In October I returned my precious charge to her father and mother, safe and sound. She was the nearest thing to a daughter I ever had. In that year we were together I learned to understand something of the joys and anxieties parents feel; the delight of sharing whatever knowledge life has brought with a young and ardent spirit, and of forgetting one’s own affairs in the vivid interests of youth.
CHAPTER XX
My Mother’s Last Roman Winter
When we had been living in Rome four years my mother resolved to come out and pass a winter with us. One of the things that drew her to Italy was the wish to see her sister Louisa again. She had contemplated this visit for some time, but although she was in her seventy-ninth year, found it so hard to break away from the cares and responsibilities of public life that I crossed the ocean to help her get away. For one of the anticipated joys she had delayed too long, alas! In the August of 1898, my aunt, who had long been drooping, faded quietly out of life.
My letters to my brother and sisters give glimpses of whom and what my mother saw in that Rome which in her youth she had apostrophized as “The City of my Love!”
Rome, December 26, 1898. Well, my dears, we had a merry Christmas. In the afternoon we drove to the Pincio, where we sunned ourselves, then to the Odescalchi, where we enjoyed the Christmas tree Daisy Chanler had prepared for her own and the Crawford children. It was Mama’s first visit; it seemed best that it was made on this occasion, when youth was to the fore in force. The four Crawford angels, and Daisy’s three sported and enjoyed themselves. In the evening young Richard Norton, son of Charles Eliot Norton, came to dine with his bride, a daughter of Professor White of Harvard. We had a real English plum pudding on fire with holly on the top.
We keep up our exercise faithfully. If it is rainy we play ball, “I put my Ugly Mug In”, and “The Barberry Bush.” Mama works at her desk just as if she were at home and is hard at it writing her “Reminiscences.” I don’t believe she could ever have found time to write them in Boston.
January 16. We have seen Mme. Duse in Goldoni’s “Locandiera”, and in Gabriele d’Annunzio’s “Primavera”, a rotten piece, with which the great little woman did all she could. To-night we see her in “Magda.” The flocking Bostonians are in mid-career; on Sunday afternoons we have a houseful of them. I overheard Mama say to one the other day that she found “Boston more interesting than Rome.” Quand même she is really enjoying herself immensely and is ten years younger than when she sailed. The comfort of her presence is indescribable. The Richard Nortons are here for the winter; he lectures at the American School for Classical Studies. We may have the pleasure of hearing Courtland Palmer play at a concert to-day, but up till last night it was impossible to ascertain. The plays and the programmes of concerts are usually announced on the day of the performance. This is typical of the place and people. Yesterday we heard a good vesper service at St. Agnese in Piazza Navona, the music very fine. The other morning to St. Andrea della Valle to hear a mass by Chaldeans, according to their curious ritual. The Chaldeans looked remarkably like ordinary American negroes dressed in Oriental splendor.
Good luck is coming my way, for to-day I have an invitation to take tea with our friend Don R., the gobbo, a little South American humpback. You know, of course, that a gobbo brings luck. You must touch him if you can; if you can only manage to rub his hump you are likely to win the prize in the lottery. They say the reason why such people are so vain is that everybody tries to fondle them. His friend who lives with him, Mr. M., is a man so enormous that in the streets of Boston a lady stopped him and asked, “Sir, why are you so fat?”
The gobbo may weigh one hundred pounds; his friend the giant must weigh three hundred; they are a most diverting couple.
Rome. February 26, 1898. Hall Caine has been here for two hours. He got started talking on the subject of the Rossettis. He lived with Dante Gabriel Rossetti for the last eighteen months of his life. Rossetti died in his arms. The horror of the chloral habit which killed him was so indelibly impressed upon Caine’s mind that he could talk of little else, once the train of thought was started. Rossetti wrote the “White Ship” and the “King’s Tragedy” during this time and read both in manuscript to Caine. I am tingling with the pathos and the passion of it all!