I saw at one of the Torlonia entertainments a marvellously beautiful and strange thing, of which I had read an account in Mme. de Staël’s Corinne. There was a stage, on which appeared a young girl, plainly dressed, and bearing a simple small scarf. She did not speak or dance, or even assume “artistic positions”; what she did was far more striking and wonderful. She merely sat or stood or reclined in many ways, every one of which seemed to be perfectly natural or habitual, and all of which were incredibly graceful. I have forgotten how such women were called in Italy. I am sure that this one had never been trained to it, for the absolute ease and naturalness with which she sat or stood could never have been taught. If it could, every woman in the world would learn it. Ristori was one of these instinctive Graces, and it constituted nearly all the art there was in her.
This was in 1846. The Carnival of that year in Rome was the last real one which Italy ever beheld. It was the very last, for which every soul saved up all his money for months, in order to make a wild display, and dance and revel and indulge in
“Eating, drinking, masking,
And other things which could be had for asking.”
Then all Rome ran mad, and rode in carriages full of flowers, or carts, or wheelbarrows, or triumphal chariots, or on camels, horses, asses, or rails—n’importe quoi—and merrily cast confetti of flour or lime at one another laughing, while grave English tourists on balconies laboriously poured the same by the peck from tin scoops on the heads of the multitude, under the delusion that they too were enjoying themselves and “doing” the Carnival properly. It was the one great rule among Italians that no man should in the Carnival, under any provocation whatever, lose his temper. And here John Bull often tripped up. On the last night of
the last Carnival—that great night—there was the Senza Moccolo or extinguishment of lights, in which everybody bore a burning taper, and tried to blow or knock out the light of his neighbour. Now, being tall, I held my taper high with one hand, well out of danger, while with a broad felt hat in the other I extinguished the children of light like a priest. I threw myself into all the roaring fun like a wild boy, as I was, and was never so jolly. Observing a pretty young English lady in an open carriage, I thrice extinguished her light, at which she laughed, but at which her brother or beau did not, for he got into a great rage, even the first time, and bade me begone. Whereupon I promptly renewed the attack, and then repeated it, “according to the rules of the game,” whereat he began to curse and swear, when I, in the Italian fashion of rebuke (to the delight of sundry Italians), pointed my finger at him and hissed; which constituted the winning point d’honneur in the game.
There, too, was the race of wild horses, right down through the Corso or Condotti, well worth seeing, and very exciting, and game suppers o’nights after the opera, and the meeting with many swells and noted folk, and now it all seems like some memory of a wild phantasmagoria or hurried magic-lantern show—galleries and ruins by day, and gaiety by night. Even so do all the scenes of life roll up together at its end, often getting mixed.
Yet another Roman memory or two. We had taken lodgings in the Via Condotti, where we had a nice sitting-room in common and a good coal-fire. Our landlady was lady-like and spoke French, and had long been a governess in the great Borghese family. As for her husband, there were thousands of Liberals far and wide who spoke of him as the greatest scoundrel unhung, for he was at the head of the Roman police, and I verily believe knew more iniquity than the Pope himself. It would have been against all nature and precedent if I had not become his dear friend and protégé, which I did accordingly, for I liked him very much
indeed, and Heaven knows that such a rum couple of friends as Giuseppe Navone and myself, when out walking together, could not at that time have been found in Europe.
It may here be observed that I was decidedly getting on in the quality of my Mentors, for, as regarded morals and humanity, my old pirate and slaver friend was truly as a lamb and an angel of light compared to Navone. And I will further indicate, as this book will prove, that if I was not at the age of twenty-three the most accomplished young scoundrel in all Europe, it was not for want of such magnificent opportunities and friends as few men ever enjoyed. But it was always my fate to neglect or to be unable to profit by advantages, as, for instance, in mathematics; nor in dishonesty did I succeed one whit better, which may be the reason why the two are somehow dimly connected in my mind. Here I think I see the unfathomable smile in the eye of Professor Dodd (it never got down to his lips), who was the incarnate soul of purity and honour. But then the banker, E. Fenzi, who swindled me out of nearly 500 francs, was an arithmetician, and I write under a sense of recent wrong. How this loss, and Fenzi’s failure, flight, and the fuss which it all caused in Florence, were accurately foretold me by a witch, may be read in detail in my “Etrusco-Roman Remains in Tuscan Tradition.” London: T. Fisher Unwin.
My landlady was a very zealous Catholic, and tried to convert me. This was a new experience, and I enjoyed it. I proved malleable. So she called in a Jesuit priest to perfect the work. I listened with deep interest to his worn-out fade arguments, made a few points of feeble objection for form’s sake, yielded, and met him more than half way. But somehow he never called again. Latet anguis in herba—my grass was rather too green, I suppose. I was rather sorry, for I expected some amusement. But I had been too deep for the Jesuit—and for myself.