'But,' said he, descanting on this subject to Rocjean, 'how can the Romans fight for their firesides, when they haven't any?'
'They will fight for their scaldine, especially the old women and the young women,' answered Rocjean, 'to the last gasp. There is nothing they stick to like these: even their husbands and lovers are not so near and dear to them.'
'What are they? and, how much do they cost?' asked Caper, artistically.
'Crockery baskets with handles; ten baiocchi,' replied Rocjean, 'You must have noticed them; why, look out of that window: do you see that girl in the house opposite. She has one on the window sill, under her nose, while her hands are both held over the charcoal fire that is burning in it. If there were any proof needed that the idea of a future punishment by fire did not originate in Rome, the best reply would be the bitter hatred the Romans have of cold. I can fancy the income of the church twice as large if they had only thought to have filled purgatory with icebergs and a corresponding state of the thermometer. A Roman, in winter time, would pay twice as many baiocchi for prayers to get a deceased friend out of the cold, as he could otherwise be induced to. The English and other foreigners have, little by little, induced hotel and boarding house keepers to introduce grates and stoves, with good coal and wood fires, wherever they may hire lodgings; but the old Romans still stand by braseras and scaldinas.'
'I caught a bad cold yesterday, thanks to this barbarous custom,' said Caper. 'I was in the Vatican, looking at a pretty girl copying a head of Raphael's, and depending on imagination and charcoal to warm me: the results were chills and the snuffles.'
'Let that be a warning to you against entering art galleries during cold weather. To visit the Borghese collection with the thermometer below freezing point, and see all those semi-nude paintings, whether of saints or sinners, chills the heart; not only that they have no clothes, but that the artists who made the pictures were so radically vulgar—because they were affected!'
'But,' spoke Caper,'they probably painted them in the merry spring time, when they had forgotten all about frozen fountains and oranges iced; or, it may be, in their day wood was cheaper than it is now, and money plentier.'
'Yes, in the days when three million pilgrims visited Rome in a year. But would you believe it? within thirty miles of this city I have seen enough timber lying rotting on the ground, to half warm the Eternal City? The country people, in the commune where I lived one summer, had the privilege of gathering wood in the forest that crowns the range of mountains backing up from the sea, and separating the Pontine Marshes from the higher lands of the Campagna: but the trunks of the hewn trees, after such light branches as the women could hack off were carried away, were left to rot; for there was no way to get them to Rome—an hour's distance by railroad. Cold? The Romans are numbed to the heart: wait until they are warmed up; wait until they have a chance to make money—there will be no poets like Casti in those days—Casti, who wrote two hundred sonnets against a man who dunned him for—thirty cents! Talk about knowing enough to go into the house when it rains! Why the Roman shopkeepers of the poorer class don't know enough to shut their shop doors when they are starved with cold: you will find this to be the fact. Look, too, at the poor little children! do they ever think of playing fire engine, and thus warming themselves in a wholesome manner? No! One day I was painting away, when I heard a poor, thin little voice, as of a small dinner bell with a croup, and hoping at last I might see the little ones having a good frolic, I went to the window and looked out. What did I see? A small boy with a large, tallow-colored head, carrying a large black cross in the pit of his stomach; another small boy ringing a bell; and five others following along, in a crushed, despondent manner—inviting other boys to hear the catechism explained in the parish church. Meat for babes! I don't wonder the Roman women all want to be men, when I see the men without half the spirit of the women, and, such as they are, loafing away the winter evenings for warmth in wine shops or cafes. Poor Roman women, huddled together in your dark rooms, feebly lighted with a poor lamp, and hugging scaldine for better comfort! Would that the American woman could see her Italian sister, and bless her stars that she did not live under the cap and cross keys.'
'The cold has one good effect,' interrupted Caper; 'the forcible gesticulation of the Italians, which we all admire so much, arises from the necessity they have to do so—in order to keep warm. I have, however, an idea to better the condition of the wood sawyers in the Papal States, by introducing a saw buck or saw horse: as it is, they hold the wood in their hands, putting the saw between their knees, and then fairly rubbing the wood through the saw, instead of the saw through the wood. How, too, the Romans manage to cut wood with such axes as they have is passing strange. It would be well to introduce an American axe here, handle and all.'
'We have an old, old saying in France,' spoke Rocjean: