“Can I see the Ambassador?” I asked the porter.
“That I cannot promise, lady. He has just returned from the Quirinal; there are many persons waiting to see him, but—” he raised his shoulders with the Latin gesture that expresses doubt—“who knows? The Signora can but try.” He stood back, made me a splendid bow with as fine a flourish of his tricorne as if I had been a princess, and the way was free. I entered the handsome portone, walked through the long marble gallery, past the courtyard where the noise of the fountain sounds like the trampling of impatient steeds, past the twin lions of giallo antico that guard the entrance, and up the magnificent stairway leading to the piano nobile, the home of the American Ambassador. At the door of the apartment I was met by another of those prodigious serving men—the giants of the American Embassy were the talk of Rome that winter—they were recruited from the ex-cuirassiers of the King’s own body guard, the glorious hundred, the shortest of whom is six feet tall.
“Her Excellency would receive me; as to his Excellency, it was just possible. The ladies were in the dancing hall.” He waved me towards the mirrored gallery. I paused a moment to stare about the great anticamera, big enough to hold an ordinary embassy. At one end there is a wide fireplace, over which, instead of armorial bearings, our Eagle spreads its mighty sheltering wings. This splendid anticamera was in strange confusion, crowded with packing cases, piled half-way to the ceiling with bales of goods, boxes of clothing, boots, food, medicines, relief supplies of all kinds. Every able-bodied American in Rome was working pro Sicilia e Calabria, and the Ambassador’s home was not only the nerve-center of the relief work but a warehouse, a base of supplies.
From the ballroom came the sound of women’s voices, the snip-snip of shears, the click of sewing machines. Here was another transformation; the sumptuous ballroom with the smooth polished floor had become a busy workroom. Under the gilt chandelier stood a long table, heaped with bales of flannel and cloth, over which leaned four or five ladies, scissors in hand, cutting out skirts, blouses and jackets. On the satin-covered benches sat a bevy of young women and girls, basting, sewing, planning, and chatting as they worked.
“I have nothing left but red flannel,” said the chief cutter-out, “what shall I do with it?”
“Petticoats and under jackets,” said the Doctor’s wife. “We must put all the colored goods into under-clothing. The poor things beg so for black dresses. You wouldn’t want to wear red or blue if you had lost twenty-five members of your family, as my profughi have.”
“Still we must use what material we have. Let us keep the black for our profughi here in Rome and send the colored things down there where the need is greater and they cannot be so particular.”
The scene was typical of Rome, of Italy, of the civilized world at that time. In every home, rich or poor, in every country, women of all classes were sewing for those naked wretches who had escaped from the great earthquake with nothing but their lives. In the Palace of the Quirinal the little princesses, Jolanda and Mafalda, sat up in their high chairs, stitching busily for the children of the stricken South. The fury of benevolence that had driven men and women all over the world into some action, some sacrifice, for their suffering brothers, was being organized, had become the great driving force that should compel some sort of order out of chaos unparalleled. When it grew too dark to see in the ballroom the friendly giant lighted the chandelier and the candles in the gilt sconces. As he passed me he murmured:
“If the Signora can wait till the other ladies have gone her Excellency—“
“Of course I can wait.” I settled down to overcast the seams of a black woolen frock.