[IMAGE: PENCIL SKETCHES IN ITALY, BY MRS. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE]
Here was a playground for boys of imaginative but not too destructive proclivities, such as the world hardly furnishes elsewhere. But much of my enjoyment of it I ascribe to my friend Eddy. My conversation with no person since then has rivalled the profundity and importance of my communings with his sympathetic soul. We not only discussed our future destinies and philosophical convictions, but we located in these delicious retreats the various worlds which we purposed to explore and inhabit during the next few hundred years. Here we passed through by anticipation all our future experiences. Sometimes we were accompanied by other boys; but then our visits lost their distinction; we merely had good times in the ordinary way of boys; we were robber barons, intrenched in our strongholds, and attacked by other robbers; or we ran races, or held other trials of strength and activity, or we set snares for the bright-colored fishes which lurked in some of the fountains. The grounds were occasionally invaded by gangs of Italian boys, between whom and ourselves existed an irreconcilable feud. We could easily thrash them in the Anglo-Saxon manner, with nature's weapons; but they would ambush us and assail us with stones; and once one of them struck at me with a knife, which was prevented from entering my side only by the stout leather belt which I chanced to wear. We denounced these assassins to the smiling custode of the grounds, and he promised, smilingly, to bar the entrance to them thenceforth; but he was a smiling deceiver; our enemies came just the same. After all, we would have regretted their absence; they added the touch of peril to our chronic romance which made it perfect. It is forty-four years since then. Are there any other Borghese Gardens to come for me in the future, I wonder? There was a rough pathway along the banks of the Tiber, extending up the stream for two or three miles, as far as the Ponte Molle, where the corktrees grew, and farther, for aught I know. This was a favorite walk of mine, because of the fragments of antique marbles to be found there, and also the shells which so mysteriously abounded along the margin, as shown by the learned conchological author hereinbefore cited. And, being of an early rising habit, it was my wont to get up long before breakfast and tramp up and down along the river for an hour or two, thinking, I suppose, as I gazed upon the turbulent flood, of brave Horatius disdainfully escaping from the serried hosts of Lars Porsena and false Sextus, or of Caesar and Cassius buffeting the torrent on a "dare," and with lusty sinews flinging it aside. There were also lovely effects of dawn upon the dome of St. Peter's, and the redoubtable mass of St. Angelo, with its sword-sheathing angel. Moreover, sunrise, at twelve years of age, is an exhilarating and congenial phenomenon. And I painted my experiences in colors so attractive that our Ada Shepard was inflamed with the idea of accompanying me on my rambles. She was a child in heart, though so mature in intellect, and her spirit was valiant, though her flesh was comparatively infirm. It was my custom to set out about five o'clock in the morning, and Miss Shepard promised to be ready at that hour. But after keeping awake most of the night in order not to fail of the appointment, she fell asleep and dreamed only of getting up; and, after waiting for her for near an hour, I went without her. She was much mortified at her failure, and suggested a plan to insure her punctuality, in which I readily agreed to collaborate. When she went to bed she attached a piece of string to one of her toes, the other end of the filament being carried underneath doors and along passages to my own room. I was instructed to haul in on my slack at the proper hour; and this I accordingly did, with good-will, and was at once made conscious that I had caught something, not only by the resistance which my efforts encountered, but by the sound of cries of feminine distress and supplication, heard in the distance. However, my companion appeared in due season, and we took our walk, which, she declared, fulfilled all the anticipations which my reports had led her to form.
Nevertheless, I cannot remember that we ever again made the expedition together; it is a mistake to try to repeat a perfect joy.
