did not say, "Perhaps I shall become a Protestant.") "Don't you think her father would let her marry a Catholic?"
"No," I replied stoically.
He was silent and dejected.
"You must forget her," said I kindly. "It is only a little while since you first saw her."
"A little while! It is my whole life!" "Only a few weeks," I continued. "We shall soon be across the ocean, and you will see other ladies."
"There is only one Miss St. Clair."
"I beg your pardon—there are three of them." But the boy was too miserable to notice this poor little sally.
We were approaching the hotel. "I shall not see you again at present," said he. "Monsignore will arrive this evening, and I must be at home to receive him. But I shall be in Paris by the middle of May, and I shall see you there: farewell till then."
The next morning Miss St. Clair and I were on our way to Florence. A week later, on our return from the convent of San Marco, where we had seen the cell of Savonarola and many lovely but faded frescoes of Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo, whom should we find waiting for us in our temporary home on the Via Pandolfini but Count Alvala? I felt annoyed, and my face must have revealed it, for he said deprecatingly, "You ought to be glad to see your boy, Madame Fleming, for I have come this long journey only for a day, expressly to see you."
"Well," said I, "you took me so by surprise that I had not my welcome ready. I did not expect the pleasure of seeing you till after our arrival in Paris."
"That is why I am here. I shall not be able to go to Paris. I am bitterly disappointed, but monsignore has made other plans for me. I am to go to Vienna to visit my aunt, whose husband is our ambassador there. The tour to Paris is postponed till the autumn."
Evidently monsignore had heard of the little heretic maiden, and he was going to remove his ward from temptation. I was infinitely obliged to him.
A desultory conversation followed, carried on principally by the young people, and then the count said, "Miss St. Clair tells me that you have visited the Uffizi and Pitti galleries. May I not go with you somewhere to-morrow?—to La Certose or San Miniato, for instance?"
"Thank you," I replied: "we are so exhausted with sight-seeing, Miss St. Clair and I, that we shall stay in all day to-morrow, and we shall be happy to see you once in the afternoon or evening, as may be most convenient for you."
I did not like to be hard and cross to the dear boy whom my heart yearned over, but I felt as much bound to "make an effort" as if I had been a veritable Dombey.
The call lasted afternoon and evening: it was only the change of a particle. I could not reproduce the innocent talk, half gay, half sad, of this long interview, but before he went away the count drew me aside: "Will you give this to Miss St. Clair when I am gone?"
I unfolded the package: it contained a photograph of himself and a small painting which he had executed of the Coliseum on the night of the illumination. "Yes."
"And will you send me her photograph from Paris? I will have it copied by the best miniature-painter in Rome and put in a locket set with diamonds," said the boy enthusiastically.
"I cannot promise."
"Do you think I could be of any use to her father? Not to win his favor, you understand, but I should be so happy to do anything to serve her or her friends. Can't you tell me now?"
"No. Mr. St. Clair does not need assistance in any way that I know."
In spite of the boy's earnestness, the idea of his offering patronage to the mature and independent American struck me as irresistibly ludicrous.
"But you will tell him all about me."
"Yes."
"I shall learn to speak English—I have begun already—and in a year I shall be in America. Will you write your address for me on this card?"
I did so.
"If you ever come to Spain, remember that my house and all that is in it are yours."
"I shall never go to Spain."
"Perhaps you will one day to see Miss St. Clair," looking up in my face with a bright smile of inextinguishable hope. "Good-bye for a year."
A few more days in Florence, a week in Venice, a day or two in Milan, and we bade adieu to Italy. Land of beauty and mystery! when I recall thy many forms of loveliness, the glorious shapes of gods and heroes, serene and passionless in their white majesty of marble, the blessed sweetness of saints and Madonnas shining down into my soul, I seem to have been once in heaven and afterward shut out.
We were once more at home. Almost the first news that came to us from abroad was of the terrible war between France and Germany. During the protracted siege of Paris we were full of anxieties, but at its close we received long letters from Madame Le Fort, giving many details of the sufferings and privations of the siege, sorrowful enough for the most part, but enlivened here and there with touches of the gay French humor that nothing can subdue. There was a lively sketch of a Christmas dinner ingeniously got up of several courses of donkey-meat. At New Year's the choicest gift that a gentleman could make a lady was a piece of wheaten bread. Afterward there was nothing in the house but rice and chocolate bonbons, which they chewed sparingly, a little at a time. But they kept up their courage—they were even gay. Hardships were nothing, but that Paris should be surrendered at last—that was a humiliation which nothing could compensate. Many of the gay dancers whom we had known had fallen in battle, among them, René Vergniaud. He was shot in the heart in an engagement with the Prussians in the environs of Paris.
