“Yes,” she answered, “may-be, but thees Meester Wake, he take you soon? I theenk better to take the small walk first—please?”
And because she looked anxious, I said, “All right,” and smiled at her and then said, “Good-by,” and started down the stairs.
These were of stone, and the banisters made of twisted iron, and the walls were, like most of the other walls, of painted or frescoed plaster. The hall was cold and draughty as well as dark, and so quiet that every step I took echoed loudly, and so, when I stepped out into the warmth and light and noise of the street, the contrast was complete.
I blinked a moment before I started, and then I drew a deep breath because—well, it made you feel that way!
As in Genoa, I don’t remember half I saw, but I do remember the different things, and the sort of things that I never could have seen in a Pennsylvania town of fifteen thousand people that is surrounded by hills with oil wells on them.
The first one that struck in was two officers who looked as if they had just been painted, and wound up somewhere between the shoulder-blades, although they were much handsomer than any toys I’d ever seen. One of them had a mustache that tilted up, and he twirled this; the other flung his wide blue cloak back over his shoulder as he passed me, with a gesture that looked careless, but couldn’t have been so, because it was so packed with grace! I walked behind them, looking at their high, shining boots, and their broad, light blue capes and the gilt braid and the clanking swords. And I did wonder how they ever could win if they got mixed up in a real fight, and I knew that they did, for Father had said they were fine and gallant soldiers.
Then they turned a corner, and I was ever so sorry until I was diverted by a man who was sprinkling his pavement with water that he had in a chianti bottle; he wanted the dust kept down in front of his shop, which was an antique place, but that quart bottle full of water was all that he dared use!
By that time the Park—I mean the Piazza Indipendenza—was behind me, houses and shops were on the other side instead of green, and the way was narrow.
After I walked two blocks on this I saw a fountain that was on the side of a building opposite, and it was made of blue and white china, with green leaves and gold oranges and yellow lemons all around it. I thought it was so wonderful, and for once in my life I thought right, because even the critics seemed to half enjoy it. I found it was made by a fellow named della Robbia who had been dead hundreds of years, and that his work was fairly well known in Italy. Well, I looked at it a while, and then I remembered my letter, and went up to two old ladies who were sitting on a doorstep eating some funny little birds that had been cooked with the heads and feet still on them.
I smiled, stuck out my letter, and said, “Where?”