A Short Walk.
Mr. Caper having indignantly rejected the services of all professors of the guiding art or 'commissionaires,' slowly sauntered out of his hotel the morning after his arrival, and, map in hand, made his way to the tower on the Capitoline Hill. Threading several narrow, dirty streets, he at last went through one where in one spot there was such a heap of garbage and broccoli stumps that he raised his eyes to see how high up it reached against the walls of a palace; and there read, in black letters,
Immondezzaio;
literally translated, A Place for Dirt. On the opposite wall, which was the side of a church, he saw a number of black placards on which were large white skulls and crossbones, and while examining these, a bare-headed, brown-bearded, stout Franciscan monk passed him. From a passing glance, Caper saw he looked good-natured, and so, hailing him, asked why the skulls and bones were pasted there.
'Who knows?' answered the monk. 'I came this morning from the Campagna; this is the first time in all my life I have been in this magnificent city.'
'Can you tell me what that word means up there?' said Caper, pointing to immondezzaio.
'Signore, I can not read.'
'Perhaps it is the name of the street, maybe of the city?'
'It must be so,' answered the priest, 'unless it's a sign of a lottery office, or a caution against blasphemy up and down the pavement. Those are the only signs we have in the country, except the government salt and cigar shops.' ... He took a snuff-box from a pocket in his sleeve, and with a bow offered a pinch to Mr. Caper. This accepted, they bid each other profoundly farewell.
'There goes a brick!' remarked the traveler.
Arrived at the entrance-door to the tower of the Capitoline Hill, James Caper first felt in one pocket for a silver piece and in the other for a match-box, and finding them both there, rang the bell, and then mounted to the top of the tower. Lighting a zigarro scelto or papal cigar, he leaned on both elbows on the parapet, and gazed long and fixedly over the seven-hilled city.
'And this,' soliloquized he, is Rome. Many a day have I been kept in school without my dinner because I was not able to parse thee idly by, Roma—Rome—noun of the first declension, feminine gender, that a quarter of a century ago caused me punishment, I have thee now literally under foot, and (knocking his cigar) throw ashes on thy head.
'My mission in this great city is not that of a picture-peddler or art student. I come to investigate the eating, drinking, sleeping arrangements of the Eternal City—its wine more than its vinegar, its pretty girls more than its galleries, its cafés more than its churches. I see from here that I have a fine field to work in. Down there, clambering over the fallen ruins of the Palace of the Cæsars, is a donkey. Could one have a finer opportunity to see in this a moral and twist a tail? From those fallen stones, Memory-glorious old architect—rears a fabric wondrously beautiful; peoples it with eidolons white and purple-robed, and gleaming jewel-gemmed; or, iron armed, glistening with flashing light from polished steel—heroes and slaves, conquerors and conquered; my blood no longer flows to the slow, jerking measure of a nineteenth-century piece of mechanism, but freely, fully, and completely. Hurrah, my blood is up! dark, liquid eyes; black, flowing locks; strange, pleasing perfumes are around me. There is a rush as of a strong south wind through a myriad of floating banners, and I am borne onward through triumphal arches, past pillared temples, under the walls of shining palaces, into the Coliseum....
'Pray, and can you tell me—if that pile of d——d old rubbish—down there, you know—is the Forum—for I do not—see it in Murray—though I'm sure—I have looked very clearly—and Murray you know—has everything down in him—that a traveler....
'A commercial traveler?' ... interrupted Mr. Caper, speaking slowly, and looking coolly into the eyes of the blackguard Bagman.... 'The ruins you see there are those of the Forum. Good morning.'