“I too am a stranger,” I began. The solitary mourner was entering the chapel.
“At least you can tell me,” in an agonized whisper, “whether I am to read the service for a man or a woman.”
“Oh, for a woman!” I gasped.
I think the memory of that lonely funeral had much to do with our coming home to America for the “last heat” of life. Much as I adored Rome, I did not want to grow old and die there!
January 21, 1895. Uncle Terry still goes to teas and flirts desperately with the girls who make much of the dear old fellow. Mrs. John L. Gardner is here with wonderful costumes from Paris and such furs—sables and chinchillas. My syndicate goes better always. I have seven subscribers now. I am very glad of the new ones, Louisville Courier Journal and St. Paul Despatch.
February 23. Rome is full of Americans, who keep me very busy. To-day I wrote the first stint of my newspaper carnival letter, then arranged the flowers and put my house in order for a luncheon party for Mrs. Potter Palmer. In the afternoon drove out with Mrs. Gardner to Villegas’ studio where she “acquired” some of his gorgeous stuffs, old Genoese velvet and the like. To tea at Mrs. MacVeagh’s, where I had a good talk with the Ambassador; he looks like his brother Franklin whom we liked so much in Chicago. To-night to a ball at the Artists’ Club. You must read Paul Sabatier’s “St. Francis of Assisi”; it is delicious. I have just suffered Zola’s “Debacle.” One doesn’t read that book, one suffers it.
April 1. Sunday was my reception day; there are only two more of them. They are voted a success. Helen (Gardner) makes the tea. The Price Colliers came. She is a pearl. They are an interesting couple. To-day to lunch with Auntie and Uncle Terry. They have bloomed out with the warm weather and look like a pair of roses. Dear old Mr. Hooker was a sad loss to them; his death has darkened their whole winter. Mr. Story is ill, but his daughter Edith Peruzzi is hopeful. Mr. Hurlbert told me that the reason Mr. Story didn’t recover was that he did not want to. His interest in life died with his wife. It seems that she had taken care of all the material side, his money, wardrobe, every practical detail! Losing her, he finds himself helpless, “perplexed”, as Hurlbert said, “at buying a shoe string.”
Saw Salvini in Alfieri’s “Saul” last night; a great joy. He is unchanged, showed not a trace of having “gone off!” I had hardly hoped for this happiness, as he almost never acts now, having retired after his last tour in the United States, with a handsome fortune. Mme. Modjeska in a stage box, looking lovely but older, the sad “older” that dresses like twenty-five and has the face and expression of fifty. But, bless you, if you want my news, buy the weekly Transcript; my letters are pretty apt to turn up in Rome, as many traveling Bostonians subscribe to it. The Barrett Wendell children confronted me with one of my own letters the other day and demanded to be taken to the tapestry factory I had described; fortunately it exists.
May 10. Two weeks ago I went to Sorrento to visit the Crawfords, then to Venice for a week with Mrs. Gardner. The celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of Torquato Tasso’s death took me to Sorrento. Crawford made the chief address, prefacing it with an apology for his Italian. The Bishop of Sorrento told me this was rather a jest, as Marion’s Italian was more elegant and correct than that of any other speaker.
In Venice the attraction was the opening of an exhibition of modern pictures. I found time for my old loves, Titian and Veronese, and took on two new ones, Tintoretto and Carpaccio. I was very comfortable at Marion’s, where he and Bessie were kind as kind. Mrs. Gardner has the Daniel Curtis apartment on the Grand Canal. John Sargent had been staying there and he had recommended Mancini to paint a portrait of Mr. Gardner. Mancini’s method of painting is to put a network of squares about two inches large in front of the canvas and to paint the picture through these squares. You sometimes see traces of these threads in Mancini’s work. J. thinks with Sargent that Mancini is a man of genius—he knows him well and I have been to his studio in Rome.