I spent my next summer vacation with Miss St. Clair in Detroit.
"When is Mr. Denham coming home?" I asked one evening when we were alone together.
"I do not know: he does not speak of coming home. I am a little puzzled about Fred. He has written me a great deal lately about a certain Fräulein Teresa, the daughter of one of his professors, who takes such excellent care of her younger brothers and sisters, and who is such a wonderfully economical, housewifely little body—just a new edition of Werther's Charlotte. I do not think that he really likes her," she continued after musing a little: "he just holds her up as a model for me to copy. I shouldn't wonder if she was only imaginary, to make me feel how far I come short of his ideal. Fred says that he worships the very ground I tread on—slightly hyperbolical and very original, you perceive," with a satirical curve of her pretty lips—"but he never seems half satisfied with me. He ought to know by this time that I must be just my own little self, and not a second-hand imitation of somebody else."
The next day came a letter with a German postmark, which was so eloquent on the subject of Fräulein Teresa that it elicited the following reply:
"DETROIT, August 5, 1871.
"DEAR FRED: I despair of emulating Fräulein Teresa's many excellencies. You know what a useless little thing I am. Happily, it is not too late to make another choice. Thinking it may please you, I hereby release you from all your promises to me. We may never be anything more to each other perhaps, but I hope that we shall always be dear friends. I shall never forget that we grew up together, and I wish you all possible happiness.
"Your little friend, HELEN."
In due time this answer came:
"HEIDELBERG, August 27, 1871.
"MISS ST. CLAIR: Your somewhat singular letter of August 5th was duly received. If I believed that you had written it, or ever could or would do anything, with proper deliberation, I should accept your decision at once. But as I have good reason to know your habit of acting from sudden impulses which you afterward regret, I give you three months to reconsider this hasty step.
"I have the honor to be your obedient servant,
"F. A. DENHAM."
Helen held to me the open sheet, with kindling eyes and glowing cheeks: "Three months! I don't need three minutes: I wouldn't change in three centuries. I am so glad to be free!" she cried, sobbing and laughing at the same moment. "He has worried me so—a poor little thing like me!"
The next morning I started on my return to Boston.
Early in October a servant handed me a card bearing the name Francisco Alvala. I had ceased to think of the boy, not having heard a word from him; but here he was, looking very manly, browned with the sun and sea, and beautiful as Endymion when Diana stooped to kiss him and all the green leaves in the white moonshine were tremulous with sympathy.
After the first greeting he asked, "How is Miss St. Clair? and when did you see her last?"
I told him of my recent visit.
"She is not married, then?"
"On the contrary, she is free. The engagement with Mr. Denham has been broken."
"What did I tell you? Did I not say it would be I?" in a burst of triumph.
As a good Boston woman I am chagrined to record that Bunker Hill and all the local lions, which I was at some pains to impress on his memory, did not prove so attractive as the earliest Western train.
Why make a long story of what every one foresees? In the course of the autumn and winter the count made flying visits to Washington, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and even San Francisco, but it was noticeable that the way to all these places lay through Detroit. He spoke English marvelously well now, and so won upon the hearts of Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair that on the 23d of April, being his twenty-first birthday, the marriage of the conde de Alvala and Helen St. Clair was duly celebrated. I could not leave my school to be present at the wedding, but the young couple came to Boston to take leave of me before sailing for Europe. They were radiant with happiness, and I could hardly tell which I loved best, my boy or my girl; but if the Italian had been there to ask if I ever saw a more beautiful couple, I should have answered no with great emphasis.
I will copy Helen's first letter in order to prove that a château en Espagne is not always a castle in the air:
"ALVALA, near Toledo, June 20, 1872.
"DEAR MADAME FLEMING: You have heard from mother of our voyage and safe arrival. We are now at home, Francisco and I, if I can ever learn to feel at home in such a grand place, where I can hardly find my way round. It is like one of the old palaces at Rome, the Borghese or Colonna, that we used to admire so much, with vast halls opening into one another, hangings of tapestry and Cordovan leather, marble statues and old paintings—family portraits by Titian and Velasquez, one or two Murillos, and—but I cannot write a catalogue. You must come to see us and the pictures. I am not sure which you will like the best. Francisco is very good to me, and so are all his friends. His sister and her husband were here to welcome us.
