Italian Days and Ways

by Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

Do you remember the picture in our school histories of Marcus Curtius plunging into the abyss? I could see him, in my mind's eye, boldly riding his white horse over the cliff into the depths of the chasm below, until Zelphine reminded me that it was not from this rock that Curtius made his fatal plunge, but over on the Forum, where the chasm closed at once upon horse and rider. I cannot even find mention of our old friend Marcus Curtius; he is now known as Mettius Curtius. Now the edge of the precipice is so guarded by an iron railing that it would be quite impossible in these days for any one to leap from the rock, or for Donatello to push the monk over into the street below, as in Hawthorne's tale. Mr. Julian Hawthorne says that it was to a moonlight visit to the Tarpeian Rock in the good company of Miss Bremer that we owe this scene in "The Marble Faun," the "most visibly tragic of my father's writings." A pleasant-faced young woman who unlocked the gate of the garden for us was evidently bewitched by Angela's charms, as she did not take her eyes off her face from the moment that she saw her. When we turned to leave the enclosure she broke from one of the trees an exquisite branch of orange-blossoms, and gave it to Angela with a charming grace, at the same time glancing over at Ludovico in a manner that brought the color to his face. He laughed, evidently pleased, and said a few words to her in Italian, after which she bestowed a smaller cluster of the fragrant flowers upon him. Angela, all unconscious, walked on, revelling in the rich perfume of these loveliest of blossoms.

I went to sleep last night wondering what the sweet-faced custodian of the grim rock had said to Ludovico, and what his reply had been, and so fell to dreaming of a wedding; but Zelphine was the bride, not Angela, despite her orange-blossoms, and the groom was a certain widower who pays intermittent attention to Zelphine—intermittent because she will not allow him to be a "regular steady," as one of our maids used to say in speaking of her own suitor.

You have surely heard of Walter Leonard's devotion to Zelphine, which is so much of an open secret among her friends that when subjects for conversation fail, they fall back with ever fresh interest upon speculations as to whether or not she will eventually accept him and his family of small children. Angela and I have an idea that she left home in order to avoid a crisis in her affairs, and when she looks sad or tired, Angela says that remorse is preying upon her because of the motherless condition of those hapless children. I did not tell Zelphine about my dream, because it is bad luck to dream about a marriage. You scorn all such fancies, I know, but she is really superstitious, and I might injure Mr. Leonard's chances if I should talk just now. Angela and I have our own fun out of the situation. She predicts that he will appear in Venice, which surely would be an appropriate place for a lover to make his entrance, and romantic enough to please Zelphine. This is only idle talk, however, as she has never spoken of the possibility of Walter Leonard's coming over; and pray do forget my gossip. It is too late, and I am quite too tired to rewrite this part of my letter. I know you of old, and so am sure that you will tell no tales.

Sunday, March 27th.

This is a gloriously beautiful day. The Spanish Steps are brilliant in the sunshine, with more flowers than usual on the stalls at the base. As Sunday is a fête-day, the vendors do a thriving business. And how cheap the flowers are! One may have all the roses one can carry, for a franc or two! Yet, with the idea that there is no fixed price in Italy, travellers are always to be seen at the stalls outdoing the Romans themselves in their efforts to cheapen the flowers, while the merchant volubly protests that his house will be desolated and his children in rags if he sells his roses for a soldo less than the asking price. A few artists' models are still to be found sunning themselves on the marble steps or around the fountain of the Piazza di Spagna, but in less brilliant array than one would desire, peasant dress being as little worn in Rome as in Paris.

To go to St. Peter's seemed the thing of all others to do to-day, and we found an accommodating tram waiting for us in the Piazza di Spagna.

They tell us that no one ever realizes the vastness of St. Peter's upon a first visit. However this may be, it seemed immense to us, outside and in. One notices first Bernini's great colonnades on each side of the basilica, which, with its façade, form a hemicycle with the Egyptian obelisk in the centre. Behind the church is the monotonous mass of the Vatican buildings, while in the foreground the twin fountains send up their spires of feathery spray. Small wonder that the practical and thrifty German Emperor advised them to turn off the water. "Turn them off now," he said, after admiring the beauty of the fountains. "It's a pity to waste so much water!" But these fountains of Maderno's have played untiringly, in sunlight and shade, by moonlight and starlight, for nearly three hundred years. Everywhere in Rome one hears the sound of flowing water from the many fountains. In the Borghese Gardens up on the Pincio, in the Piazza di Spagna, down in the Piazza Poli where the great Fountain of Trevi dashes continually, throwing its jets d'eau into the great basin beneath, over in the Piazza delle Terme, near the railroad station—on all sides one hears the refreshing sound of splashing, leaping water.

We wandered about the great basilica as if in a strange city, avoiding, of course, the several chapels in which services were being held, and stopping long before the Chapel of the Pietà, in which Michael Angelo's beautiful marble of the Sorrowing Mother with the dead Christ upon her knees is enshrined. From the gorgeous mosaics in Michael Angelo's dome and from the rich and elaborate tombs of many popes we turned almost with relief to the strong and simple Rezzonico monument, upon which Canova has placed two great lions at the feet of Pope Clement XIII., while in sharp contrast is a graceful, youthful figure, the Genius of Death, holding a torch reversed. Zelphine and I think this the most beautiful example of Canova's work that we have seen anywhere. Another of the monuments that interested us is that erected by George IV. to the memory of the unfortunate princes of the house of Stuart, James III., Charles Edward, and Henry, Cardinal of York.

Zelphine, who adores the Stuarts, almost wept over this tomb, although she could not help smiling a bit at the high-sounding titles engraved upon the monument to Maria Clementina Sobieski, the wife of the second Pretender, whose name is here inscribed as "Queen of Great Britain, France, and Ireland."

We both enjoyed Stendhal's trenchant comment upon the post-mortem honors paid by the Hanoverian king to the Stuart princes: "George IV., fidèle à sa réputation du gentleman le plus accompli des trois royaumes, a voulu honorer la cendre des princes malheureuses que de leur vivant il eût envoyés à l'échafaud s'ils fussent tombés en son pouvoir."