“Che te possono scanna (May you be slaughtered)!” The deep bass voice was familiar. I leaned over the parapet just in time to see Nena, a tiny figure, with two brooms over her shoulder, turn and hurl defiance at her tormentors, in the front rank of whom I recognized the little Jew boy.
“Guastate (May you waste away)! “With this true witch’s curse Nena managed to shut the door of the big portone in the faces of her pursuers. I ran and opened the old green door of the apartment to let her in.
“What in the name of the apostles has happened?”
Nena was trembling with passion.
“Ah, that Hebrew Jew! I will punish him yet. He led the others on, saying I was a witch. Truly, Signora, it was not a happy chance that made you give me those brooms to take home this particular evening, the night on which the ignorant and superstitious believe that the witches ride. In every other house in the Borgo a dish of salt and a broom are placed outside the window, that the witches may be averted from entering and fly away on the broomstick. Doubtless Pompilia saved these brooms for that object—but, as you know, I am not superstitious, I don’t believe such stuff. To take me for a witch, me!”
Nena cannot be more than four feet seven inches high; she has a rough gray head, sharp black eyes, and a long nose. She wears a queer, old-fashioned three-cornered shawl over her stooping shoulders, her feet swim about in a pair of my old boots. There was, I confess, some excuse for the jest!
St. John’s eve! Witch’s night! In order that no harm may befall one, it is safest to sit up all night. To sit up all night alone, or in the company of one’s family, is rather cold comfort; so the sociable Romans spend the night in one vast nocturnal picnic. We left home at ten o’clock; in the Piazza Scossa Cavalli we found every cab gone except the gobbo’s (hunchback’s). This was great luck, to be driven by the gobbo, all the more as it was by chance; if we had engaged him beforehand, it would not have counted. As soon as we started J. sneezed.
“Salute, Signore (Your health, sir,—the equivalent of ‘Bless you’),” said the gobbo. This meant more luck. By the time we reached the Via Merulana the gobbo’s white horse—a white horse is lucky—dropped into a walk. The crowd of cabs was so great that from there on to the Piazza San Giovanni we were obliged to move at a snail’s pace.
“Volete spigo, Signori?” cried a vendor, thrusting a bunch of lavender into the cab.
“Bisogna prenderla, Signori,” said the gobbo; “you must buy lavender for yourself, for me, even for my poor beast. It is the rule to wear lavender on St. John’s eve.” We bought lavender for the party, the white horse included.