They climbed the steep and rocky lane between high walls, passed on the one side the house where Cardinal Baronius wrote his famous Annals, which had an interest too dry to fascinate the two young ladies; passed the wide iron gate of a villa to left, and another to right, giving only a glance at the paradises within; passed the large painting of the Madonna embowered in trees at the foot of the Cappucini Avenue; passed under the stone portal, and the rod of verdant shadow almost as solid, that formed
the entrance to Villa Tuscolana, ravished now and then by glimpses of the magnificent distance; on into the lovely wood-road, the ancient Via Tusculana; and presently there they were at last in the birthplace of Cato, the air-hung city that broke the pride of Rome, and that, conquered at last, died in its defeat, and remained for ever a ruin.
Not a word was spoken when they reached the summit, and stood gazing on what is, probably, the most magnificent view in the world. Only after a while, when the three new-comers began to move and come out of their first trance of admiration, the Signora named some of the chief points in the landscape and in the ruins. The old historical scenes started up, the old marvellous stories rushed back to their memories, the mountains crowded up as witnesses, and the towns, with all their teeming life and countless voices of the present hushed by distance, became voluble with voices and startling with life of the past.
After a while they seated themselves in the shade of a tree, facing the west, and silently thought, or dreamed, or merely looked, as their mood might be. Their glances shot across the bosky heights that climbed to their feet, and across the wide Campagna, to where Rome lay like a heap of lilies thrown on a green carpet, and the glittering sickle of the distant sea curved round the world.
Day deepened about them in waves. They could almost feel each wave flow over them as the sun mounted, touching degree after degree of the burning blue, as a hand touches octaves up an organ. The birds sang less, and the cicali more, and the plants sighed forth all their perfume.
Isabel slipped off her shoes, and set her white-stockinged feet on a tiny laurel-bush, that bent kindly under them without breaking, making a soft and fragrant cushion. All took off their hats, and drank in the faint wind that was fresh, even at noon.
“The first time I came here,” the Signora said after a while, “was on the festa of SS. Roch and Sebastian, in the heat of late summertime. That is a great day for Frascati, for these two saints are their protectors against pestilence, which has never visited the city. When, in ’69, the cholera dropped one night on Albano, just round the mountain there a few miles, and struck people dead almost like lightning, and killed them on the road as they fled to other towns, so that many died, perhaps, from fear and horror, having no other illness, none who reached Frascati in health died. The nobility died as well as the low, and the cardinal bishop died at his post taking care of his people. Whole families came to Frascati, the people told me, flying by night along the dark, lonely road, some half-starving; for all the bakers were dead, and there was no bread except what was sent from Rome. The saints they trusted did not refuse to help them. In Frascati they found safety. If any died there, certainly none sickened there. So, of course, the saints were more honored than ever. I sat here and heard the bells all ringing at noon, and the guns firing salutes, and saw the lovely blue wreaths of smoke curl away over the roofs after each salvo. In Italy they do not praise God solely with the organ, but with the timbrel and the lute. Anything that expresses joy and triumph expresses religious joy and triumph, and the artillery
and military bands come out with the candles and the crucifix to honor the saint as well as the warrior. Then in the evening there was the grand procession, clergy, church choirs, military bands, crucifixes, banners, women dressed in the ancient costume of the town, and the bells all ringing, the guns all booming, and the route of the procession strewn with fragrant green. The evening deepened as they marched, and their candles, scarcely visible at first, grew brighter as they wound about the steep streets and the illuminated piazzas. All the houses had colored lamps out of their windows, and there were fireworks. But my noon up here impressed me most. My two guides, trusty men, and my only companions, sat contentedly in the shade playing Morra after their frugal bread and wine. Sitting with my back to them, only faintly hearing their voices as they called the numbers, I could imagine that they were Achilles and Ajax, whom you can see on an ancient Etruscan vase in the Vatican playing the same game. The present was quite withdrawn from me. I felt like Annus Mundi looking down on Annus Domini, and seeing the whole of it, too. I could have stayed all day, but that hunger admonished me; for I had not been so provident as my guides, nor as I have been to-day. Going down, however, just below the Capuchin convent, I saw a man on a donkey coming up, with a large basket slung at each side of the saddle in front of him. No one could doubt what was under those cool vine-leaves. He was carrying fresh figs up to the Villa Tuscolana, where some college was making their villigiatura. I showed him a few soldi, and he stopped and let me lift the leaves
myself. There they lay with soft cheek pressed to cheek, large, black figs as sweet as honey. The very skins of them would have sweetened your tea. Where we stood a little path that looked like a dry rivulet-bed led off under the wall of the convent grounds. When I asked where it went, they answered, ‘To the Madonna.’ We will go there on our way down. Meantime, has Isabel nothing hospitable to say to us?”
Miss Vane displayed immediately the luncheon she had been detailed to prepare, a bottle of Orvieto, only less delicate because richer than champagne, a basket of cianbelli, and lastly a box. “In the name of the prophet, figs!” she said, opening it. “They are dried, it is true; but then they are from Smyrna.”