It seems to me that I must have been a pretty constant visitor at St. Peter's. The stiff, heavy, leathern curtain which protects the entrance having been strenuously pushed aside (always with remembrance of Corinne's impossible act of grace and courtesy in holding it aside with one hand for Lord Neville), the glorious interior expanded, mildly radiant, before me. As has been the case with so many other observers, the real magnitude of the spectacle did not at first affect me; the character of the decoration and detail prevented the impression of greatness; it was only after many times traversing that illimitable pavement, and after frequent comparisons with ordinary human measurements of the aerial heights of those arches and that dome, that one conies to understand, by a sort of logical compulsion, how immense it all is. It is a miniature cabinet magically made titanic; but the magic which could transform inches into roods could not correspondingly enlarge the innate character of the ornament; so that, instead of making the miniature appear truly vast, it only makes us seem unnaturally small. Still, after all criticisms, St. Peter's remains one of the most delightful places in the world; its sweet sumptuousness and imperial harmonies seem somehow to enter into us and make us harmonious, rich, and sweet. The air that we inhale is just touched with the spirit of incense, and mellowed as with the still memories of the summers of five hundred years ago. The glistening surfaces of the colored marbles, dimmed with faint, fragrant mists, and glorified with long slants of brooding sunshine, soothe the eye like materialized music; and the soft twinkle of the candles on the altars, seen in daylight, has a jewel-like charm. As I look back upon it, however, and contrast it with the cathedrals of England, the total influence upon the mind of St. Peter's seems to me voluptuous rather than religious. It is a human palace of art more than a shrine of the Almighty. A prince might make love to a princess there without feeling guilty of profanation. St. Peter himself, sitting there in his chair, with his highly polished toe advanced, is a doll for us to play with. On one occasion I was in the church with my father, and the great nave was thronged with people and lined with soldiers, and down the midst went slowly a gorgeous procession, with Pope Pio Nono borne aloft, swayingly, the triple crown upon his head. He blessed the crowd, as he passed along, with outstretched hand. One can never forget such a spectacle; but I was not nearly so much impressed in a religious sense as when, forty years later, I stood in the portals of a Mohammedan mosque in Central India and saw a thousand turbaned Moslems prostrate themselves with their foreheads in the dust before a voice which proclaimed the presence of the awful, unseen God.
My father enjoyed the church more after each visit to it. But it was the confessionals and their significance that most interested him. "What an institution the confessional is! Man needs it so, that it seems as if God must have ordained it." And he dwells upon the idea with remarkable elaboration and persistence. Those who have followed the painful wanderings of heart-oppressed Hilda to the carven confessional in the great church, where she found peace, will recognize the amply unfolded flower of this seed. What I supposed to be my notion of St. Peter's looking like the enlargement of some liliputian edifice is also there, though I had forgotten it till I myself reread the pages. In this book of my memories, which is also the book of my forgettings, I must walk to and fro freely, if I am to walk at all. None can tell the secret origin of his thoughts.
Besides the monumental and artistic features of Rome, the human side of it appealed to me. There was something congenial in the Romans, and, indeed, in the Italians generally, so that I seemed to be renewing my acquaintance with people whom I had partly forgotten. I picked up the conversational language with unusual ease, perhaps owing to the drilling in Latin which my father had given me; and I liked the easy, objectless ways of the people, and the smiles which so readily took the place of the sallow gravity which their faces wore in repose. But it was the Transteverini women who chiefly attracted me; they wore an antique costume familiar enough in paintings, and they claimed to be descendants of the ancient race; they had the noble features and bearing which one would have looked for in such descendants, at all events. Looking in their dark, haughty eyes, one seemed to pass back through the terrible picturesqueness of mediaeval Italy, with its Borgias and Bella Donnas, its Lorenzos and Fornarinas, to the Rome of Nero, Augustus, Scipio, and Tarquin. Eddy and I would sometimes make excursions across the river to Transtevere, and stroll up and down those narrow streets, imagining all manner of suitable adventures and histories for the inhabitants, stalking there in their black and scarlet and yellow habiliments, and glancing imperially from under the black brows of their dark countenances. One afternoon during the carnival I was in a dense crowd in the piazza, towards the lower end of the Corso, and found myself pushed into the neighborhood of a singularly beautiful young woman of this class, dressed in the height of her fashion, who was slowly making her way in my direction through the press. All at once a man, smartly clad in the garb of recent civilization, stepped in front of her and said something to her; what it was I knew not. She drew herself back, as from something poisonous or revolting, and the expression of her face became terrible. At the same time her right hand went swiftly to the masses of her sable hair, and as swiftly back again, armed with the small, narrow dagger which these women wear by way of hair-pin. Before the unhappy creature who had accosted her knew what was happening, she thrust the dagger, with a powerful movement—while her white teeth showed, set edge to edge, through her drawn lips—deep into his body. As he collapsed forward she drew the weapon upward, putting the whole strength of her body into the effort, and actually ripped the man open. Down he fell at her feet. There was a score or more of Roman citizens within arm's-reach of her at the moment; no one spoke, still less attempted to restrain her. On the contrary, as she turned they respectfully opened a way for her through the midst of them, and none made an offer to assist the dying wretch who lay writhing and faintly coughing on the cobble-stone pavement of the piazza. I was soon elbowed quietly away from the spot where he lay; I caught a glimpse of the crimson head-dress of his slayer passing away afar amid the crowd; presently the cocked hat of a gendarme appeared from another direction, advancing slowly against manifest obstructions; everybody seemed to get in his way, without appearing to intend it. Such was the attitude towards assassination of the Roman people in those days. I have often thought over the incident since then. Their sympathy is with private vengeance, never with ordained statute law. They love to use the poniard and to see it used, and will do their best to shield the users. Pity for the victim they have none; they assume that he has his deserts. For that matter, my own sympathies, filled though I was with horror at the spectacle of actual murder done before my eyes, were wholly with the savage beauty, and not with the fatuous creature who had probably insulted her. It is needless to say that the women of Transtevere were not so often called upon to resent insults as are the ladies of New York and other American cities. They did not wait for policemen or for "leagues of chivalry" to avenge them.
