“Sora Nena will tell you that I speak the truth. That brute of a padrone extorted her rent yesterday, took her last centesimo. What is the result? I tell you, this morning Nena’s daughter had nothing to eat for her breakfast but one raw lemon. In consequence, the child at the breast has colic, which is not strange.”
“What about the child’s father?”
“He is a muratore (mason), but he gets no work. Sora Nena gives him to eat as well as his wife.”
Nena is a Venetian, and she takes snuff. She has other faults but I hear oftenest of these from the other servants. Before we went to Roccaraso I asked her if she had ever owned a silk dress. She laughed at the question; “silks were not for the likes of her,” etc. In parting I gave her a cast-off black satin, with rather peculiar wide stripes. The first Sunday after our return Pompilia went to mass in the satin dress, and poor pathetic little Nena in her old snuff-stained cotton gown. When I asked an explanation, she said that she had sold the satin to the cook: “Pompilia can afford to wear silk; I ask you, whom has she in the world belonging to her? Some cousins, who send her a basket of flowers on her festa! She puts every soldo she can scrape together on her back. Well, let that console her for being a zitella! “If you could have heard the spiteful hiss of her zitella (old maid). Nena has a daughter, an idle son-in-law, and seven grandchildren to support, but she pities Pompilia, who has only herself to think of!
“When the forestieri come, you will recommend me to them?” said Sora Giulia in parting. I can do so with a good conscience. If she guarantees a candlestick to be silver, you may be sure it is not merely plated. If a bargain is struck she will keep her side of it; as much cannot be said of all her Christian confrères among antiquarians.
It is strange how the antichità mania attacks people in Italy. Every one we know collects some manner of junk. A friend of J.’s who goes in for old coins was driving near Girgente, in Sicily, through the wildest, most primitive country. A peasant digging in a field offered him a handful of coins, moist with mud, just turned up with the spade.
They were all ancient Roman coins, copper or silver, familiar and not particularly valuable, with the exception of one rare Greek goldpiece which he bought for a large price. Afraid of being robbed, he took the next boat for Naples, pushed on to Rome, where he had been passing the winter, showed his treasure trove to an expert, and learned that there were but three others known to be in existence: one in Berlin, another in the British Museum, a third in a private collection. When he reached London, he showed his coin to the gentleman in charge of the collection at the British Museum. They compared it with the specimen in the case. The Girgente coin seemed as good a specimen; as a last test it was put under a powerful lens, which showed it to be a brand new imitation!
The Muse of Via Gregoriana, J. C., has a catholic taste and buys all manner of things from empire furniture to silver lamps. Her last craze is for peasant jewelry. She “acquires”—one does not buy antiquità—every piece she can lay her hands on. Some of the designs are excellent; the jewels are mostly flat rose diamonds, garnets, and misshapen pearls set in silver. Out of half a dozen odd earrings she will construct you a charming ornament, necklace, pendant, what not, and sell it to you at a small profit, which she devotes to helping young Roman musicians, several of whom owe their education to her. I call that a pleasant combination, to make your hobby carry your charity.
I believe Rome is the best place in Europe to buy jewels, because princes as well as peasants are continually throwing them on the market. One day our jeweller, Signor Poce (he lives in a little shop in the Corso, near the Piazza del Popolo), showed us a set of the finest emeralds I have seen in years. He said they belonged to some great lady who was obliged to part with them. That night we met those emeralds at a ball! they were in the shop again the next morning! Don’t be too sorry for the lady: she is a sensible English woman; and we happened to hear that she has lately redeemed a long-neglected estate belonging to her Roman husband, and is putting in modern improvements in the way of oil and wine presses. It is the same with the poorer people. What you read about the peasants parting with their precious possessions, furniture, laces, jewels, is true, but it is only part of the truth; they are selling them to buy better things—health and education! When you read about the heavy taxes, remember what they pay for! What Italy has done since 1870 is as wonderful as what France did in paying off the war debt to Germany out of the farmers’ stockings. Reading and writing are better than pearl earrings. The Tiber embankment, alone, cost the Romans a pretty penny. It spoiled the picturesqueness of the river—the sloping banks covered with trees and flowers must have been wonderful—and it did away with the Roman fever! The river used to overflow its banks every spring and to flood whole districts of the city. J. remembers boats rowed by sailors going