"One of the first things we did was to go down the rose-tree walk, along the banks of the Tagus, for more than a mile—white and delicate pink and deep-red roses blossoming above our heads and dropping their petals at our feet all the way. Francisco said he would make my life like that walk among the roses, all sweetness and beauty, but that he cannot tell.
"There is the old cathedral, with a wonderful head of Saint Francis and a whole forest of columns; and when you come we will bribe the sacristan not to lock you in, as they did at St. Roch. I shall never be a Roman Catholic, but I go to mass sometimes, for there is no Protestant service here, and one cannot be quite a heathen where everybody is so devout. What I dislike most is to have a chaplain in the house, walking about in his black petticoat, but of course I never say a word to Francisco.
"By and by we are going to our house in Madrid. Our house in Madrid! does not that sound very strange? It all seems so unreal that I am afraid of waking up and finding it a dream.
"Do, dear Madame Fleming, give up slaving in that old school and come and live with Francisco and me. He says he wishes you would, and it would make everything seem more real if I had you here. Think of it, now. You will, won't you? As ever, your dear child,
"HELEN ALVALA."
This true story suggests a little sermon in two heads: 1st. To all possible and probable lovers: It was not the count's rank or wealth, but the fervor and constancy of ideal love and his whole-souled, exclusive devotion, that won the heart of the American girl. 2d. To all sensible American parents: Do not permit your pretty young daughters to make a tour in Europe unless you are willing to leave them there.
MARY E. BLAIR.
A JAPANESE MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE.
In describing a Japanese marriage in high life we do not intend to soar too high. It is not for our alien pen to portray the splendors of such a marriage as that of the princess of Satsuma to Iyesada, the thirteenth Shô-gun of the Tokugawa dynasty, when all Yedo was festal and illuminated for a week. Neither shall we describe that of the imperial princess Kazu, the younger sister of the Mikado, who came up from Kioto to wed the young Shô-gun Iyemochi, and thus to unite the sacred blood of twenty-five centuries of imperial succession with that of the Tokugawas, the proud family that ruled Japan, and dictated even to her emperors, for two hundred and fifty years. We leave the description of those royal nuptials to other pens. Ours aspires only to describe a marriage such as has happened in old Yedo for the thousandth time in the samurai class—the gentry of Japan.
Were you with us in Tokio (the new name of the capital of Japan) we should take you, were you inclined to go, to the place where once stood the mansion of Yamashiro Kan, a high retainer of the prince of Echizen, and a lineal descendant of the great Iyeyasu, the founder of the dynasty of the Shô-guns. Were you to seek for Yamashiro's mansion now, you would not find it, but instead several very vulgar evidences of the Western civilization which is now changing the Land of the Gods into a paradise of beef, bread, butter, milk and machinery. We walked past the old mansion-grounds a few days ago, and lo! we saw a milk-shop and dairy, a butcher's stall, a sewing-machine store, a printing-office, a school in which Japanese boys were learning A, B, C's, a photographer's "studio," a barber-shop with an English sign, and a score or more Japanese shops of all kinds. This is of to-day. Five years ago a long wall of diamond-shaped tiles laid in white cement extended round the spacious grounds of the homestead of the Yamashiro family. Inside were fish-ponds, mimic hills, miniature mountain-scenery, dense flower-bushes, dwarfed arboreal wonders, solemn shade trees and a garden laid out according to the very best Japanese style. The fine old yashiki of Yamashiro, with its porter's lodge, stone path, entrance-porch, vestibule and the family homestead, was within. No wonder, then, that the aged man, who firmly believes that Japan is going to the dogs, the devil or the foreigners—he does not know which—shakes his head as he now passes by the milk-and butcher-shops, around which the lazy dogs sleep or wait for bones, and sighs as he remembers the grand old mansion.
About two miles farther north, in the great rus urba of Yedo, was another house of humbler pretensions, and yet one with a gate and garden of dimensions betokening the residence of a man of rank. It was the home of Nakayama, one of the eighty thousand hatamoto (vassals) of the Shô-gun, a studious gentleman whose greatest pride was in his two sons and his only daughter. The former were not only manly and expert in the use of the sword and spear, but had the best education that the classics of Confucius and the Chinese college and literati in Yedo could give them. Next to them in his love was his only daughter Kiku, seventeen years old, and as fair as the fairest of Yedo's many fair daughters. No vain doll was Kiku, but, inheriting her mother's beauty, she added to it the inner grace of a meek and dutiful spirit. Besides being deft at household duties, her memory was well stored with the knowledge of Japanese history and the Chinese classics. She had committed to memory the entire books of the Woman's Great Learning, and had read carefully five other works on etiquette and morals which her father had presented to her on successive birthdays. Kiku was a remarkably well-educated maiden, and would have been a prize for the richest daimio in the empire.
Faithfully following Japanese etiquette, Kiku had been carefully kept from the company of any of the male sex since her eighth year. She never talked with any young man except her brothers. Occasionally at family parties she was addressed by her uncles or cousins. Sometimes, when gentlemen called to see her father, Kiku would bring tea to the guest, and was thus made the subject of compliments; but as to "receiving" male company, she never did it. Kiku never went out unless accompanied by her mother or the maid, who was like her shadow.
The gods of Japan meet together at the great temples in Ise during the eleventh month and tie all the nuptial knots for the following year. Kiku's marriage-knot had been tied by the gods six months before she even suspected the strings had been crossed. How happened it?
In Japan only the people in the lower classes are acquainted with and see each other frequently before marriage. The business of selection, betrothal and marriage is attended to by the parents or friends of the pair, who carry on negotiations by means of a third factor, a middleman or go-between. Children are often betrothed at birth or when on their nurses' backs (there are no cradles in Japan). Of course the natural results, mutual dislike and severance of the engagement at mature age, or love and happy marriage, or marriage, mutual dislike and subsequent divorce, happen, as the case may be. In general, when the parents make the betrothal of grown-up children, it is not probable that the feelings of son or daughter are outraged, or that marriages are forced against the consent of either, though this does sometimes take place. In Asiatic countries, where obedience to parents is the first and last duty, and in which no higher religion than filial obedience exists, the betrothal and marriage of children is not looked upon as anything strange. The prevalence of concubinage as a recognized institution in Japan makes it of no serious importance whether the husband loves his wife or not.
To tell an ordinary Japanese that in America people often marry against their parents' consent is to puzzle him, and make him believe Carlyle's saying about Americans without having heard it. If a man who marries against his parents' wish is not a triple-dyed ingrate, he must be a downright fool. Beyond this idea the normal Japanese cannot go; and you might as well try to make a blind man understand that "celestial rosy red" was "Love's proper hue" as to convince him that a good man ever marries against his parents' wishes. Such ideas and practices are convincing evidences to him of the vast moral inferiority of Western nations when compared with that of the people descended from the gods.
Resuming our narrative, we must mention that Kiku's father had once had an offer from one Matsui, a wealthy retainer of the Wakasa clan, through that young nobleman's middleman or agent, which he refused, to the disgust of both middleman and suitor. The latter had seen Kiku walking with her mother while going to the temple at Shiba, and, being struck with her beauty, inquired who she was. Having come of age and wishing a wife, he had sued for Kiku to her father, who, for reasons of his own, refused the request, on the ground that Kiku was too young, being then but fifteen years old. The truth was, that the Wakasa samurai was a wild young fellow, and bore a reputation for riotous living that did not promise to make him a proper life-companion for Nakayama's refined and cultured daughter. Between Nakayama, Kiku's father, and Yamashiro, the retainer of the Echizen clan, whose home we spoke of in the opening of our sketch, had long existed a warm friendship and a mutual high regard. Yamashiro, though more fond of society and good living than Nakayama, was nevertheless, like him, a high-spirited and well-read man. He had four children, two sons and two daughters. The oldest son, named Taro, was now twenty years old, of manly figure, diligent in study, and had lately acted as a high page, attending daily upon the person of Hitotsu-bashi, the then reigning Shô-gun, and the last of his line that held or will hold regal power in Japan. Taro, being the oldest son of his father, was the heir to his house, office, rank and revenue. Taro wanted a wife. He wished to taste the sweets of love and wedded joy. He had long thought of Kiku. Of course he asked his father, and his father "was willing." He told Taro to go to Nakayama's house. Taro went. He talked to Nakayama, and hinted faint compliments of his daughter. It was enough. Nakayama was keen of scent, and he also "was willing." Clapping his hands, the maid-servant appeared and falling down and bowing her head to the floor, listened: "Make some tea, and tell Miss Kiku to serve it."
