It is said you cannot thoroughly know any place till you have both summered and wintered in it; but more than one summer and winter of experience seems to be needed for Rome. How I fretted last winter, during the three months' rain, and sepulchral chill, and far worse than sepulchral odors, which accompanied it! I thought it was the invariable Roman winter, and that I should never be able to stay here during another; so took my room only by the month, thinking to fly so soon as the rain set in. And lo! it has never rained at all; but there has been glorious sun and moon, unstained by cloud, always; and these last days have been as warm as May,—the days of the Carnival, for I have just come in from seeing the Moccoletti.
The Republican Carnival has not been as splendid as the Papal, the absence of dukes and princes being felt in the way of coaches and rich dresses; there are also fewer foreigners than usual, many having feared to assist at this most peaceful of revolutions. But if less splendid, it was not less gay; the costumes were many and fanciful,—flowers, smiles, and fun abundant.
This is the first time of my seeing the true Moccoletti; last year, in one of the first triumphs of democracy, they did not blow oat the lights, thus turning it into an illumination. The effect of the swarms of lights, little and large, thus in motion all over the fronts of the houses, and up and down the Corso, was exceedingly pretty and fairy-like; but that did not make up for the loss of that wild, innocent gayety of which this people alone is capable after childhood, and which never shines out so much as on this occasion. It is astonishing the variety of tones, the lively satire and taunt of which the words Senza moccolo, senza mo, are susceptible from their tongues. The scene is the best burlesque on the life of the "respectable" world that can be imagined. A ragamuffin with a little piece of candle, not even lighted, thrusts it in your face with an air of far greater superiority than he can wear who, dressed in gold and velvet, erect in his carriage, holds aloft his light on a tall pole. In vain his security; while he looks down on the crowd to taunt the wretches senza mo, a weak female hand from a chamber window blots out his pretensions by one flirt of an old handkerchief.
Many handsome women, otherwise dressed in white, wore the red liberty cap, and the noble though somewhat coarse Roman outline beneath this brilliant red, by the changeful glow of million lights, made a fine effect. Men looked too vulgar in the liberty cap.
How I mourn that my little companion E. never saw these things, that would have given him such store of enchanting reminiscences for all his after years! I miss him always on such occasions; formerly it was through him that I enjoyed them. He had the child's heart, had the susceptible fancy, and, naturally, a fine discerning sense for whatever is individual or peculiar.
I missed him much at the Fair of St. Eustachio. This, like the Carnival, was last year entirely spoiled by constant rain. I never saw it at all before. It comes in the first days, or rather nights, of January. All the quarter of St. Eustachio is turned into one toy-shop; the stalls are set out in the street and brightly lighted, up. These are full of cheap toys,—prices varying from half a cent up to twenty cents. The dolls, which are dressed as husband and wife, or sometimes grouped in families, are the most grotesque rag-babies that can be imagined. Among the toys are great quantities of whistles, tin trumpets, and little tambourines; of these every man, woman, and child has bought one, and is using it to make a noise. This extempore concert begins about ten o'clock, and lasts till midnight; the delight of the numerous children that form part of the orchestra, the good-humored familiarity without the least touch of rudeness in the crowd, the lively effect of the light upon the toys, and the jumping, shouting figures that, exhibit them, make this the pleasantest Saturnalia. Had you only been there, E., to guide me by the hand, blowing the trumpet for both, and spying out a hundred queer things in nooks that entirely escape me!
The Roman still plays amid his serious affairs, and very serious have they been this past winter. The Roman legions went out singing and dancing to fight in Lombardy, and they fought no less bravely for that.
When I wrote last, the Pope had fled, guided, he says, "by the hand of Providence,"—Italy deems by the hand of Austria,—to Gaëta. He had already soiled his white robes, and defamed himself for ever, by heaping benedictions on the king of Naples and the bands of mercenaries whom he employs to murder his subjects on the least sign of restlessness in their most painful position. Most cowardly had been the conduct of his making promises he never meant to keep, stealing away by night in the coach of a foreign diplomatist, protesting that what he had done was null because he had acted under fear,—as if such a protest could avail to one who boasts himself representative of Christ and his Apostles, guardian of the legacy of the martyrs! He selected a band of most incapable men to face the danger he had feared for himself; most of these followed his example and fled. Rome sought an interview with him, to see if reconciliation were possible; he refused to receive her messengers. His wicked advisers calculated upon great confusion and distress as inevitable on the occasion; but, for once, the hope of the bad heart was doomed to immediate disappointment. Rome coolly said, "If you desert me,—if you will not hear me,—I must act for myself." She threw herself into the arms of a few men who had courage and calmness for this crisis; they bade her think upon what was to be done, meanwhile avoiding every excess that could give a color to calumny and revenge. The people, with admirable good sense, comprehended and followed up this advice. Never was Rome so truly tranquil, so nearly free from gross ill, as this winter. A few words of brotherly admonition have been more powerful than all the spies, dungeons, and scaffolds of Gregory.
"The hand of the Omnipotent works for us," observed an old man whom I saw in the street selling cigars the evening before the opening of the Constitutional Assembly. He was struck by the radiant beauty of the night. The old people observe that there never has been such a winter as this which follows the establishment by the French of a republic.
May the omens speed well! A host of enemies without are ready to levy war against this long-suffering people, to rivet anew their chains. Still there is now an obvious tide throughout Europe toward a better order of things, and a wave of it may bear Italy onward to the shore.