“After that blessed image visits his bedside, the poor gobbetto will either recover or find repose in death. It is too terrible to see him suffer!”
“Is this thing which you tell me true?”
“It is most true, as you will see.”
I knew the poor crippled child, had one day taken him up in my arms. Maria, seeing me, had supposed I knew the superstition that it is lucky to touch the back of a gobbo.
“Will it be permitted to bring the bambino to the house?”
“If a carriage can be sent of the proper style—there must be one servant on the box and one to walk beside, there must be two horses; an ordinary hired carriage from the piazza will not do.”
“If the Marchesa consents?”
“The bambino, attended by two priests, will be brought to the gobbetto’s bedside. Then the thing will soon be over for the poor child—one way or the other!”
I went on the errand to my neighbor, Mrs. Haywood. (The Haywoods having a title from the Vatican, she is called Marchesa by the poor people of our quarter, but among her American friends she remains Mrs. Haywood.) She is a kind woman and an excellent neighbor. I found her at home in that splendid old Palazzo Giraud, built in 1503 (some say by the great architect Bramante), occupied by Cardinal Wolsey when he was papal legate. J.’s studio, by the way, is in one wing of this palace. Mrs. Haywood gave me tea in the library, one of the finest rooms in Rome. It has a balcony running around it, filled with rare books and manuscripts, for Mr. Haywood is a great bibliophile.
I told her my “ambasciata.” Though she was kindly sympathetic, she said “no” firmly, then explained. The Haywoods are the only people in the Borgo (outside the Vatican) who keep a carriage. When they first came to live here, they began by lending it whenever it was asked for, to bring the santo bambino to the sick. They soon found that, if they ever wished to use their carriage themselves, they must make a hard and fast rule to refuse all such requests. Knowing this, Maria and the gobbetto’s mother induced me to make the petition, on the chance that the Marchesa might grant to a compatriot what she would deny them. When it was found that my mission had failed, Maria, of the kind heart, opened a subscription to pay for the hire of a suitable carriage. Every member of our household, including Nena, has contributed to the fund. “Bisogna vivere a Roma coi costumi di Roma,” says the Italian proverb, “When you are in Rome do as Rome does!”