I should think, though, the Villa d'Este was healthy, it stands so high. It is almost uninhabited, belongs now to Cardinal Hohenlohe, but they tell me he never lives there, never sleeps—comes out for the day from Rome and goes back at night. It is sometimes let to foreigners. The garden is quite beautiful, perfectly wild and neglected but a wealth of trees, fountains, statues, terraces—it might be made a paradise with a little care. There are few flowers (like most Italian gardens) except those that grow quite wild. There is still the same great arch at one end of the terrace which just frames a stretch of Campagna, making a beautiful picture.
We had a delicious hour wandering about, stopping to rest every now and then, and sitting on some old bit of wall or column—no one there but ourselves and not a sound except the splashing water of the fountains. W. was delighted, and we were very sorry to leave. The afternoon light was so beautiful, penetrating through the black cypress avenue, however, we had a long drive back, longer even than coming, as we wanted to make a détour to look at the sulphur lakes. Our coachman was evidently anxious to leave. We heard an animated parley at the gate of the Villa, and the custode appeared to say the carriage was there and the coachman said it was time to start if we wanted to get back to Rome before nightfall. I think he didn't want to be too late on the road.
It was still warm when we started back, but we hadn't gone very far when it changed completely and I was very glad to put on my jacket and a shawl over it. It is a long, barren stretch of Campagna toward the sulphur lakes; one smelt the sulphur some time before arriving. They were not particularly interesting, looked like big, stagnant ponds, with rather yellowish water. Our man was decidedly uncomfortable. The road was absolutely lonely—not a person nor a vehicle of any kind in sight, the long straight road before us, and the desolate plains of the Campagna on each side. He fidgeted on his box, looked nervously from side to side, whipped up his horses, until at last W. asked him what was the matter, what was he afraid of. "Nothing, nothing, but it was late. We were strangers and one never could be quite sure what one would meet." It was not very reassuring, and when we saw once or twice a figure looming up in the distance, a man or two men on horseback, who might be shepherds or who might be bandits, we were not very comfortable either; we seemed to feel suddenly that it was getting dark, that we were alone in a very lonely road in a strange country, and we didn't mind at all when the coachman urged his horses to a quick gallop, and got over the ground as fast as he could.
We didn't say much until the little twinkling lights of the first "osterias" began to show themselves, and as we got nearer Rome and met the long lines of carts and peasants, some walking, some riding, we felt better and agreed that it wasn't pleasant to feel afraid, particularly a vague fear that didn't take shape.
When we drew up at the door of the hotel, after having deposited Gert at her Palazzo, we asked the coachman what he had been afraid of—was there any danger; to which he (safe on his box in the Piazza di Spagna) replied with a magnificent gesture that a Roman didn't know what fear meant, but he saw the ladies were nervous. It seems absurd now this morning, sitting at the window with the Piazza full of people, that we should have felt so uncomfortable. I asked W. if he was nervous. He said rather, for from the moment of starting he saw the coachman didn't want to take the side-road to the sulphur lakes, which was certainly wild and lonely, also that he was most anxious to get on. If the carriage had been merely stopped to rob us it would have been very disagreeable as we had no means of defence, nothing but our parasols, and of course nobody near to come to our rescue. I don't think our Giuseppe would have made a very vigorous resistance. After all, adventures do happen, and it would have been unpleasant to return to Paris minus one ear or one finger or any other souvenir of a sojourn in a bandit camp.
As we didn't get home until nearly nine I proposed no dinner, but "high tea" upstairs in our salon. W. demurred at first, like all men he loathes that meal dear to the female mind, but upon reflection thought it would be best. The gérant came up to speak about some boxes we want to send to Paris direct from here, and we told him of our return and the coachman's evident terror. He said he could quite understand it, that it was a very lonely, unfrequented bit of road leading to the sulphur lakes, and that we had chosen our time badly; all the tourists went first to the lakes before going to Tivoli, and it would have been a temptation to some of the wild shepherds and Campagna peasants to stop the carriage and insist upon having money or jewels. He didn't think there was any danger to our lives, nor even to our ears. They wouldn't have made much of a haul—I had no jewels of any kind, except my big pearl earrings—and W. very little money—three or four hundred francs. It was a disagreeable experience, all the same. I don't like being afraid, and I was. We went a swinging pace for about three-quarters of an hour—the horses on a good quick gallop.
I went to church this morning. It is a nice walk from here and the day is enchanting—warm, but just air enough to make exercise pleasant. W. was off early with Geoffroy. They put off yesterday's excursion until to-day, as W. was very anxious to see Tivoli.
The trunks are being packed, the gérant apparently superintending operations, as I hear a great deal of conversation in the anteroom. Madame Hubert has an extraordinary faculty for getting all she wants—an excellent quality in a travelling maid. As you know she is very pretty, which again carries out my favourite theory that beauty is the most important gift for a woman. I daresay it won't bear discussion, and I ought to say "goodness," but my experience points the other way. I have so often heard father quote Madame de Staël (who was very kind to him when he was a young man in Paris) who, at the very height of her triumph as the great woman's intelligence of her time, said to him one evening at a big party in Paris, looking at Madame Récamier, who was beautiful, and surrounded by all that was most distinguished and brilliant in the room, "Je donnerai toute mon intelligence pour avoir sa beauté."
I am so sorry to go—though of course I shall be glad to see you all, but we have enjoyed ourselves so much. I wonder when I shall see it all again, and I also wonder what makes the great charm of Rome. It appeals to so many people of perfectly different tastes. W. has been perfectly happy and interested (and in many things, not only in inscriptions and antiquities) and I am sure such an absolute change of life and scenes was the best rest he could have after the very fatiguing life of the last two years.