A true Yankee breakfast of fish-balls, johnny-cake, and dip-toast, was given in their honour, and its delights much enhanced by its being eaten in a lovely room with reeds and rushes on the pale-green walls, shell-shaped chairs, and coral mirror-frames. What a thing it was to consume those familiar viands in a famous palace, with Guido's Cenci downstairs, a great sculptor next door, three lovely boys as waiters, and 'Titian T.' to head the feast, and follow it up with dates from the Nile, and Egyptian sketches that caused the company to vote a speedy adjournment to the land 'of corkendills' and pyramids.
These and many other joys they tasted, and when all else palled upon them they drove on the Campagna and were happy.
It is sad to be obliged to record that these quiet drives were the especial delight of the unsocial Lavinia, whose ill-regulated mind soon wearied of swell society, classical remains, and artistic revelry. Ancient Rome would have suited her excellently, she thought; but modern Rome was such a chaos of frivolity and fanaticism, poverty and splendour, dirt and devilry, dead grandeur and living ignorance, that she felt as if shut up in a magnificent tomb, the bad air of which was poisoning both body and soul.
Her only consolation was the new freedom, that seemed to blow over Rome like a wholesome wind. Old residents lamented the loss of the priestly pageants, fêtes, and ceremonies; but this republican spinster preferred to see Rome guarded by her own troops, and governed by her own King, who ordered streets to be cleaned, fountains filled, schools opened, and all good institutions made possible, rather than any amount of Papal purple covering poverty, ignorance, and superstition. Better than the sight of all the red coaches that ever rumbled was the spectacle of many boys quitting the Jesuit college and demanding admittance into the free schools; and sweeter than the music of all the silver trumpets that ever blew were the voices of happy men and women singing once forbidden songs of liberty in the streets of Rome.
These sentiments, and others equally unfashionable, were only breathed into the ear of sister Matilda when the two retired to the Campagna to confide to one another the secrets of their souls—a process necessary about once a week; for after visiting studios, going to parties, and telling polite fibs about everything they saw, it was impossible to exist without finding a vent of some sort. Once out among the aqueducts, Matilda could freely own that she thought genius a rare article in the studios, where she expected to learn so much; and Lavinia could make the awful avowal that parties at which the order of performance was gossip, tea, music—then music, tea, and gossip, all together—were not her idea of intellectual society. Their criticisms on pictures and statues cannot be recorded without covering their humble names with infamy; and why the sky did not fall upon, or the stones rise up and smite these Vandals, is a mystery to this day.
They did enjoy much in their own improper manner, but poor Amanda's sufferings can better be imagined than described. So when Lavinia, early in March, proposed to flee to the mountains before they became quite demoralized, and learned to steal and stab, as well as lie and lounge, she readily assented, and they retired to Albano.
'The decline and fall of the Roman Empire was nothing to this, and never have I seen such unappreciative women as you two,' sighed Amanda, as they rolled away from Numero Due Piazza Barberini, leaving Agrippina sobbing at the top of the stairs and the padrona bobbing little curtsies at the bottom.
'I am sure the Cenci will haunt me all my days, and so will many other famous things,' said Matilda, while her eye roved fondly from a very brown Capuchin monk to a squad of Bersaglieri trotting by with jaunty cocks' feathers dancing in the wind, muskets gleaming, and trim boots skipping through the mud with martial regularity.
'When I get the contents of my head sorted out, I shall doubtless rejoice that I have seen Rome; but just now all that I can clearly recall are the three facts that the Pope had a fit, our dear man Romeo got very tipsy one night, and that we went to see the Sistine Chapel the day the eclipse made it as dark as a pocket. Yes,' continued Lavinia, with an air of decision, 'I am glad to have seen this classical cesspool, and still more glad to have got out of it alive,' she added, sniffing the air from the mountains, as if the odour of sanctity which pervaded the holy city did not suit her.
It blew great guns up at Albano, and the society consisted chiefly of donkeys. But the ladies enjoyed themselves nevertheless, and felt better and better every day; for early hours, much exercise, and no æsthetic tea, soon set them up after the dissipation of the winter.