At the bottom of the gentle incline leading from the church-door into the wide Piazza di San Piétro, we stopped for breath and composure.
Caput grew serious in turning to survey the façade of the Basilica, with the guard of saints and their Master upon the balustrade; the Dome, light in semblance as the clouds swimming in summer languor above it, strong as Soracte; the sweep of the colonnades to the right and left, “with the holy ones walking upon their roofs;” the Obelisk of Heliopolis in the centre of the Court and its flashing fountains—the heaven of rich, tender blue—
“That man has crossed the ocean three times to behold all this!” he said. “He can bring his rabble of children to see it with him. While men who could enter the arcana of whose mysteries he prattles; to whom the life he is leading would be like a walk through Paradise—are tied down to desk and drugs and country parishes! That these things exist is a tough problem!”
We told the story, leaving the pathetic enigma out of sight, over our Christmas-dinner, that evening. My Florentine angel of mercy, her brothers and sister, were our guests. Mince and pumpkin pies were not to be thought of, much less obtained here. But our Italian cook had under my eye, stuffed and roasted a turkey, the best we could buy in the poultry-shop just around the corner from the Pantheon. I did not spoil my friends’ appetites by describing the manner of its “taking-off” which may, however, interest poultry-fanciers. I wanted a larger bird than any displayed by the turkey-vender, and he bade me return in fifteen minutes, when he would have just what I desired.
We gave half an hour to a ramble around the square surrounding the Pantheon, the most nearly perfect pagan building in Rome. Urban VIII. abstracted nearly five hundred thousand pounds of gilt bronze from portico and dome, to be wrought into the twisted columns of St. Peter’s baldacchino, and into cannon for the defence of that refuge for scared and hunted popes—the Castle of San Angelo. In recompense for the liberty he had taken with the Temple of all the Gods, he added, by the hand of his obsequious architect, the comical little towers like mustard-pots, known to the people as the “asses’ ears of Bernini.” Another pope, one of the Benedicts, offered no apology in word or deed, for pulling off the rare old marbles facing the inner side of the dome, and using them for the adornment of churches and palaces.
But to our turkey! The merchant had him well in hand when we got back. He had tied a stout twine tightly around the creature’s neck, and while it died by slow strangulation, held it fast between his knees and stripped off the feathers from the palpitating body. All our fowls came to us with this twine necklace knotted about the gullet, and all had a trick of shrinking unaccountably in cooking.
“He is a-swellin’ wisibly before my eyes!” quoted Caput from the elder Weller, as we gazed, horror-stricken, upon the operation.
The merchant laughed—the sweet, childish laugh of the Italian of whatever rank, that showed his snowy teeth and brought sparkle to his black eyes.
“Altro?” he said. “Buono? Bon? Signora like ’im mooch?”
I tried not to remember how little I had liked it when my guests praised the brown, fat bird.