Had you been in the back rooms of that house, you would have seen Kiku blush as the maid told her who was in the front room and what her father had said. Her heart beat furiously, and the carnation of health upon her cheeks was lost in the hot blushes that mantled her face and beautiful neck when her mother, reproving her, said, "Why, dear child, don't be excited: perhaps he has come only on some every-day business, after all. Be composed, and get ready to take in the tea."
Nevertheless, Kiku took out her metal mirror while the maid made the tea, smoothed a pretended stray hair, powdered her neck slightly, drew her robe more tightly around her waist, adjusted her girdle, which did not need any adjusting, and then, taking up the tray, containing a tiny tea-pot, a half dozen upturned cups, and as many brass sockets for them, hastened into the front room, bowed with her face on her hands to the floor, and then handed cups of tea to her parent and his guest. This done, she returned to her mother. Whether Taro looked at Kiku's cheeks or into her glittering black eyes we leave even a foreign reader to judge.
Let it not be thought, however, that a single word relating to marriage in the concrete passed between the two men: no such breach of etiquette was committed. The visit over, the two friends parted as friends, and nothing more, either in fact or in visible prospect.
But, to be brief, not long afterward, Taro, having selected a trusty friend, sent him as a go-between to ask of Nakayama the hand of his daughter in marriage. The proposal was accepted, and when the go-between came the second time to Kiku's home it was in company with two servants bearing bundles. These, being opened, were found to contain a splendidly embroidered girdle, such as Japanese ladies wear, about twelve feet long and a foot wide when doubled; a robe of the finest white silk from the famous looms of Kanazawa; five or six pieces of silk not made up; several kegs of saké or rice-beer; dried fish, soy, etc. These were for the bride-elect. For her father was a sword with a richly mounted hilt and lacquered scabbard, hung with silken cords. The blade alone of the sword was worth (it isn't polite to speak of the cost of presents, but we will let you into the secret, good reader) one hundred dollars, and had been made in Sagami from the finest native steel. Kiku's mother was presented with a rich robe, which she recognized at once as being woven of the famous Derva silk. The ceremonious reception of these presents by the parents signified that the betrothal was solemnly ratified, and that the engagement could not be broken. Nakayama, the intended father-in-law, afterward sent to Taro a present of a jar of the finest tea from his own plantation in Shimosa, a pair of swords, and a piece of satin, such as that of which the hakama or trousers which indicate the rank of the samurai are made.
The betrothal was now published in both families, and in both houses there were festivities, rejoicing and congratulation. The marriage-day, a fortunate or good-omened one, was fixed upon as the twenty-seventh from the day of betrothal.
Was Kiku happy? Nay, you should ask, Can that word express her feelings? She had obeyed her parents: she could do nothing higher or more fraught with happiness. She was to be a wife—woman's highest honor and a Japanese woman's only aim. She was to marry a noble by name, nature and achievement, with health, family, wealth and honor. Kiku lived in a new world of anticipation and of vision, the gate of which the Japanese call iro, and we love. At times, as she tried on for the twentieth time her white silk robe and costly girdle, she fell into a reverie, half sad and half joyful. She thought of leaving her mother alone with no daughter, and then Kiku's bright eyes dimmed and her bosom heaved. Then she thought of living in a new home, in a new house, with new faces. What if her mother-in-law should be severe or jealous? Kiku's cheek paled. What if Taro should achieve some great exploit, and she share his joy as did the honorable women of old? What if his former position of beloved page to the Shô-gun should give her occasional access to the highest ladies in the land, the female courtiers of the castle? Her eyes flashed.
The wedding-night came, seeming to descend out of the starry heavens from the gods. Marriages rarely take place in the daytime in Japan. The solemn and joyful hour of evening, usually about nine o'clock, is the time for marriage—as it often is for burial—in Japan. In the starlight of a June evening the bride set forth on her journey to her intended husband's home, as is the invariable custom. Her toilet finished, she stepped out of her childhood's home to take her place in the norimono or palanquin which, borne on the shoulders of four men, was to convey her to her future home.
