It was the same with the Bargello, the tombs of the Medici, San Miniato and the basilica and monastery at Fiesole. That last, with the wind singing in the cypresses, a faint mist blowing down the valley of the Arno, all Florence lying below and the lights of evening beginning to appear, stands fixed and clear in my mind. I saw it for the last time the evening before I left. I sat on a stone bench overlooking a wonderful prospect, rejoicing in the artistic spirit of Italy which has kept fresh and clean these wonders of art, when I was approached by a brown Dominican, his feet and head bare, his body stout and comfortable. He asked for alms! I gave him a lira for the sake of Savonarola who belonged to his order and—because of the spirit of Italy, that in the midst of a changing, commercializing world still ministers to these shrines of beauty and keeps them intact and altogether lovely.
One last word and I am done. I strolled out from Santa Croce one evening a little confused by the charm of all I had seen and wondering how I could best bestow my time for the remaining hours of light. I tried first to find the house of Michelangelo which I fancied was somewhere in the vicinity, but not finding it, came finally to the Arno which I followed upstream. The evening was very pleasant, quite a sense of spring in the air and of new-made gardens, and I overcame my disappointment at having failed to accomplish my original plan. I passed new streets, wider than the old ones in the heart of the city, with street lamps, arc-lights, modern awnings and a trolley-car running in the distance. Presently I came to a portion of the Arno lovelier than any I had yet seen. Of course the walls through which it flows in the city had disappeared and in their place came grass-covered banks with those tall thin poplars I had so much admired in France. The waters were a “Nile green” at this hour and the houses, collected in small groups, were brown, yellow, or white, with red or brown roofs and brown or green shutters. The old idea of arches with columns and large projecting roofs still persisted in these newer, outlying houses and made me wonder whether Florence might not, after all, always keep this characteristic.
As I went farther out the houses grew less frequent and lovely bluish-black hills appeared. There was a smoke-stack in the distance, just to show that Florence was not dead to the idea of manufacturing, and beyond in a somewhat different direction the dome of the cathedral,—that really impressive dome.
Some men were fishing in the stream from the bank, apparently catching nothing. I noticed the lovely cypresses of the South in the distance, the large villas on the hills, and here and there clumps of those tall, slender trees of France, not conspicuous elsewhere on my journey.
In one place I noticed the largest display of washing I have ever seen, quite the largest,—a whole field of linen, no less, hung out to dry; and in another place some slow-moving men cutting wood.
It was very warm, very pleasant, slightly suggestive of rain, with the smoke going up straight, and after a while when the evening church-bells were beginning to ring, calling to each other from vale and hill, my sense of springtime and pleasant rural and suburban sweetness was complete.
Laughter carried I noticed, in some peculiar, echoing way. The music of the bells was essentially quieting. I had no sense of Florence, old or new, but just spring, hope, new birth. And as I turned back after a time I knew I had acquired a different and very precious memory of Florence—something that would last me years and years. I should always think of the Arno as it looked this evening—how safe and gracious and still. I should always hear the voices in laughter, and the bells; I should always see the children playing on the green banks, quite as I used to play on the Wabash and the Tippecanoe; and their voices in Italian were no less sweet than our childish voices. I had a feeling that somehow the spirit of Italy was like that of America, and that somehow there is close kinship between us and Italy, and that it was not for nothing that an Italian discovered America or that Americans, of all people, have apparently loved Italy most and rivaled it most closely in their periods of greatest achievement.
CHAPTER XL
MARIA BASTIDA
In studying out my itinerary at Florence I came upon the homely advice in Baedeker that in Venice “care should be taken in embarking and disembarking, especially when the tide is low, exposing the slimy lower steps.” That, as much as anything I had ever read, visualized this wonder city to me. These Italian cities, not being large, end so quickly that before you can say Jack Robinson you are out of them and away, far into the country. It was early evening as we pulled out of Florence; and for a while the country was much the same as it had been in the south—hill-towns, medieval bridges and strongholds, the prevailing solid browns, pinks, grays and blues of the architecture, the white oxen, pigs and shabby carts, but gradually, as we neared Bologna, things seemed to take on a very modern air of factories, wide streets, thoroughly modern suburbs and the like. It grew dark shortly after that and the country was only favored by the rich radiance of the moon which made it more picturesque and romantic, but less definite and distinguishable.