Oh! the terrace, the terrace! with the white hyacinths ablow, little starry bunches of narcissi, pansies, a rare rose, and the yellow gourds of the passion-flower hanging down through the crossed bamboos of the trellis. Our mother feels the fascination of the terrace life more and more. Yesterday she asked me to buy her a small watering-can,—ours are huge,—and to-day she helped water the plants and weed the tulips. I put the pots up on the wall for her where she could easily reach them, and she pulled out the tender weeds with her beautiful hands. Bulbs do not thrive so well the second year as the first. The delirium of the hyacinths is gone with that precious burst of youth. This season they bloom soberly; no more passionate, lavish giving, they have left that behind,—like some other flowers,—but they do their little, middle-aged best. We had a merry Christmas. The weather was perfect: a gift, the first and best of all, of a clear, bracing morning. “Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.” No emperor being at hand, we went to St. Peter’s, walked up and down the side aisles, had just a whiff of the high mass, Cardinal Rampolla officiating, the Pope’s angel singing the soprano part phenomenally. His voice has a peculiar soaring quality; it seems to scale the heights and knock at the door of heaven.
We met Boston society, as we always do when we go to St. Peter’s,—an old friend and his bride, and a pair of pleasant Beacon Street neighbors.
February 11, 1898.
J. says “Rome is always festering (festa-ing).” Between saints’ days, national holidays, and our own private celebrations there are rather too many festivities. It is a pretty custom they have here of celebrating the feast of the patron saint rather than the birthday. The embarrassing question, “How old?” is thus avoided. It is also convenient. On the feast of Santa Lucia I am reminded to go and see Lucia di Villegas and carry her a bunch of flowers. I am sure to find Villino Villegas swept and garnished, the signora dressed in her best, all smiles and sweetness. She has been to mass and is ready to receive friends and relatives. Anglo-Saxons are fond of saying that the home does not exist in Latin lands. This is not quite true. In Italy the home is less a social centre and more a family stronghold than with us. An outsider is admitted to it only as the last test of friendship. It has still a touch of oriental feeling. It is the place where the women belong, where they mostly stay; it is jealously guarded from strangers—from strange men especially; “chi va piano va sano!”
Wednesday, the anniversary of our wedding-day, was one long frolic. At nine we went up to our play-house and played with our flower dolls. In the evening we had a little dinner of intimates. Filomena arranged a large horseshoe in double violets and pansies between J.’s place and mine at table “for good luck.” In the morning she brought me a basket of fresh eggs from her people in the country and wished me “cento di questi giorni (a hundred of these days).” Even Pompilia, the cook, who has been rather cross lately, gave us two paper fans. In the kitchen a fiascone of wine and a huge panettone were on tap; everybody who passed that way drank our health. After dinner we sat over the fire till past midnight telling ghost stories or listening to J. C. (the Muse of Via Gregoriana), who played divinely to us. It was a good day.
We do not have much music worth hearing in Rome, so we doubly enjoy what the gods send us. Sgambati’s concert last week began with that adorable overture to Fingal’s Cave. Cotogni, an old singer (sixty-eight is old to sing in concerts), sang well with the remains of a glorious bass voice which he handled like a delicate soprano. He is just back from St. Petersburg, where he has been the director of the Conservatory for twenty years. I heard him again at Mme. Patti’s concert. They sang “la ci darem la mano” from “Don Giovanni,” which they had last sung together in their early youth. The gallant manner in which the old singer handed out the diva was very nice. Mme. Patti is here on a wedding-tour with her husband,—Baron Cedarstrom,—a young Swede twenty-eight years old, who used to take care of her throat. She wore a pretty lilac dress which smelt of Paris and the Rue de la Paix.
Signor Sgambati is responsible for the best music we have. He is a true musician, a delightful composer, and the most enchanting person. Of course you know his compositions; the Boston Orchestra lately gave his symphony. Some time ago he was on the point of leaving Rome for London, where they were on their knees for him to come: the musical people and critics were waiting with open arms to receive him. He went to the station, weighed his luggage, bought his ticket, was just about to get on the train, when he realized that he was leaving Rome! That was more than he had bargained for! It was one thing to go to London, another to leave Rome! He calmly returned to his quiet house and his piano in the Via della Croce, and has remained there ever since, the friend of the Queen, of all true artists, of every starving musical genius brought to his notice. That such a man should endure the drudgery of giving music lessons is a fearful waste of fine material; the musical world should make him independent, as it made Wagner.
If you only stay long enough in Rome you meet everybody you ever heard of: all the world comes here sooner or later. The best thing about the social life is its cosmopolitan quality. Among the people we see most are a Greek woman (I had almost written goddess), a Dutchman, a Swede, a Dane, a Turk, an Irish priest, and a French Protestant pastor. American Protestant houses are no-man’s-land, neutral ground: we have visitors of every faith and of all parties. One Sunday afternoon Mrs. Agassiz, the President of Radcliffe College, Mr. Peabody, the Master of Croton School, and Mgr. O’Connell, the Director of the American College for young priests in Rome, chanced to meet at tea in my salon. There are a dozen different cliques, all more or less linked together—artistic, musical, political, sporting. The people who form “smart” society seem to me more cultivated than is usual with that class.
We have lately returned from an old-furniture hunt at Viterbo. We found no furniture, but the most picturesque Roman Gothic town I have seen. When I first knew Italy Viterbo had a bad name for brigands. The railroad has been open only four years; I hear no more of brigands, though I suspect several of my Viterbo acquaintances once belonged to the band. The place is not yet tourist stricken. We slept in a grim caravansary and went to a villanous trattoria for our meals, where we were poisoned by the food. A twenty-four-hour fast brought us again into condition. Viterbo is a gray fourteenth-century town with massive stone walls and turrets. It has many handsome buildings, some fair pictures, good Etruscan and Roman antiquities, but the most admirable thing about it is its wonderful completeness. Everything hangs together architecturally, the parts are subservient to the whole, the result—grace, harmony, repose! Shall we ever learn the trick?
From Viterbo we drove to the estate of the Duke of Lante, one of the most famous Italian villas. The present duke has an American mother and wife. We had a letter of introduction from a mutual friend. All the grown-up people of the family were absent. We were received by two tiny fairies in pink calico, who took us each by a hand and led us through the garden to see the oaks, the famous bronze fountain, and the interesting house. I never have had so lovely an escort or a kinder welcome than the little ladies of the Villa Lante gave us.