To tell the truth, it was not the money side of the matter which distressed my sister-in-law so much as the prospect of being required to come and pass weeks at a time in this grim dungeon, without a single convenience of life, twelve miles from a market town, and of course lashed to the battlements by every Mediterranean storm. It took her some days to reconcile herself to the new acquisition—poor girl—but Marion had not made a mistake, after all. The family was not invited to San Niccola till he had made several journeys thither himself, with carpenters and materials, and when they did come they found that the lonely keep had been transformed internally to a quite possible dwelling—though certainly an inconveniently isolated one. Generally, however, he went there alone, to rest from everything connected with modern life, and he found it a fine, quiet place for writing in, at any rate.
I fancy that people who take such keen delight as we do in sympathetic and cheery society are probably the ones who most enjoy—and need—the relaxation of seclusion and quiet. I remember a curious nook that my sister and I discovered in Rome itself; we never told any one about it, and used to go there day after day to think the “long, long thoughts” of youth and make wonderful plans for the two or three hundred years we must have expected to live if they were all to be carried out!
From the Via di Repetta, on the right bank of the Tiber, we had noticed on the opposite side two or three very old little houses, with tiny gardens formed on the projecting bastions of a fragment of ancient wall which must have been built to protect the Via Lungara from the periodical overflowing of the river. Over the low parapet of one of them we could see a few flowers, a lemon tree, and an oleander bush in bloom; the owners of the old dwelling were never visible, but we made up our minds to bribe them to let us into their deserted and alluring back yard. Once in the Lungara we had some little trouble in locating the house, as nothing of the river was visible between the closely-set buildings that faced the street, but after one or two wrong shots we found it—in the possession of a good-natured young woman who could not in the least understand why we should offer her a lira for the privilege of passing through to her “loggia,” a place she evidently despised since, to our joy, we found that she never even hung out the clothes to dry there, preferring the lines which run from window to window on the upper stories of most of the poor houses in Rome. She led us across the brick-floored kitchen, opened a door and shut it behind us as soon as we had passed through, and we found ourselves in a tiny paradise of flowers and herbs interspersed with fragments of sculptured marble—a frond of acanthus, a whorl of tracery—and provided with a stone seat inside the parapet. The whole jutted far out into the river, whose rushing water filled the air with drowsy sound. A few jonquils were blooming white and yellow in the clear shade; the pot of carnations—every Italian woman of the lower class has one, which she cherishes jealously—was spilling over with huge red “garofoli,” scenting the air with their spicy fragrance, and from the seat by the wall we could look up and down the river for a long, long way. The coolness, the unassailable privacy yet open-air sweetness of it all was indescribably delightful; for years we used to fly there when we had something to think out; and when the new works for keeping the Tiber within bounds swept the little old houses and their wee gardens away we felt as if we had been robbed of a bit of home.
My dear sister Annie was usually the pioneer of our discoveries and expeditions; she was of a bolder spirit than I, and was ever on the alert for material for her painting, which was not always done with the brush. She shared in particular my love of things Etruscan. We used to fancy that we had both lived among the mysterious, beauty-loving people of Etruria some three thousand years earlier. Everything connected with them had a haunting power over us, and sometimes we used to put words to the scenes on the vases and act them out with much fidelity for our own satisfaction. Only one friend was admitted to share these archaic sympathies and diversions; if these lines ever fall under “Minnie’s” eyes, will she remember one notable night when she and Annie acted the parts of the devoted maidens, in clinging drapery and fillet-bound hair, who rescued the beautiful young warrior—myself—from the hideous fate decreed for him by the (necessarily) invisible hierophants of the sacred fane in the wardrobe—the dressing table serving for the altar upon which he was to have been sacrificed? We were all three so overcome at the conclusion of the drama that we broke down and wept in each other’s arms! “La gioventù è un fiore che non ritorna più!”
