The palace seems to be called indifferently Rusticucci, Accoramboni, and Mazzocchi. We hesitated for some time between the three names; finally the Dantesque name carried the day, and I have had Palazzo Rusticucci engraved upon our cards. It is considered very plebeian here to have your address on your cards, but I cling to my American ideas.
The monsignore’s red rose on the terrace looked so lonely that I went last Wednesday to Rag Fair in the Campo dei Fiori and bought a pink ivy geranium, some pansies, and a white carnation to keep it company; they were absurdly cheap; flowers are a necessity here, not a luxury. I also bought a sack of earth, some flower-pots, and a watering-can. I got up at dawn the next morning and potted my plants; hard work! When J. came up at seven o’clock for coffee, there they stood in a row at the end of the terrace. It was a real surprise; I was very proud, till I found that he had to do the work all over again, just because I had not put anything in the bottom of the flower-pots to keep the earth from running out when they are watered! J. says we must have more, many more, plants. Sunday he was pottering about all day with the plumber. We are to have another quarto of water laid on, the pipes carried to the upper terrace, and a vast Florentine flower-pot—you know the kind, terra-cotta—for the receiver. Some day we mean to have a marble sarcophagus in its place. They took the beautiful long zinc bath-tub for the tank; this was a blow, but Pompilia and Filomena found it too convenient! Every one who has seen it on the upper terrace says, “Do you take your bath up here?” It is not easy to laugh at this inevitable joke; I wait for it now from each new visitor, and feel relieved to get it over.
The terrace is our poetry, and we have parlous good prose downstairs. The walls are three feet thick, built to keep out both heat and cold; the whole house is paved with red, white, and black tiles in geometrical designs. The old green door opens into a vestibule leading to the anticamera, which has two big windows. The salotto opens from this; it has a splendid sei cento carved wood ceiling, and pale nile-green doors with gilt mouldings and handles. The dining-room, square and high, leads from the salotto; beyond is a charming room with a fresco of Apollo driving the horses of the sun. This will be our guest-room when we have a guest; it is now my den. On the other side of the salotto is our yellow bedroom: the nicest room I have ever lived in; it has a vaulted stone ceiling. Do you remember Tennyson’s poem?
“O darling room, my heart’s delight,
Dear room, the apple of my sight,
With thy two couches soft and white,
There is no room so exquisite,
No little room so warm and bright,
Wherein to read, wherein to write.”
Well, ours is just like that, only it is not “little” but very large. These rooms are in the front of the palace, looking down into the Piazza San Pietro and facing mezzo giorno, due south. They all have fireplaces (J. put them in himself with the aid of Lorenzo), the sun pours into them, and if one can be warm in Rome, in winter, we shall be. From the passage outside the kitchen a small stone stairway leads up past a tiny oratory to the terrace. The oratory is charming in shape, not quite round, more like an ellipse with two marble seats. The floor slopes to the middle, where there is a grating to let the rain out, for it is open to the sky; its dome is a minute replica of the Pantheon’s. The monsignore must have sat here to read his “hours”; there is nothing to distract the mind, no sound save the bells of St. Peter’s, nothing to see but the sky and clouds overhead and the low-flying rondinelle swooping across and across at sunset.
In the salotto (Filomena sometimes calls it the salottino, to my rage) there is a handsome sofa and pair of armchairs, a fine black oak table, and my Benares tray and stand for tea. The rest of the furniture is very meek and cane-bottomed. We have in this room a lovely landscape of the Campagna by Sartorio, a silver-point drawing by Hughes, the English artist, and a cast from the Alhambra.
July 28, 1894.
Thirty-six degrees centigrade for the last three days! Those clever children of yours will know how hot that really is. I don’t know, but people mop their brows a good deal, and say that the heat of this summer is “unprecedented and incredible.” It troubles me very little; once or twice only I have felt rather tired by it, and I fancy it is sharpening up my temper a little; but I eat and sleep like several tops, only I can’t do much of anything out of doors. Yesterday I went to see the friendly Countess C., who has a small city garden with shade-trees, under which we sat and consumed iced wine and cakes, and talked about the Pope. She is an American and very Black in her politics, though her husband is a White and fought for Victor Emmanuel.
At the suggestion of Mr. Richard Greenough I have adopted the Roman scheme of life and divide every day into two. I am up at five, have my coffee, and read my paper on the terrace. At eight the rooms are hermetically sealed; outside shutters, windows, and inside blinds are closed. A melancholy twilight pervades everywhere, except in my den, where I keep one eye of the house open to read, write, cipher, and catch fleas by. I go out early, do my errands, make my visits, and try to be at home by ten; sometimes I am delayed till twelve. Luncheon is at one; after this the whole household, the whole city, takes its siesta. From two till four Rome sleeps! Down in the piazza the workmen lie at full length on the pavement, their arms under their heads. Cabmen curl up inside their cabs, horses sleep between the shafts, even small boys sleep! At first I would none of it. I only yielded when I found that the soldiers in the barracks opposite are obliged by the military regulations to take a daily siesta.
“And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?”