Europe Revised

by Irvin S. Cobb

Grimmer exhibits are displayed in cases stretched along the center of the main hall—models of dead bodies discovered in the ruins and perfectly restored by pouring a bronze composition into the molds that were left in the hardened pumice after the flesh of these victims had turned to dust and their bones had crumbled to powder. Huddled together are the forms of a mother and a babe; and you see how, with her last conscious thought, the mother tried to cover her baby's face from the killing rain of dust and blistering ashes. And there is the shape of a man who wrapped his face in a veil to keep out the fumes, and died so. The veil is there, reproduced with a fidelity no sculptor could duplicate, and through its folds you may behold the agony that made his jaw to sag and his eyes to pop from their sockets.

Nearby is a dog, which in its last spasms of pain and fright curled up worm fashion, and buried its nose in its forepaws and kicked out with its crooked hind legs. Plainly dogs do not change their emotional natures with the passage of years. A dog died in Pompeii in 79 A. D. after exactly the same fashion that a dog might die to-day in the pound at Pittsburgh.

From here we went on into the city proper; and it was a whole city, set off by itself and not surrounded by those jarring modern incongruities that spoil the ruins of Rome for the person who wishes to give his fancy a slack rein. It is all here, looking much as it must have looked when Nero and Caligula reigned, and much as it will still look hundreds of years hence, for the Government owns it now and guards it and protects it from the hammer of the vandal and the greed of the casual collector. Here it is—all of it; the tragic theater and the comic theater; the basilica; the greater forum and the lesser one; the market place; the amphitheater for the games; the training school for the gladiators; the temples; the baths; the villas of the rich; the huts of the poor; the cubicles of the slaves; shops; offices; workrooms; brothels.

The roofs are gone, except in a few instances where they have been restored; but the walls stand and many of the detached pillars stand too; and the pavements have endured well, so that the streets remain almost exactly as they were when this was a city of live beings instead of a tomb of dead memories, with deep groovings of chariot wheels in the flaggings, and at each crossing there are stepping stones, dotting the roadbed like punctuation marks. At the public fountain the well curbs are worn away where the women rested their water jugs while they swapped the gossip of the town; and at nearly every corner is a groggery, which in its appointments and fixtures is so amazingly like unto a family liquor store as we know it that, venturing into one, I caught myself looking about for the Business Men's Lunch, with a collection of greasy forks in a glass receptacle, a crock of pretzels on the counter, and a sign over the bar reading: No Checks Cashed—This Means You!

In the floors the mosaics are as fresh as though newly applied; and the ribald and libelous Latin, which disappointed litigants carved on the stones at the back of the law court, looks as though it might have been scored there last week—certainly not further back than the week before that. A great many of the wall paintings in the interiors of rich men's homes have been preserved and some of them are fairly spicy as to subject and text. It would seem that in these matters the ancient Pompeiians were pretty nearly as broad-minded and liberal as the modern Parisians are. The mural decorations I saw in certain villas were almost suggestive enough to be acceptable matter for publication in a French comic paper; almost, but not quite. Mr. Anthony Comstock would be an unhappy man were he turned loose in Pompeii—unhappy for a spell, but after that exceedingly busy.

We lingered on, looking and marveling, and betweenwhiles wondering whether our automobile's hacking cough had got any better by resting, until the sun went down and the twilight came. Following the guidebook's advice we had seen the Colosseum in Rome by moonlight. There was a full moon on the night we went there. It came heaving up grandly, a great, round-faced, full-cream, curdy moon, rich with rennet and yellow with butter fats; but by the time we had worked our way south to Naples a greedy fortnight had bitten it quite away, until it was reduced to a mere cheese rind of a moon, set up on end against the delft-blue platter of a perfect sky. We waited until it showed its thin rim in the heavens, and then, in the softened half-glow, with the purplish shadows deepening between the brown-gray walls of the dead city, I just naturally turned my imagination loose and let her soar.

Standing there, with the stage set and the light effects just right, in fancy I repopulated Pompeii. I beheld it just as it was on a fair, autumnal morning in 79 A. D. With my eyes half closed, I can see the vision now. At first the crowds are massed and mingled in confusion, but soon figures detach themselves from the rest and reveal themselves as prominent personages. Some of them I know at a glance. Yon tall, imposing man, with the genuine imitation sealskin collar on his toga, who strides along so majestically, whisking his cane against his leg, can be no other than Gum Tragacanth, leading man of the Bon Ton Stock Company, fresh from his metropolitan triumphs in Rome and at this moment the reigning matinee idol of the South. This week he is playing Claude Melnotte in The Lady of Lyons; next week he will be seen in his celebrated characterization of Matthias in The Bells, with special scenery; and for the regular Wednesday and Saturday bargain matinees Lady Audley's Secret will be given.

Observe him closely. It is evident that he values his art. Yet about him there is no false ostentation. With what gracious condescension does he acknowledge the half-timid, half-daring smiles of all the little caramel-chewing Floras and Faunas who have made it a point to be on Main Street at this hour! With what careless grace does he doff his laurel wreath, which is of the latest and most modish fall block, with the bow at the back, in response to the waved greeting of Mrs. Belladonna Capsicum, the acknowledged leader of the artistic and Bohemian set, as she sweeps by in her chariot bound for Blumberg Brothers' to do a little shopping. She is not going to buy anything—she is merely out shopping.

Than this fair patrician dame, none is more prominent in the gay life of Pompeii. It was she who last season smoked a cigarette in public, and there is a report now that she is seriously considering wearing an ankle bracelet; withal she is a perfect lady and belongs to one of the old Southern families. Her husband has been through the bankruptcy courts twice and is thinking of going through again. At present he is engaged in promoting and writing a little life insurance on the side.

Now her equipage is lost in the throng and the great actor continues on his way, making a mental note of the fact that he has promised to attend her next Sunday afternoon studio tea. Near his own stage door he bumps into Commodious Rotunda, the stout comedian of the comic theater, and they pause to swap the latest Lambs' Club repartee. This done, Commodius hauls out a press clipping and would read it, but the other remembers providentially that he has a rehearshal on and hurriedly departs. If there are any press clippings to be read he has a few of his own that will bear inspection.