and going on for hours, without apparent rhyme or reason, you cease to take thought of anything, in order to speculate idly when, if ever, there is likely to be an end. There is no variety, and little change, too, about the ceremonies. When you have seen one you have seen all; and when you have seen them once, you can understand how to the Romans themselves these sights have become stale and dull, till they look upon them much as I fancy the musician in the orchestra of the old Princess’s must have looked upon one of Kean’s Shaksperian revivals when the season was far spent.
CHAPTER XVI. ISOLATION OF ROME.
There is, I think, no city in the world where Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” would be so hard to answer as in Rome. In addition to the ordinary difficulties which everywhere beset the path of the foreigner in search of knowledge, there are a number of obstacles peculiar and special to Rome alone.
The whole policy of the government is directed towards maintaining the country in a state of isolation, towards drawing, in fact, a moral cordon sanitaire round the Papal dominions. Indeed, if one lived long in Rome, one would get to doubt the reality of anything. When I last came to Rome straight from Tuscany, seething in the turmoil of its new-bought liberties, I could hardly believe that only six months ago there had been war in Italy within two hundred miles from the Papal city, that the fate of Italy still hung
trembling in the balance, and that the chief province of the country was still in open revolt against its rulers. There was no sign, no trace, scarce a symptom even of what had passed or was passing in the world without. We all seemed spellbound in a dull, dead, dreary circle. There were no advertisements in the streets, except of devotional works for the coming season of Lent; no pamphlets or books placed in the booksellers’ windows, which by their titles even implied the existence of the war and the revolution; no prints for sale of the scenes of the campaign, or the popular heroes of the day. This was the normal state of Rome, such as I had seen it in former years. Later on, indeed, either the force of events, or a change in the counsels of the Vatican, induced the Papacy to drop the defensive passive attitude which constituted its real strength, and to adopt an active offensive policy, which served rather to show the greatness of the dreaded danger than to avert its occurrence. Still the increased animation, though perceptible enough to a Roman, appeared to a stranger but a step above absolute stagnation. I never could get over my astonishment at our utter ignorance of what went on around and amongst us. About
the state of affairs in our two neighbouring countries, whether in free Tuscany or in despotic Naples, we were entirely in the dark. What little news we got was derived from chance reports of stray travellers, or from the French and English newspapers. The Giornale di Roma gave us now and then a damnatory paragraph about the Tuscan Government, from which, out of a mass of vituperation, we could pick up an odd fact or so; but during the first four months of this year, throughout which period I perused the Giornale pretty carefully, I do not remember to have seen a single allusion, good, bad or indifferent, to the kingdom of Naples. The Tuscan papers were naturally enough forbidden, as are almost all the journals of the free Italian states, and could only be obtained by private hands. The Neapolitan Gazette, the Monitore del Regno delle Due Sicilie, was never seen by any chance, though I cannot suppose its circulation was directly interdicted. The communication between Rome and Naples was, and is, scanty in the extreme. During the last ten years, about ten miles of the Pio-Centrale Railroad, the Neapolitan line, have been opened. At present beyond Albano the works are entirely at a stand-still, and there
are still some thirty miles of line, between Rome and the frontier, of which hardly a sod has been turned. The Civita Vecchia line has only been completed in consequence of the pressure of the French authorities, and the Ancona-Florence line is still in statu quo. Three times a week there are diligences between Rome and Naples. The local steam-boats, which used to run along the coast from Porto d’Anzio to the Neapolitan capital have been given up, and in fact there is no ready means of transit, save by the foreign steamers, which touch at Civita Vecchia. Whether purposely or not, everything has been done to check free communication between the Papal and Neapolitan States, and in this respect the Government has been eminently successful. The two countries are totally distinct. A Neapolitan is a forestiere in Rome, and vice versâ. The divide et impera has been the motto of all the petty Italian despots and of the Papacy in particular, and hitherto has proved successful. Even now, as far as I could see and learn, the desire for Italian unity does not penetrate very low down. It is the desire, I freely grant, of all the best and wisest Italians, but scarcely, I suspect, the wish of the Italian people. In truth, Italy at this
moment is very much what Great Britain would be, if Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the States of the Saxon Heptarchy had remained to this day separate petty kingdoms, ruled by governments who fostered and developed every local and sectional jealousy. The broad fact, that for some weeks at Rome we were in utter ignorance whether there had been a revolution or not in the capital of the frontier kingdom, not thirty miles away, and should have been quite surprised if we had learnt anything about the matter, is a sufficient commentary on our state of isolation.
This artificial isolation too is increased by a sort of general apathy and almost universal ignorance, which are characteristic of all classes in Rome. How far this intellectual apathy is caused by, or causes, the material isolation of the city, would be a curious question to determine. The existence, however, of this fact, which none acquainted with Rome will question, constitutes one of the chief difficulties in ascertaining accurate information about facts. The most intelligent and the most liberal amongst the Romans (the two terms are there synonymous) never seem to know the value of positive facts, and even in matters susceptible of proof prefer general statements.
Then, too, the absence of social meetings, or means of intercourse, is one of the most striking features about Roman society. There is no public life, no current literature, little even of free conversation. Of course, among the English and foreign residents there are plenty of parties and gaieties of every kind. At these parties you meet a few Anglicised Italians, who have picked up a little of our English language and a good deal of our English dress. The nobility of Rome who come into contact with the higher class of English travellers give a good number of formal receptions, but amongst the middle and professional classes there is very little society at all. The summer is the season for what society there is, but even then there is but little. There are no saloons in the Roman theatres, and the miserable refreshment-rooms, with their bars even more shabby and worse provided than our English ones, are, as you may suppose, not places of meeting. Even at the Opera there seemed to be little visiting in the boxes. With the exception of the strangers’ rooms, there are no reading-rooms or clubs in Rome, if I may exclude from this category a miserable Gabinetto di Lettura, chiefly frequented by priests, and whose current