But those whose youth has been fed with colour and imagination and beauty keep young in spite of the passing of years. In looking back, those stand out as the real things—the prosaic grind of existence falls away and shows itself as mere illusion. After all, what would life be without contrasts? They are the chief elements of drama. They furnish all its spice. The blackest shadows prove the existence of the brightest sun. It is the people who have nothing to wish for who are to be pitied. The very poorest can dream and hope for some lightening of their lot; and when pleasures come to them—little tiny pleasures even—they enjoy them intensely; whereas those to whom nothing has been denied find life so atrociously dull that only a constant series of fictitious excitements enables them to bear it at all. Two men I know were walking down Fifth Avenue one day and paused to admire a magnificent diamond necklace displayed in a jeweller’s window. One of them said, with a sigh, “What wouldn’t I give to be able to buy that for my wife!” The other, a poor multi-millionaire, turned to him with a snarl of envious rage: “You lucky fellow! You have something still left to wish for!”
The best—in the way of mere pleasure—that some of us could desire would be to live some hours over again and see once more the pictures that filled them. There used to be a day in May when all the artists in Rome united to hold high festival out in the country, and—speaking of pictures—one such day comes back to me and claims its record. Nobody was allowed to know beforehand what the brotherhood was planning to do, but it was sure to be something very picturesque—and no wonder, considering the elements and facilities brought to bear on it!
All who could do so went out towards the appointed spot, the caves of Cervara, that morning, and we passed so many vehicles on the road that we decided to turn off and make for our point across the turf, all unenclosed in that part of the plain. We almost forgot what we had come to look for, in the pleasure of moving soundlessly over the short, new grass which gave out a warm fragrance of mint and thyme as it was pressed by the horses’ feet. The velvety undulations between which we threaded our way, shut out everything but the blue overhead and some glimpses of the Sabines, swimming like huge sapphires in a haze of airy gold. Suddenly, on the sky-line of a low ridge just ahead of us, a towering car moved into view, drawn by four white oxen, whose gilded horns were hung with wreaths of roses. The heavy wheels were smothered in roses too, scattering pink and white petals as they revolved over the newly-sprung grass. The sides of the car were all of fretted gold, catching the sun in a hundred lovely scrolls and arabesques; raised high on a gold and ivory throne sate—a Roman Emperor, his white robes covered with jewels, the laurel wreath on his brow, his smooth young beauty facing the radiant morning with bland immobile insolence, his dark eyes fixed on the horizon, as if seeing his empire stretching away till its confines were lost in the unknown East. Behind him two black slaves held huge fans of white feathers over his head to protect him from the heat; at his feet, on a swirl of panther skins, sate his favourite of the moment, a beautiful, lithe Greek woman, her golden hair crowned with roses, her bare arms covered with bracelets and gleaming like marble in the sun, while a score or more of lovely girls in classical draperies leaned over the gilt balustrades that sank, tier below tier, from the sides of the throne down to the upper ledge of the rose-wreathed wheels. Black slaves in scarlet tunics led the oxen, urging them on with pointed gilt wands, and behind the Emperor’s car, as far as one could see, followed a long procession of others, nearly as splendid as the first, crowded with all his attendants, gorgeous in raiment, grouped to perfection—and all, saving the ox-drivers, motionless as statues. It was a dream of Imperial times, too surprising to be real, till, as the first car passed close to us, one of the girls began to laugh and flung a handful of rose-petals in my face.
How those young artists had enjoyed themselves in planning and producing the marvellous show! Painting pictures on canvas is all very well, but fancy the delight of making them live, on such a background, before people’s eyes—of handling all that superb material to embody visions that had haunted one despairingly for years, crying out to be used and shown! Upon my word, if I could start life over again and choose my own vocation, I believe I would make it that of a theatrical manager—an artist in flesh and blood!
CHAPTER V A FEUDAL VILLA
Ancient Beauty of Villa Borghese—A Sylvan Siesta—The Woodland of the Borghese—The Heart of the Trees—The Borghese Anemone—Vintage Time in the Grape Countries—Tuscany, an Atmosphere of Purity and Calm—Bunches of Grapes Two Feet Long—Muscatels of Etruria—October Festivals at the Villa Borghese—Peasants of the Coast Towns—Picturesque Costume of the Albanese—Feast in the Private Garden—Fountains of Wine—Classic Chariot Races—The Passing of the Feudal System.