Just as Kiku stands in the vestibule of her father's house let us photograph her for you. A slender maiden of seventeen, with cheeks of carnation; eyes that shine under lids not so broadly open as the Caucasian maiden's, but black and sparkling; very small hands with tapering fingers, and very small feet encased in white mitten-socks; her black hair glossy as polished jet, dressed in the style betokening virginity, and decked with a garland of blossoms. Her robe of pure white silk folds over her bosom from right to left, and is bound at the waist by the gold-embroidered girdle, which is supported by a lesser band of scarlet silken crape, and is tied into huge loops behind. The skirt of the dress sweeps in a trail. Her under-dress is of the finest and softest white silk. In her hands she carries a half-moon-shaped cap or veil of floss silk. Its use we shall see hereafter. She salutes her cousin, who, clad in ceremonial dress with his ever-present two swords, is waiting to accompany her in addition to her family servants and bearers, and steps into the norimono.
The four bearers, the servants and the samurai pass down along the beautiful Kanda River, whose waters mirror the stars, and whose depths of shade re-echo to the gurgling of sculls, the rolling of ripples and the songs of revelers. The cortége enters one of the gate-towers of the old city-walls, passes beneath the shade of its ponderous copper-clad portals, and soon arrives at the main entrance of the Yamashiro yashiki. Here they find the street in front and the stone walk covered with matting, and a friend of Taro's, in full dress, waiting to receive the cortége. Of course the gazers of the neighborhood are waiting respectfully in crowds to catch a glimpse of the coming bride.
The go-between and a few friends of the bridegroom come out to receive the bride and deliver her to her own servant and two of her own young maiden friends, who had gone before to the Yamashiro mansion. The room in which the families of the bride and groom and their immediate friends are waiting, though guiltless of "furniture," as all Japanese rooms are, is yet resplendent with gilt-paper screens, bronzes, tiny lacquered tables and the Japanese nuptial emblems. On the wall hang three pictured scrolls of the gods of Long Life, of Wealth and of Happiness. On a little low table stands a dwarf pine tree, bifurcated, and beneath it are an old man and an old woman. Long life, a green old age, changeless constancy of love and the union of two hearts are symbolized by this evergreen. In the tokonoma (or large raised recess) of the room are the preparations for the feast, the wine-service consisting of kettles, decanters and cups. On two other tables are a pair of white storks and a fringed tortoise. All through the rooms gorgeously painted wax candles burn. The air of the apartment is heavy with perfume from the censer, a representation in bronze of an ancient hero riding upon a bullock. All the guests are seated à la Japonaise—upon the floor. Two or three young ladies, the bridesmaids, go out to meet the bride and lead her to her dressing-room. Here she finds her own property, which has been brought to her future home during the day. Toilet-stands and cabinets and the ceremonial towel-rack are prominently displayed. On a tall clothes-horse of gilt lacquer are hung her silk robes and the other articles of her wardrobe, which are bridal gifts. Over the doorway, in a gilt rack, glitters the long spear or halberd to the dexterous use of which all Japanese ladies of good family are trained. In a box of finest wood, shining with lacquer and adorned with her family crest, are the silk sleeping-dresses and coverlets, which are to be spread, as all Japanese beds are, on the floor. The articles above mentioned constitute the trousseau of a Japanese bride.
Here Kiku rearranges her dress, retouches her lower lip with golden paint and puts on her hood of floss silk. This is of a half-moon shape, completely covering her face. She does not lift it until she has drunk the sacramental marriage-cup. Many a Japanese maiden has seen her lord for the first time as she lifted her silken hood. Kiku is all ready, and she and the groom are led into the room where the ceremony is to be performed, and assigned their positions.
With a Japanese marriage neither religion nor the Church has anything to do. At the wedding no robed priest appears officially among the guests. The marriage is simply a civil and social contract. In place of our bans is the acceptance of the suitor's presents by the family of the sought, the announced betrothal and intimation of the marriage to the police of the ward. In place of our answer, "Yes," is the sacramental drinking of wine. We may say "wine," because we are talking of high life, and must use high words. Saké, the universal spirituous beverage of Japan, is made from fermented rice, and hence is properly rice-beer. It looks like pale sherry, and has a taste which is peculiarly its own. Sweet saké is very delicious, and it may be bought in all the degrees of strength and of all flavors and prices. As the Japanese always drink their wine hot, a copper kettle for heating saké is a necessity in every household. On ceremonial occasions, such as marriages, the saké-kettles are of the costliest and handsomest kind, being beautifully lacquered. Bride and groom being ready, the wine-kettles, cups and two bottles are handed down. Two pretty servant-maids now bring in a hot kettle of wine and fill the bottles. To one bottle is fastened by a silken cord a male butterfly, and to the other a female. The two girls also are called "male" and "female" butterflies. The girl having the female butterfly pours out some saké in the kettle, into which the girl with the male butterfly also pours the contents of her bottle, so that the wine from both bottles thus flows together. Then the saké is poured again into another gilt-and-lacquered bottle of different shape.
Now the real ceremony begins. On a little stand three cups, each slightly concave and having an under-rest or foot about half an inch high, are set one upon another, like a pagoda. The stand with this three-storied arrangement is handed to the bride. Holding it in both hands while the saké is poured into it by the male butterfly, the bride lifts the cup, sips from it three times, and the tower of cups is then passed to the bridegroom and refilled. He likewise drinks three times, and puts the empty cup under the third. The bride again sips thrice from the upper cup. The groom does the same, and places the empty cup beneath the second. Again the bride sips three times, and the bridegroom does the same, and they are man and wife: they are married. This ceremony is called san-san-ku-do, or "three times three are nine."
Like a wedding at once auspicious and distingué, the nuptials of Kiku and Taro passed off without one misstep or incident of ill omen. In the dressing-room and in the hall of ceremony Kiku's self-possessed demeanor was admired by all. After drinking the sacramental wine she lifted her silken hood, not too swiftly or nervously, and smiled blushingly on her lord. The marriage ceremony over, both bride and groom retired to their respective dressing-rooms. Kiku exchanged her white dress for one of more elaborate design and of a lavender color. The groom, removing his stiffly-starched ceremonial robes, appeared in ordinary dress. Meanwhile refreshments had been served to all the bridesmaids and, maid-servants. Husband and wife now took their seats again, and the whole company joined in the supper, during which apparently innumerable courses were served. Neither ices, oranges nor black-cake appeared on the table at Kiku's wedding. The bill of fare contained many decidedly recherché items which it requires a Japanese palate thoroughly to appreciate. Let us enumerate a few. There were salmon from Hakodate, tea from Uji, young rice from Higo, pheasants' eggs, fried cuttle-fish, tai, koi, maguro and many another sort of toothsome fish from the market at Nihon Bashi. There were sea-weed of various sorts and from many coasts, bean-curd, many kinds of fish-soups, condiments of various flavors, eggs in every style and shellfish of every shape. A huge maguro-fish, thinly sliced, but perfectly raw, was the pièce de résistance of the feast. Sweetmeats, candies of the sort known to the Japanese confectioners and castera (sponge-cake) crowned the courses.
Now, having briefly described Kiku's wedding, perhaps we should stop here. Although fairly married, however, Kiku was not through the ceremonies of the night. Before her own parents left the house she was taken by the attendant ladies before her parents-in-law, and with them drank cups of wine and exchanged gifts. All the bridal presents were displayed during the evening in her dressing-room, and the whole of her trousseau was open to the inspection of all the ladies present. Feasting and dancing were the order of the hours until midnight, and then Kiku's parents bade her farewell, and she was left a bride in a new home.
"Where did the young couple go?" "What was the route of their bridal-tour?" "Perhaps they made a late wedding-journey?" "Of course Japan has many fine watering-places to which married couples resort?" These are American questions. The fashion of making bridal-tours is not Japanese. Many a lovely spot might serve for such a purpose in everywhere beautiful Japan. The lake and mountains of Hakone; the peerless scenery, trees, waterfalls and tombs of Nikko, where sleeps the mighty Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa line; the spas of Atami,—all these are spots which if in America would be thronged with bridal-parties. Caucasians in Japan even make Fusiyama's summit the goal of their wedded steps, but our Kiku and Taro went nowhere.
"At home" for three days is the general rule in Japan. All their friends came to see them, and presents were showered on the happy pair. The great Shô-gun, remembering his former page, sent Taro a present of a flawless ball of pure rock-crystal five inches in diameter. Prince Echizen, his feudal lord, presented him with a splendid saddle with gilt flaps and a pair of steel stirrups inlaid with gold and silver and bronze, with the crest of the Echizen clan glittering in silver upon it. From his own father he received a jet-black horse brought from the province of Nambu, and an equine descendant of the Arab sire presented by the viceroy of India to the Japanese embassy to the pope in 1589. On the delightful wonders of the gifts to Kiku our masculine pen shrinks from expatiating. On the third day after her marriage Kiku visited her parents, and after that spent many days in returning the visits of all who had called on her.
