"I feel," she said to me, "that I could have learnt both French and German easily, if I could have compared them in a book. But I can neither read nor write. These wretched priests have kept us in ignorance. And now I am old and good for nothing. I was forty a little while ago, and that is too old to learn the alphabet. Do you know, signore, how it originally came about that I did not believe, and despised the priests? I was twelve years old, and a tall girl, and a very good-looking girl, too, though you cannot see that, now that I am old and ugly." (You can see it very plainly, for her features are haughty and perfectly pure of line; it is only that her expression, when she sits alone, is sinister.) "I lost my father when I was five years old. About that time my mother married again, and did not trouble herself any more about me, as she had children with her new husband. So I was left to myself, and ran about the streets, and became absolutely ungovernable, from vivacity, life, and mischief, for I was naturally a very lively child. Then one day I met a mule, alone; the man had left it; I climbed up, and seated myself upon it, and rode about, up and down the street, until a dog came that frightened the mule and it kicked and threw me over its head. There I lay, with a broken collar-bone, and some of the bone stuck out through the skin. Then a doctor came and wanted to bind it up for me, but I was ashamed for him to see my breast, and would not let him. He said: 'Rubbish! I have seen plenty of girls.' So I was bound up and for six weeks had to lie quite still. In the meantime a priest, whom they all called Don Carlo--I do not know why they said Don --came to see me, and when I was a little better and only could not move my left arm, he said to me one day, would I go and weed in his garden, and he would give me money for it. So I went every day into the garden, where I could very well do the work with one arm. He came down to me, brought me sweets and other things, and asked me to be his friend. I pretended not to understand. He said, too, how pretty I was, and such things. Then at last one day, he called me into his bedroom, and first gave me sweets, and then set me on his knee. I did not know how to get away. Then I said to him: 'It is wrong, the Madonna would not like it.' Do you know, sir, what he replied? He said: 'Child! there is no Madonna (non c'è Madonna) she is only a bridle for the common people' (è un freno per il populo basso). Then I was anxious to run away, and just then my mother passed by the garden, and as she did not see me there, called, 'Anna Maria! Anna Maria!' I said: 'Mother is calling me,' and ran out of the room. Then mother said to me: 'What did the priest say to you, and what did he do to you? You were in his bedroom.' I said: 'Nothing'; but when my mother went to confession, instead of confessing her sins, she said over and over again to him: 'What have you done to my daughter? I will have my daughter examined, to see what sort of a man you are.' He declared: 'I will have you shot if you do' (una buona schioppettata). So mother did not dare to go farther in the matter. But she would not believe me."
Here we were interrupted by the Russian woman from next door coming in; she is married, more or less, to a waiter, and she complained of his volatility, and cried with jealousy. "Once I was just as weak," said Maria. "When I was newly married I was so jealous of my husband, that I could neither eat nor drink if any one came to me and said: 'This evening he is with such and such a one.' If I tried to eat, I was sick at once. I am just as fond of him as I was then, but I am cured now. If I saw his infidelity with my own eyes, I should not feel the least bit hurt about it. Then, I could have strangled him."
[FILOMENA]
Italian Landladies--The Carnival--The Moccoli Feast--Filomena's Views
Filomena sings lustily from early morning till late at night, and her name suits her. The Greek Philomela has acquired this popular form, and in use is often shortened to Filomé.
The other day I made her a present of a bag of English biscuits. Her face beamed as I have never besides seen anything beam but the face of my cafetière--he is a boy of twelve--when now and again he gets a few soldi for bringing me my coffee or tea. Anyone who has only seen the lighting up of Northern faces has no conception,--as even painters admit,--of such transfiguration. Yes, indeed! Filomena's tall figure and fresh mountain blood would freshen up the Goldschmidtian human race to such an extent that they would become better men and women in his next books.
