“The Signorina with the bright eyes, who lives in the handsome villino,” Agnese began, “asks if the Signora can use her carriage today. That fat beast, her coachman, is very avaricious, he will expect a mancia of three francs—still if we employ Napoleone, it will cost more—besides with a private carriage se fa più figura.”
“As to making a good appearance, that’s of no consequence; the Signorina’s carriage, however, has better springs than Napoleone’s, rubber tires as well. What didst thou say?”
“As the Signora was occupied I said yes, with tante grazie, and combined that the ‘milor’ should come at two o’clock. The afternoons are short; as the mancia must be paid, it is better to have one’s money’s worth.” Agnese wears thirty-two flawless pearls in her mouth—as she said these things she showed them all to me with the guileless smile of an infant.
Could it be by chance that Vera’s carriage was offered for this particular day? Impossible! Besides, Agnese knows I never go out till four. I have to believe in miracles, such miraculous things happen. Can it be that Agnese works the oracle? Basta! best not lift the veil from such comfortable mysteries. We were booked to call on the Marchesa Villamarina at half past two o’clock; we had spoken to no living soul of this, and here was a fat coachman, a fine coach and pair coming to take us in state to the palace of the Regina Madre. If our very walls have ears, if our correspondence is tampered with, the result is fortunate—let us accept the “milor” the gods send us!
We drove up sunny Via Veneto, through the Ludovisi quarter, past the smart hotels that have sprung up near the Palazzo Margherita—the Savoy, Regina, Palace, half a dozen more named out of compliment to the Queen Mother. If the sacrifice had to be made, the beautiful Villa Ludovisi cut up into house lots, transformed into the fashionable quarter of Rome, the great winter watering place, it’s a little comfort that the best site now serves for the site of Queen Margherita’s palace.
“Do you remember the violets that used to grow here?
“I can smell them now!”
“It’s hard to forgive that vandalism, even if building lots were necessary.”
Other things are necessary; the cool shade of ancient cedars, their resinous breath at hot noontide, the plashing of water in moss-grown fountains, the rustle of birds at nesting time, the carpet of anemones beneath immemorial trees, the laurel and asphodel that once grew here in the garden that was Sallust’s, that has been sacred ground to poet and artist from Horace’s time to Crawford’s.
Palazzo Margherita faces Via Veneto with its smug hotels; behind the palace lie a few roods of ground, a shrunken splendor, the last vestige of the noble Villa Ludovisi. Here are shadowy walks between gnarled ilex trees, and a few old statues, the last of a great company. A high wall shuts off the Queen’s garden from the Via Sallustiana, on the left; at the back on the Via Boncompagni, the wall is surmounted by a balustrade with antique amphorae etched with a fine network of black and yellow stains. Perhaps they once held the wine that served at Sallust’s banquets—it was of the best, Falernian perhaps.