Towards the French soldiers I was cordially disposed. Their dark-blue tunics and baggy, red peg-tops were never out of sight, and though I had seen troops in England, and had once observed the march of a British regiment in Liverpool going to embark for the Crimea (whence, I believe, very few of this particular regiment returned), yet the conception of a resident army first came to me in Rome. About the French army of those days still hovered the lustre bestowed upon it by the deeds of the great Napoleon, which their recent exploits in the Crimea had not diminished. There were among them regiments of fierce and romantic looking zouaves, with Oriental complexions and semi-barbaric attire, marching with a long swing, and appearing savage and impetuous enough to annihilate anything; and there was also a brigade, the special designation of which I have forgotten, every man of which was a trained athlete, and whose drill was something marvellous to witness. But the average French soldier was simply a first-class soldier, good-natured, light-hearted, active, trim, and efficient; in height averaging not more than five foot six; carrying muskets which seemed out of proportion large, though they handled them lightly enough, and wearing at their sides a short sword, like the sword of ancient Rome, which was also used as a bayonet. There was always a drill or a march in progress somewhere, and sentinels paced up and down before the palaces. The officers were immensely impressive; the young ones had wasp waists, surpassing those of the most remorseless belles of fashion; and the old ones were, en revanche, immensely stout in that region, as if outraged nature were resolved to assert herself at last. But, young or old, their swords were sun-bright and lovely to behold—I used to polish my own little weapon in vain in the attempt to emulate them. Hopelessly envious was I, too, of the heroic chests of these warriors (not knowing them to be padded, as the waists were corseted), and I would swell out my own little pectoral region to its utmost extent as I walked along the streets, thereby, though I knew it not, greatly benefiting my physical organism. Of course I had no personal commerce with the officers, but the rank and file fraternized with me and my companions readily; there was always a number of them strolling about Rome and its environs on leave, in pairs or groups, and they were just as much boys as we were. They would let me heft their short, strong swords, and when they understood that I was gathering shells they would climb lightly about the ruins, and bring me specimens displayed in their broad, open palms. Our conversation was restricted to few words and many grunts and gestures, but we understood one another and were on terms of gay camaraderie. A dozen years afterwards, when there was war between France and Germany, my sympathies were ardently with the former, and great were my astonishment and regret at the issue of the conflict. Man for man, and rightly led and managed, I still believe that Gaul could wipe up the ground with the Teuton, without half trying. But there were other forces than those of Moltke and Bismarck fighting against poor France in that fatal campaign. She was wounded in the house of her friends.
XVII
Miss Lander makes a bust—The twang of his native place—
Wholly unlike anybody else—Wise, humorous Sarah Clarke—
Back to the Gods and the Fleas—Horace Mann's statue—Miss
Bremer and the Tarpeian Rock—"I was in a state of some
little tremor"—Mrs. Jameson and Ruskin—Most thorough-going
of the classic tragedies—A well-grown calf—An adventure in
Monte Testaccio—A vision of death—A fantastic and
saturnine genius—A pitch-black place—Illuminations and
fireworks—The Faun-Enjoying Rome—First impressions—
Lalla's curses.