I have seen a little of the Carnival. This morning Filomena came to my room, to fetch a large Italian flag which belongs there. "I am going to wave it on Thursday," she said, and added, with blushing cheeks, "then I shall have a mask on." But this evening she could not restrain herself. For the first time during the five months I have lived here, and for the first time during the month I have been ill, she came in without my having called or rung for her. She had a red silk cap on, with a gold border. "What do you say to that, sir!" she said, and her clear laughter rang through the room. It revived my sick self to gaze at ease at so much youth, strength and happiness; then I said a few kind words to her, and encouraged by them she burst into a stream of eloquence about all the enjoyment she was promising herself. This would be the first carnival she had seen; she came from the mountains and was going back there this Spring. She was in the seventh heaven over her cap. She always reminds me, with her powerful frame, of the young giantess in the fairy tale who takes up a peasant and his plough in the hollow of her hand.
Filomena is as tall as a moderately tall man, slenderly built, but with broad shoulders. She impresses one as enjoying life thoroughly. She has herself made all she wears--a poor little grey woollen skirt with an edging of the Italian colours, which has been lengthened some nine inches at the top by letting in a piece of shirting. A thin red-and- black-striped jacket that she wears, a kind of loose Garibaldi, is supposed to hide this addition, which it only very imperfectly does. Her head is small and piquant; her hair heavy, blue-black; her eyes light brown, of exquisite shape, smiling and kind. She has small, red lips, and the most beautiful teeth that I remember seeing. Her complexion is brown, unless she blushes; then it grows darker brown. Her figure is unusually beautiful, but her movements are heavy, so that one sees at once she is quite uneducated. Still, she has a shrug of the shoulders, ways of turning and twisting her pretty head about, that are absolutely charming.
I have sent Filomena into the town to buy a pound of figs for me and one for herself. While she is away, I reflect that I cannot sufficiently congratulate myself on my excellent landlady, and the others. As a rule, these Roman lodging-house keepers are, judging by what one hears, perfect bandits. When F., the Norwegian sculptor, lay dangerously ill, the woman in whose house he was did not even speak to him; she went out and left him alone in the house. When the Danish dilettante S. was at death's door, his landlady did not enter his room once a day, or give him a drink of water, and he was obliged to keep a servant. V.'s landlady stole an opera-glass, a frock-coat, and a great deal of money from him. Most foreigners are swindled in a hundred different ways; if they make a stain on the carpet, they must pay for a new one. Maria looks after me like a mother. Every morning she rubs me with the ointment the doctor has prescribed. When I have to have a bath, she takes me in her arms, without any false shame, and puts me in the water; then takes me up and puts me to bed again; after my sojourn in the hospital, I am not very heavy. What I am most astonished at is the indulgent delicacy of these people. For instance, Maria has forbidden her good-natured husband, whom, like Filomena, I like to call Zio (uncle), to eat garlic (the favourite food of the Romans) while I am ill, that I may not be annoyed in my room by the smell. I have only to say a word, and she and her niece run all my errands for me. Indeed, the other day, Maria exclaimed, quite indignantly: "Sir, do not say 'when you go into the town, will you buy me this or that?' Are we robbers, are we scoundrels? Only say, 'go,' and I will go." I never say to her: "Will you do me a favour?" without her replying: "Two, sir." Yes, and she heaps presents upon me; she and Filomena bring me, now a bundle of firewood, now a glass of good wine, now macaroni, etc. All the Danes who come here are astonished, and say: "You have got deucedly good people to look after you."
Maria's greatest pleasure is talking. She has no time for it in the day. In the evening, however, she tidies my room slowly, entertaining me all the time. When she has quite finished, at the time of day when others are drowsy or go to bed, she still likes to have just a little more conversation, and she knows that when I see she has put the last thing into its place, her task for the day is ended, and I shall dismiss her with a gracious Buona sera, bon riposo! To put off this moment as long as possible, she will continue to hold some object in her hand, and, standing in the favourite position of the Romans, with her arms akimbo, and some toilet article under her arm, will hold a long discourse. She sometimes looks so indescribably comic that I almost choke with suppressed laughter as we talk.