In the apartment below us lives Mme. Rubinstein, widow of the Russian composer—do you remember our hearing him play when he came to Boston? To-night she has a man with a stupendous baritone voice singing Russian folk songs. After a Cecilia concert lately I told her how well Sgambati had played something of her husband’s. She wept with pleasure and exclaimed,
“They have forgotten him too much; it is long, long since they have given any of his glorious compositions.”
At twilight we sometimes hear her softly playing her husband’s music; as she never practices and only rarely plays, her piano is a pleasure not a pest.
Rome, December 29, 1907. You will feel dear Minnie Pratt’s death very much. She was a fine soul, but she was one, I think, who would not have been very happy as an old person—we are not all “built that way.” I think of her as always young and sparkling. Bell and Pratt no longer. What will become of the twin who is left?
Marion Crawford had been very devoted lately—darling old fellow, for he seems very old. He comes up to Rome a good deal and always comes to see us. He wrote a nice Christmas letter and sent me a calendar, and for luck, a ball of red string with all sorts of warnings about it; you must not throw it away, you must keep every scrap not used or light a candle with it; he really is superstitious! He does not forgive A.; he told me the other day that he never forgot the way you “flew at her like a wildcat in his mother’s defence.” Curious what things stick; he adores you for that flash of the cold greys!
On Christmas Eve J. brought home vast branches of holly to put round your portrait by Villegas in the dining room. Just below we arranged and decorated a group of the family portraits on a table. This made our festa pleasant and ancestral. The custom of adorning the family effigies comes to us from the ancient Romans. In the early days before the Greek gods came into Italy, they had practically only ancestor worship, in a spirit quite like that of the Japanese to-day.
I read my Outlook faithfully. It does not give altogether an accurate view of things at home; what publication does? It is on the right side of enthusiastic optimism, however, and that is the best reading for American exiles.
Rome, January 6, 1908. The festas are not yet over. To-day is the feast of the Epiphany, Twelfth Night. I do hope and believe the last of the Christmas fêtes. It is a trying time; everybody you want to do any work for you is completely demoralized; the laborers will not labor, and the servants are forever gadding. It would be a good thing for Italy if these long holiday rites of junketing and idleness could be shortened. It isn’t that the people do anything disorderly or wrong, they just don’t do anything but amuse themselves. At home we keep adding new holidays—fatal policy! Last night being the eve of the Befana, we went over to the Piazza Navona to see the fun, and buy toys for the porter’s children. The piazza was lined with booths with toys and goodies for sale; the fun was fast and furious and I must confess quite innocent. Nobody gets drunk and there is no brawling, only bedlam of tin trumpets and other festive noises. Befana is to the children here what Christmas is at home. Christmas is little made of save as one of the great feasts of the Church. New Year is the day for the exchange of presents and felicitations among “grown ups”, and Befana for children. Befana is an old woman for whose coming the children hang up their stockings beside the kitchen fireplaces as we do for St. Nicholas.
March 4, 1908. Spring looked at us and then shook her head and took another nap. We are having the cold spell that always comes between the first and fifteenth of March.
Our friend, the Monsignor, comes to see us a great deal and is a real comfort. The other day I passed him in a cab. It had come on to rain furiously; as he had no umbrella and I was going past his door, I stopped and asked if I should give him a lift. He refused shortly and soon after came to see me and told me that it would have made a scandal if he had been seen driving about Rome in a cab with a lady.