One morning J., who had started early for the studio, came back to tell me that a group of Filipinos had just gone over to St. Peter’s.
“How do you know they are Filipinos?”
“I don’t know; they look like two Filipino art students who used to be in Rome. One of them was named Luna. He was the best draughtsman in the studio; he beat everybody at drawing; seemed to have a dash of the Japanese dexterity.”
“Was he any relation to General Luna?”
“Only his brother,” said J. Now that is Rome, and that is J.!
I hurried over to St. Peter’s and caught up with the Filipinos before they had made the third chapel of prayer. They are small, swarthy men; their faces show a strange mingling of races, something of the Malay, the Mongol, the Latin, with a fourth element I did not recognize,—rather deadly looking folk, I thought, but very devout in their behavior at church.
When royalty comes to the Vatican there is a deal of pother. The morning of the King of Siam’s visit to the Pope, we were waked at dawn by the carts fetching the royal yellow sand, and the men spreading it thick over the streets where the wheels of royalty were to pass. The King, whom we saw perfectly, is a fierce-looking little fellow; he was dressed in quite the most lovely uniform I have ever seen; white broadcloth, embroidered in gold. Do you suppose their good clothes are any mitigation to the ennui of sovereigns? I should think they might be.
Easter Sunday, 1900.
We thought we had seen Rome crowded before, but we had not! During the past week, the crowds have been almost inconceivable. By Wednesday all the bathrooms at the Grand Hotel that could be spared had been turned into bedrooms. Last night a pair of travellers slept in the red plush cushioned elevator, and two in the big comfortable hotel omnibus. Cabs are a rare commodity—even the gobbo has deserted us and hired himself out by the week to the pilgrims. The electric cars (did I tell you they had put these pests in under our very windows?) are so jammed that we go for the most part “shanks’ mare.” Many of our friends have let their apartments, and gone away for the rest of the season. We could have got a good price for ours; but in spite of the undeniable inconvenience (the cost of provisions has almost doubled), we would not have missed the experience. The city has been a Babel of foreign tongues, a kaleidescope of foreign faces and costumes. One tastes life as from a goblet filled and brimming over with sparkling, heady wine. That old gogpate, Z——, has let his villa, carriage, servants, even his precious Antonio, the best cook in Rome. He said to J., “I cannot afford to stay in Rome when the price of filet has doubled and I can get my whole year’s rent by letting the villa for three months.”
“We cannot afford not to stay in Rome when it is so interesting,” said J. There you have the two ways of looking at life—the Philistine’s and the artist’s!