MESSINA. RESCUE PARTY OF RUSSIAN SAILORS. [Page 36.]
MESSINA. THE PALAZZATA. [Page 41.]
sufferers buried alive in the ruins of their houses were in my ears. I felt their pain in my bones, in my brain, in my heart. I breathed pain with every breath till it seemed to me there was nothing but pain in the world. When notes of invitation to dine came—as a few did—it seemed an insult to humanity that tables should be spread with rich food and wine while our brothers agonized and slowly, slowly starved to death. When cards were left with the usual wishes for Buon Anno, one almost laughed at the mockery of people wishing each other Happy New Year. For the most part, though, the conventions and civilities of Rome—the most civilized of cities—were dropped. People threw their social duties or pleasures to the wind, even those whose whole business in life seems to consist of leaving the proper number of cards, making the proper visits, the exchange of banquets, teas and other formal courtesies. Birth and death always strip away these silly rags and trimmings; when there is such a harvest of death, humanity, even the humanity of Rome, perhaps the most sophisticated place in the world, weeps and cowers and stretches out to touch hands with any hand that is warm and living and in which the pulses beat.
Wednesday morning a bugle sounded in the street under our windows. I looked out and saw a group of young men wearing gay fifteenth century plush caps, and on their arms a strip of white cloth with the words “Pro Calabria e Sicilia” in red letters. The bugle sounded again. I knew what the summons meant, caught up the pile of extra clothing I had sorted out, snatched an overcoat and a cloak from the rack in the hall and ran downstairs into the street. I was immediately surrounded by half a dozen lads with fresh shining schoolboy faces. They carried between them, two by two, heavy wooden money boxes with a slit in the top, which they rattled and offered to all who passed.
“Who are these?” I asked the tall boy with a scarlet cap on his mop of brown curls, who relieved me of the coat and cloak.
He made me the bow of a prince as he answered: “We are the students of the University of Rome, Signora, at your service.”
In Italy, an old country where we find that supreme virtue of age, thrift, even spendthrift Americans grow cautious about spending money. I had meant to put a few sous in the box, but the eager eyes, the urgent voices, overcame discretion. I emptied my small purse, heavy with silver for the day’s expenses, into the first money box and so bought the sufferance of the students. I was now immune from other demands and free to follow them on their errand of mercy.
Another trumpet call and the students, laden with gifts, swarmed like honey bees to the hive about the lean obelisk in the Piazza del Popolo, just outside the monastery with the tall cypresses, in whose shade Luther paced, deep in the thoughts that were to change the course of history. In the middle of the piazza stood forage cart number 24 of the 13th Regiment of Artillery. The cart was drawn by two big army mules, one of them ridden by a soldier. At the back of the cart sat the bugler, a hard, merry, Irish-faced man with a snub nose and a missing tooth; he looked a living proof of Boni’s theory that the Celts and the Italians were originally of the same race. In the cart beside the bugler stood a young student with soft brown eyes and the rich coloring of the southern Italian; he wore an orange velvet cap on the back of his head and seemed to be chosen for his beauty, as the third man in the cart (a rather plain shabby fellow with a bandaged throat) had been chosen for his voice. The bugler sounded his trumpet, the driver cracked his whip and the procession started. The cart was closely followed by two artillery men in uniform and surrounded by that host of clustering students, busy as bees with their task of gathering soldi.