Other people were proved to have been imprudent. The next day the great prince cardinal was summoned to an interview with the Pope. What passed between them gossip does not say, but the cardinal packed his bag and left that afternoon for Perugia, where he passed three months in exile. Another imprudence of the cardinal’s was his lending the Villa d’Este for a political meeting in the campaign of Guido Baccelli (son of the famous physician) who was at that time running for parliament. The story of the poisoned figs used by Zola in his novel “Rome” was founded on a sad incident at the Villa d’Este. Some poisoned food meant for the cardinal was eaten by his steward, who died, I have been told, before his very eyes.[3]
Codgers, both clerical and lay, are usually shy; you must not let them know they are under observation if you hope to learn anything of their habits. In spite of this, they are distinctly social and gregarious, while the solitary lives and often dies alone. I asked one old gentleman codger—an American—who often drops in on his way to his browsing ground, the Vatican Library—what road first led him to Rome.
“The via vegetaria,” he said; “Rome has the finest vegetable market in the world.” He may be right, I certainly know no city where vegetables are so cheap, various, and good, but it seemed an odd reason for settling here.
“Artichokes,” he went on, “are no dearer than potatoes; as to finocchio, it is cheaper than bread.”
“Why could we not raise finocchio at home?” I asked.
“Wait till we grow poor and thrifty,” he said, “till we drink sheep’s milk, eat capretto (kid) and miscellaneous fungi; then we shall find the way to turn wild American fennel into domestic Italian finocchi.”
Finocchi is a root something like celery; it has the same crisp crunchiness, though it tastes rather like aniseed; the Romans eat it raw, we prefer it braised and served with black butter. Why not try to raise it in your garden? If you succeed in introducing a new vegetable, you will acquire merit in the eyes of every dinner-ordering wretch in the land. Fennel and kid. Two new dishes! There is a chance for you to reach every heart between Maine and Alaska!
Poor old Mr. X—— died the other day; I shall miss him dreadfully. He was the only snob variety of the genus codger in Rome; they are rare anywhere, the codger’s social aspect being generally mild and mildewed. I once asked him what had brought him to Rome (he came here twenty-five years ago with two marriageable daughters).
“The fact that it is respectable to be idle here, and that one finds the best society.” He said “the best society” in the sort of voice with which raw and crude converts mention the Madonna or one of what the Romans call i soliti santi (the same old saints). His daughter—she married Prince Q——, is a particularly nice woman; the comfort the old gentleman took in his grandchildren’s titles was pleasing to behold. At fifty he sat solidly down to enjoy the pleasures of “good society,” and the occupation of collecting engraved gems. That old law of compensation, you know, which makes some men after an idle youth leap with fiery ardor to embrace hard work, was reversed for him. Having grubbed all his youth he had the luck (it is rare) to find out how much fun there may be in play, after all!
I went to see the Princess Q—— soon after the old gentleman’s death. She told me something of his last days. “The night before my father died he made me promise for the twentieth time that I would send his body home. I asked him why he was so set on the idea. He rose right up in bed and said in a loud voice, ‘I can’t bear to think that on the last day I might rise from the dead along with these damned Italians!’”