Now, like the "goosie gander" of nursery memory, we must wander again into the lady's chamber. Were you to wander to such a place after a Japanese maiden became a wife, you would see, as we have often seen, how the outward form of a Japanese maiden assumes that of a Japanese matron. First, then, the maiden wears a high coiffure that always serves as a sacred symbol of her virginity. It is not easy to describe its form, but even foreigners think it very beautiful, and will regret the day when the Japanese musume wears her hair like her sisters across the ocean. Indeed, it would be no strange thing were Queen Fashion to ordain that American maidens should adopt the style of dressing the hair now in universal vogue in Japan. The shimada or virginal coiffure, however, is changed after marriage, and Kiku, like the rest of her wedded friends, now wore the maru-mage, or half-moon-shaped chignon, which is wound round an ivory, tortoise-shell or coral-tipped bar, and is the distinguishing mark of a Japanese wife. So far, however, the transition from loveliness to ugliness has not been very startling: Kiku still looked pretty. The second process, however, robbed her of her eyebrows, and left her without those dark arches that had helped to make the radiant sun of her once maidenly beauty. With tweezers and razor the fell work, after many a wince, was done. With denuded brows and changed coiffure surely the Japanese Hymen demands no more sacrifices at his shrine? Surely Kiku can still keep the treasures of a set of teeth that seem like a casket of pearls with borders of coral? Not so. The fashion of all good society from remotest antiquity demands that the teeth of a wife must be dyed black. Kiku joyfully applied the galls and iron, and by patience and dint of polishing soon had a set of teeth as black as jet and as polished as the best Whitby. Not strange to tell to a Japanese, either, the smile of her husband Taro was a rich reward for her trouble and the surrender of her maiden charms. Japanese husbands never kiss their wives: kissing is an art unknown in Japan. It is even doubtful whether the language has a word signifying a kiss. No wonder Young Japan wishes to change his language for the English! Henceforth in public or private, alone or in company, Kiku's personal and social safety was as secure as if clothed in armor of proof and attended by an army. The black teeth, maru-mage and shaven eyebrows constitute a talisman of safety in a land which foreigners so like to believe licentious and corrupt beyond the bounds of conception.
Now that we have Kiku married, we must leave her to glide into the cool, sequestered paths of a Japanese married lady's life. Only one thing we regret, and that is that her marriage could not have happened in the year of our Lord 1874 and of "Enlightened Peace the seventh, and of the era of Jimmu, the first Mikado, the two thousand five hundred and thirty-fourth." Had she been married during the present year, her coiffure would need no alteration, her eyebrows would still knit with care or arch with mirth, and her teeth would still keep their virgin whiteness, unsoiled by astringent galls or abhorred vitriol.
The leader of feminine fashion in Japan, the young empress Haruko, has set her subjects the example by for ever banishing the galls and iron, appearing even in public with her teeth as Nature made them. Kiku and Taro, though once proud to own allegiance to the Shô-gun, are now among the staunch supporters of the lord of the Shô-gun, the Mikado, the only true sovereign of the Sunrise Kingdom.
W.E. GRIFFIS.
THE LOST BABY.
She wandered off one dismal day;
No one was by to bid her stay:
The earth was white, the sky was gray,
When the poor little baby wandered away.
The sun went down with crimson crown
Behind the clouds and the tree-tops brown:
The cold road stared with a colder frown
When the poor little feet went wandering down.
Her mother lived up in the shining sky,
Thought poor little baby, wondering why,
As hours and days and weeks went by,
She never came down at her baby's cry.
If the crimson wave in the west led true,
The skyward road she surely knew:
She heeded not that the sharp winds blew,
Or her cold little feet sore tired grew.
She hummed some broken baby song,
And talked to herself as she trudged along:
She feared no failure, recked no wrong,
But she thought that the way was lone and long.
Tired and cold, she lingered to rest
Under a snow-drift's treacherous crest:
She cuddled herself in a tiny nest,
White and cold as her mother's breast.
They found her there on the snowy ground,
Her silky hair with snowflakes crowned.
She made no sign, she breathed no sound,
But the skyward road she had surely found.
CLARA G. DOLLIVER.