To call the tree and the flower by its name,’
Sighed the South to the North.
“It seems to me that not one person in a thousand—Italians no more than strangers—would know there were anything remarkable here, if a small, small number of persons hadn’t told them there is. How they all repeat the same words, from the teeth out, and talk learnedly of what they know nothing about! They don’t one of them find a beauty that isn’t in the guidebooks.”
She sighed impatiently, and returned to her subject.
“I was telling you about noon in Villa Torlonia: I stood under the great solid trees awhile, then took courage and walked into the sun again, across the terrace, with only a glance at the vast panorama visible from it, up the steps that were hot to my feet, and then plunged into the upper avenues as into a cool bath. There was another opening to cross, for I wanted to go to the upper fountain; but here the cascade cooled the eyes, at least. I went up the cascade stairs as the waters came down, and found myself
alone in that beautiful green-walled drawing-room, with the fountain leaping all to itself in the centre, and the forty masks of the balustrade about the basin each telling its different story. Beside the tall central jet there used to be, perhaps may now be, a jet from each of these masks that are carved on the great posts of the balustrade, no two alike. I made a circuit of the place to assure myself that no one else was there; looking down each path that led away through the over-arching trees. Not a soul was in sight. There was no danger of Italians being there; and as for forestieri, there were none in Frascati. How delicious it was simply to sit on one of the stone benches and live! A spider’s web glistened across the place, starting straight from a tree behind me. Where it was fastened at the other end I could not guess; for the nearest object in that line was the tossing column of foamy water, fifty feet, may be more, distant, then an equal distance to the trees at the other side. There was no sound but that of falling water, that seemed to carry the chirp of the cicali and the whisper of the trees, as the waters themselves carried the dry leaves and twigs that fell into them. All around the sun searched and strove to enter through the thick green, so near that his fiery breath touched my face. How my chains melted off! How pure the heat was, and how sweet! One bird sang through it now and then—sang for me: he the only lark abroad at that hour, as I was the only signora. I answered him with a little faint song, to which again he replied. I never was so happy, never felt so free from all that could annoy. Probably Adam and Eve had some such delight in the mere feeling
that they were alive. And so I sat there, hour after hour, half asleep, half fainting with the heat, in which I seemed to float. If I had been called on then to say what God is, I should have said, He is a fire that burns without consuming. Fire and its attendant heat were the perfection of all things, and coldness was misery—but a pure, clear fire which an anemone could pass through unscathed.”
The Signora drew a breath that was half a sigh, and took up the folded paper from her lap. “How happy I am in Italy in the summer!” she said, half to herself. “I can work in the cool months, but I live in the hot ones.”
“Bianca wants me to read this rhyme? It is a summer rhyme, too, and commemorates a little incident of my first summer here—a visit to Santa Maria della Vittoria. You have not been there yet. It is very near, just out on the Via della porta Pia, which the new people call Venti Settembre, because the invaders came in that way on the 20th of September. They try to keep the anniversary, and to make the city look as if the people cared for it, but it is a dreary pretence. A military procession, a few flags hung out here and there from houses of government officials and foreigners, chiefly Americans—that is all.”
She read: