Recollections of My Childhood and Youth Part 31

Maria is forty, but looks nearly sixty. Her husband is a joiner, a stout, good-looking man, who works all day for his living, and has a shop. Then there is Maria's niece, the nineteen-year-old Filomena, a tall, handsome girl. Every evening they have fine times, laugh, sing, and play cards. On Sunday evening they go out to the fair (_alla fiera_) and look at the things without buying. Others have to pay a lire to go in, but they go in free, as they know some of the people. On festival occasions Maria wears a silk dress.

There is a crucifix over my bed, an oleograph of the Madonna and child and a heart, embroidered with gold on white, horribly pierced by the seven swords of pain, which were supposed to be nails; on the centre of the heart, you read, partly in Latin, partly in Greek letters:

JESU XPI Pa.s.sIO.

All the same, Maria is very sceptical. Yesterday, on the evening of my birthday, we had the following conversation:

_Myself_: "Here you celebrate your saints' day; not your birthday; but, you know, up in the North we have not any saints"--and, thinking it necessary to add a deep-drawn religious sigh, I continued: "We think it enough to believe in G.o.d." "Oh! yes," she said slowly, and then, a little while after: "That, too, is His own business." "How?" "Well," she said, "You know that I am dreadfully ignorant; I know nothing at all, but I think a great deal. There are these people now who are always talking about the Lord. I think it is all stuff. When I married, they said to me: 'May it please the Lord that your husband be good to you.' I thought: If I had not been sensible enough to choose a good husband, it would not help me much what should please the Lord. Later on they said: 'May it please the Lord to give you sons.' I had some, but they died when they were little ones. Then I thought to myself: 'If my husband and I do not do something in the matter, it won't be much use for the Lord to be pleased to give them to us. Nature, too, has something to say to it. (_Anche la natura e una piccola cosa_.) You have no idea, sir, how we have suffered from priests here in the Papal State. Everyone had to go to Confession, and as of course they did not wish to confess their own sins, they confessed other people's,--and told lies, too,--and in that way the priests knew everything. If the priest had heard anything about a person, he or she would get a little ticket from him: 'Come to me at such and such a time! 'Then, when the person went, he would say: 'Are you mad to live with such and such a person without being married!'--and all the while he himself had a woman and a nest full of children. Then he would say: 'I won't have you in my parish,' and he would publish the poor thing's secret to the whole world. Or, if he were more exasperated, he would say: 'Out of the Pope's country!' and send for a few carabineers; they would take one to a cart and drive one to the frontier; there, there were fresh carabineers, who took one farther --and all without trial, or any enquiry. Often the accusation was false.

But we were ruled by spies, and all their power was based on the confessional, which is nothing but spying. Shortly before Easter, a priest came and counted how many there were in the house. If afterwards there were one who did not go to ma.s.s, then his name was stuck up on the church door as an infidel, in disgrace. It is many years now since I have been to any confessor. When I die, I shall say: 'G.o.d, forgive me my sins and my mistakes,' and shall die in peace without any priest."

Whatever we talk about, Maria always comes back to her hatred of the priests. The other day, we were speaking of the annoyance I had been subjected to by a compatriot of mine, K.B., who came to see me, but looked more particularly at a large _fiasco_ I had standing there, containing four bottles of Chianti. He tasted the wine, which was very inferior, declared it 'nice,' and began to drink, ten gla.s.ses straight off. At first he was very polite to me, and explained that it was impossible to spend a morning in a more delightful manner than by visiting the Sistine Chapel first, and me in my sick-room afterwards, but by degrees he became ruder and ruder, and as his drunkenness increased I sank in his estimation. At last he told me that I was intolerably conceited, and started abusing me thoroughly. Lying defenceless in bed, and unable to move, I was obliged to ring for Maria, and whisper to her to fetch a few gentlemen from the Scandinavian Club, who could take the drunken man home, after he had wasted fully six hours of my day. I managed in this way to get him out of the door. He was hardly gone than Maria burst out: "_Che porcheria!_" and then added, laughing, to show me her knowledge of languages: "_Cochonnerie, Schweinerei!_" She has a remarkable memory for the words she has heard foreigners use. She knows a number of French words, which she p.r.o.nounces half like Italian, and she also knows a little Russian and a little German, having, when a young girl, kept house for a Russian prince and his family.

"I feel," she said to me, "that I could have learnt both French and German easily, if I could have _compared_ them in a book. But I can neither read nor write. These wretched priests have kept us in ignorance. And now I am old and good for nothing. I was forty a little while ago, and that is too old to learn the alphabet. Do you know, signore, how it originally came about that I did not believe, and despised the priests? I was twelve years old, and a tall girl, and a very good-looking girl, too, though you cannot see that, now that I am old and ugly." (You can see it very plainly, for her features are haughty and perfectly pure of line; it is only that her expression, when she sits alone, is sinister.) "I lost my father when I was five years old.

About that time my mother married again, and did not trouble herself any more about me, as she had children with her new husband. So I was left to myself, and ran about the streets, and became absolutely ungovernable, from vivacity, life, and mischief, for I was naturally a very lively child. Then one day I met a mule, alone; the man had left it; I climbed up, and seated myself upon it, and rode about, up and down the street, until a dog came that frightened the mule and it kicked and threw me over its head. There I lay, with a broken collar-bone, and some of the bone stuck out through the skin. Then a doctor came and wanted to bind it up for me, but I was ashamed for him to see my breast, and would not let him. He said: 'Rubbish! I have seen plenty of girls.' So I was bound up and for six weeks had to lie quite still. In the meantime a priest, whom they all called Don Carlo--I do not know why they said Don --came to see me, and when I was a little better and only could not move my left arm, he said to me one day, would I go and weed in his garden, and he would give me money for it. So I went every day into the garden, where I could very well do the work with one arm. He came down to me, brought me sweets and other things, and asked me to be his friend. I pretended not to understand. He said, too, how pretty I was, and such things. Then at last one day, he called me into his bedroom, and first gave me sweets, and then set me on his knee. I did not know how to get away. Then I said to him: 'It is wrong, the Madonna would not like it.'

Do you know, sir, what he replied? He said: 'Child! there is no Madonna (_non c'e Madonna_) she is only a bridle for the common people'

(_e un freno per il populo ba.s.so_). Then I was anxious to run away, and just then my mother pa.s.sed by the garden, and as she did not see me there, called, 'Anna Maria! Anna Maria!' I said: 'Mother is calling me,' and ran out of the room. Then mother said to me: 'What did the priest say to you, and what did he do to you? You were in his bedroom.' I said: 'Nothing'; but when my mother went to confession, instead of confessing her sins, she said over and over again to him: 'What have you done to my daughter? I will have my daughter examined, to see what sort of a man you are.' He declared: 'I will have you shot if you do' (_una buona schioppettata_). So mother did not dare to go farther in the matter. But she would not believe me."

Here we were interrupted by the Russian woman from next door coming in; she is married, more or less, to a waiter, and she complained of his volatility, and cried with jealousy. "Once I was just as weak," said Maria. "When I was newly married I was so jealous of my husband, that I could neither eat nor drink if any one came to me and said: 'This evening he is with such and such a one.' If I tried to eat, I was sick at once. I am just as fond of him as I was then, but I am cured now. If I saw his infidelity with my own eyes, I should not feel the least bit hurt about it. Then, I could have strangled him."

FILOMENA

Italian Landladies--The Carnival--The Moccoli Feast--Filomena's Views

Filomena sings l.u.s.tily from early morning till late at night, and her name suits her. The Greek Philomela has acquired this popular form, and in use is often shortened to Filome.

The other day I made her a present of a bag of English biscuits. Her face beamed as I have never besides seen anything beam but the face of my _cafetiere_--he is a boy of twelve--when now and again he gets a few _soldi_ for bringing me my coffee or tea. Anyone who has only seen the lighting up of Northern faces has no conception,--as even painters admit,--of such transfiguration. Yes, indeed! Filomena's tall figure and fresh mountain blood would freshen up the Goldschmidtian human race to such an extent that they would become better men and women in his next books.

I have seen a little of the Carnival. This morning Filomena came to my room, to fetch a large Italian flag which belongs there. "I am going to wave it on Thursday," she said, and added, with blushing cheeks, "then I shall have a mask on." But this evening she could not restrain herself.

For the first time during the five months I have lived here, and for the first time during the month I have been ill, she came in without my having called or rung for her. She had a red silk cap on, with a gold border. "What do you say to that, sir!" she said, and her clear laughter rang through the room. It revived my sick self to gaze at ease at so much youth, strength and happiness; then I said a few kind words to her, and encouraged by them she burst into a stream of eloquence about all the enjoyment she was promising herself. This would be the first carnival she had seen; she came from the mountains and was going back there this Spring. She was in the seventh heaven over her cap. She always reminds me, with her powerful frame, of the young giantess in the fairy tale who takes up a peasant and his plough in the hollow of her hand.

Filomena is as tall as a moderately tall man, slenderly built, but with broad shoulders. She impresses one as enjoying life thoroughly. She has herself made all she wears--a poor little grey woollen skirt with an edging of the Italian colours, which has been lengthened some nine inches at the top by letting in a piece of shirting. A thin red-and- black-striped jacket that she wears, a kind of loose Garibaldi, is supposed to hide this addition, which it only very imperfectly does. Her head is small and piquant; her hair heavy, blue-black; her eyes light brown, of exquisite shape, smiling and kind. She has small, red lips, and the most beautiful teeth that I remember seeing. Her complexion is brown, unless she blushes; then it grows darker brown. Her figure is unusually beautiful, but her movements are heavy, so that one sees at once she is quite uneducated. Still, she has a shrug of the shoulders, ways of turning and twisting her pretty head about, that are absolutely charming.

I have sent Filomena into the town to buy a pound of figs for me and one for herself. While she is away, I reflect that I cannot sufficiently congratulate myself on my excellent landlady, and the others. As a rule, these Roman lodging-house keepers are, judging by what one hears, perfect bandits. When F., the Norwegian sculptor, lay dangerously ill, the woman in whose house he was did not even speak to him; she went out and left him alone in the house. When the Danish dilettante S. was at death's door, his landlady did not enter his room once a day, or give him a drink of water, and he was obliged to keep a servant. V.'s landlady stole an opera-gla.s.s, a frock-coat, and a great deal of money from him. Most foreigners are swindled in a hundred different ways; if they make a stain on the carpet, they must pay for a new one. Maria looks after me like a mother. Every morning she rubs me with the ointment the doctor has prescribed. When I have to have a bath, she takes me in her arms, without any false shame, and puts me in the water; then takes me up and puts me to bed again; after my sojourn in the hospital, I am not very heavy. What I am most astonished at is the indulgent delicacy of these people. For instance, Maria has forbidden her good-natured husband, whom, like Filomena, I like to call _Zio_ (uncle), to eat garlic (the favourite food of the Romans) while I am ill, that I may not be annoyed in my room by the smell. I have only to say a word, and she and her niece run all my errands for me. Indeed, the other day, Maria exclaimed, quite indignantly: "Sir, do not say '_when_ you go into the town, will you buy me this or that?' Are we robbers, are we scoundrels? Only say, 'go,' and I will go." I never say to her: "Will you do me a favour?" without her replying: "Two, sir."

Yes, and she heaps presents upon me; she and Filomena bring me, now a bundle of firewood, now a gla.s.s of good wine, now macaroni, etc. All the Danes who come here are astonished, and say: "You have got deucedly good people to look after you."

Maria's greatest pleasure is talking. She has no time for it in the day.

In the evening, however, she tidies my room slowly, entertaining me all the time. When she has quite finished, at the time of day when others are drowsy or go to bed, she still likes to have just a little more conversation, and she knows that when I see she has put the last thing into its place, her task for the day is ended, and I shall dismiss her with a gracious _Buona sera, bon riposo!_ To put off this moment as long as possible, she will continue to hold some object in her hand, and, standing in the favourite position of the Romans, with her arms akimbo, and some toilet article under her arm, will hold a long discourse. She sometimes looks so indescribably comic that I almost choke with suppressed laughter as we talk.

To-day is the first day of the Carnival. So even Filomena has been out this evening in tri-coloured trousers.

... I am interrupted by the inmates of all the floors returning from the Carnival, all talking at once, and coming straight in to me to show me their dress. Amongst them from the Carnival, all talking at once, and coming straight in to me to show me their dress. Amongst them are guests from the mountains, tall, dark men, in exceedingly fantastic garb. They tell me how much they have enjoyed themselves. Filomena has navely made me a present of a few burnt almonds with sugar upon them, that she has had in her trouser pockets, and informs me with impetuous volubility how she has talked to all the people she met, "who do not know her and whom she does not know." She has had one of my white shirts on, which she had embroidered all over with ribbons till it looked like a real costume.

She is beaming with happiness. The tambourine tinkles all the evening in the street; they are dancing the tarantella to it down below, and it is difficult to go to sleep. Maria stays behind, when the others have gone, to finish her day's work. It is a sight for the G.o.ds to see her doing it with a gold brocade cap on her head, and in red, white and green trousers!

None of them guess what a torment it is to me to lie and hear about the Carnival, which is going on a few streets from where I am lying, but which I cannot see. When shall I spend a Winter in Rome again? And no other Carnival will be to compare with this one after the Romans for ten years have held altogether aloof from it, and one hardly even on _Moccoli Eve_ saw more than two carriages full of silly Americans pelting one another with confetti, while the porters and the French soldiers flung jibes and dirt at each other. Now Rome is free, jubilation breaks out at all the pores of the town, and I, although I am in Rome, must be content to see the reflection of the festival in a few ingenuous faces.

It is morning. I have slept well and am enjoying the fresh air through the open windows. Heavens! what a lovely girl is standing on the balcony nearly opposite, in a chemise and skirt! I have never seen her there before. Olive complexion, blue-black hair, the most beautiful creature; I cannot see her features distinctly. Now they are throwing something across to her from the house next door to us, on a piece of twine; I think they are red flowers. They almost touch her, and yet she cannot catch them, and laughing stretches out both hands a second, a third and fourth time, equally unsuccessfully. Why, it is our Filomena, visiting the model the other side the street. She gives up the attempt with a little grimace, and goes in.

Loud voices are singing the Bersagliere hymn as a duet under my window.

Verily, things are alive in _Purificazione_ to-day. The contagion of example affects a choir of little boys who are always lying outside the street door, and they begin to sing the Garibaldi march for all they are worth. Our singers at the theatre at home would be glad of such voices. The whole street is ringing now; all are singing one of Verdi's melodies.

I am sitting up in bed. At the side of my bed, Filomena, with her black, heavy hair well dressed, and herself in a kind of transitional toilette; her under-garment fine, the skirt that of a festival gown, on account of the preparations for the Carnival; her top garment the usual red jacket.

She is standing with her hand on her hip, but this does not make her look martial or alarming.

_I_--You ate _magro_ to-day? (It was a fast day.)

_She_--Good gracious! _Magro_ every day just now!

_I_--Do you know, Filomena, that I eat _gra.s.so_?

_She_--Yes, and it is your duty to do so.

_I_--Why?

_She_--Because you are ill, and you must eat meat; the Pope himself ate meat when he was ill. Religion does not mean that we are to injure our health.

_I_--How do you know, Filomena, what Religion means?

_She_--From my Confessor. I had a little headache the other day, and he ordered me at once to eat meat.

_I_--The worst of it is that I have no Confessor and do not go to church. Shall I be d.a.m.ned for that?

_She_--Oh! no, sir, that does not follow! Do you think I am so stupid as not to see that you others are far better Christians than we?

You are good; the friends who come to see you are good. The Romans, on the other hand, who go to church one day, kill people the next, and will not let go about the streets in peace.

I am quite sorry that she is to go home at Easter; I shall miss her face about the house. But I have missed more.

Late evening. They have come back from the Carnival. Filomena came in and presented me with an object the use of which is an enigma to me. A roll of silver paper. Now I see what it is, a Carnival cap. My Danish friend R. declares she has got it into her head that when I am better I shall marry her, or rather that Maria has put it into her head. I thought I would see how matters stood. I began talking to Maria about marriages with foreigners. Maria mentioned how many girls from Rome and Capri had married foreigners, but added afterwards, not without significance, addressing me: "It is not, as you believe, and as you said once before, that a girl born in a warm country would complain of being taken to a cold one. If she did, she would be stupid. But a Roman girl will not do for a foreign gentleman. The Roman girls learn too little."

Much, the lower cla.s.ses certainly do not learn. Before I came, Filomena did not know what ink was. Now I have discovered that she does not know what a watch is. She reckons time by the dinner and the Ave Maria. Not long ago her uncle spent a week in trying to teach this great child to make and read figures, but without success. Not long ago she had to write to her mother in the mountains, so went to a public writer, and had it done for her. She came in to me very innocently afterwards to know whether the right name and address were upon it. I told her that she could very well have let me write the letter. Since then, all the people in the house come to me when there is anything they want written, and ask me to do it for them.

The news of my skill has spread. Apropos of letters, I have just read the four letters that I received to-day. Filomena is perpetually complaining of my sweetheart's uncontrollable pa.s.sion as revealed in this writing madness. She imagines that all the letters I receive from Denmark are from one person, and that person, of course, a woman. She herself hardly receives one letter a year.

I have (after careful consideration) committed a great imprudence, and escaped without hurt. I had myself carried down the stairs, drove to the Corso, saw the Carnival, and am back home again. I had thought first of driving up and down the Corso in a carriage, but did not care to be wholly smothered with confetti, especially as I had not the strength to pelt back. Nor could I afford to have the horses and carriage decorated.

So I had a good seat in a first-floor balcony engaged for me, first row.

At 3 o'clock I got up, dressed, and was carried down. I was much struck by the mild Summer air out of doors (about the same as our late May), and I enjoyed meeting the masked people in the streets we pa.s.sed through. The few but rather steep stairs up to the balcony were a difficulty. But at last I was seated, and in spite of sickness and weakness, enjoyed the Carnival in Rome on its most brilliant day. I was sitting nearly opposite to the high box of Princess Margharita, from which there was not nearly so good a view as from my seat. This was what I saw: All the balconies bedecked with flags; red, white and green predominating. In the long, straight street, the crowd moving in a tight ma.s.s. In between them, an up and a down stream of carriages, drawn at a walking pace by two horses, and forced at every moment to stop. The streets re-echoed with the jingle of the horses' bells, and with shouts of glee at a magnificently decorated carriage, then at some unusually beautiful women, then at a brisk confetti fight between two carriages, or a carriage and a balcony. And this air, re-echoing with the ring of bells, with shouting, and with laughter, was no empty s.p.a.ce. Anyone reaching the Corso, as I had done, after the play had only been going on for an hour and a half, found themselves in the midst of a positive bombardment of tiny little aniseed b.a.l.l.s, or of larger plaster b.a.l.l.s, thrown by hand, from little tin cornets, or half-bushel measures, and against which it is necessary to protect one's self by a steel wire mask before the face. For whilst some gentle young ladies almost pour the confetti down from their carriages, so that it falls like a soft shower of rain, many of the Romans fling it with such force that without a mask the eyes might suffer considerably. The brim of one's hat, and every fold in one's clothes, however, are full of little b.a.l.l.s. Most people go about with a huge, full bag by their side, others on the balconies have immense baskets standing, which are hardly empty before they are re- filled by eager sellers. All the ladies standing in the windows, who were disguised as Turkish ladies, or workwomen from the port, had a deep wooden trough, quite full, brought outside their windows, and into this supply dipped continually--in the street, which had been covered with soil for the sake of the horse-racing, was a crowd of people in fancy dress, many of them having great fun, and being very amusing. One old woman in a chemise was amongst the best. A young fellow, dressed entirely in scarlet, more particularly amused himself by putting the officers of the National Guard, who were walking about to keep order, out of countenance. When they were looking especially stern, he would go up to them and tickle them on the cheeks, and talk baby talk to them, and they had to put the best face they could on it. The street life and the pedestrians, however, did not attract much attention. All the interest was centred on the carriages, and the games between them and the windows and balconies. The people in carriages were all in fancy dress. Amongst them one noticed charming groups of Roman ladies in light cloaks of red silk with a red steel wire mask before their faces, through which one could catch a glimpse of their features; there was a swarm of delightful figures, certainly half of them in men's clothes, armed young sailors, for instance. Fine, happy faces! And the young men, how handsome! Not flashing eyes, as people affectedly say, but happy eyes; a good, healthy physique, an expression which seemed to say that they had breathed in sunshine and happiness and all the beat.i.tude of laziness, all the mild and good-humoured comfort of leisure, all their lives long. One party had a colossal cart with outriders and postilions, and hung in the yards and stood on the thwarts of a large cutter poised upon it, in becoming naval officers' dress, flinging magnificent bouquets to all the beautiful ladies who drove past. The bouquets would have cost several lire each, and they flung them by the hundred, so they must have been young fellows of means. The throwing of confetti is merely bellicose and ordinary. Infinitely more interesting is the coquettish, ingratiating, genuinely Italian flinging backwards and forwards of bouquets. The grace and charm of the manner in which they are flung and caught, nothing can surpa.s.s; there may be real pa.s.sion in the way in which six or seven bouquets in succession are flung at one and the same lady, who never omits to repay in similar coin. One carriage was especially beautiful; it had a huge square erection upon it, entirely covered with artificial roses and greenery, which reached almost to the second storey of the houses, and upon it, in two rows, facing both sides of the streets, stood the loveliest Roman girls imaginable, flinging bouquets unceasingly. Most of the carriages have tall poles sticking up with a crossway bar at the top, and there are bouquets on every bar, so there is a constant supply to draw from.

Beautiful Princess Margharita was, of course, the object of much homage, although her balcony was on the second floor. One form this took was very graceful. A few young gentlemen in blue and white drove slowly past; one of them had a large flat basket filled with lovely white roses; he stuck a long halberd through the handle and hoisted the basket up to the Princess, being richly rewarded with bouquets. One wag hit upon an idea that was a brilliant success. At five o'clock he sent a bladder, in the shape of a huge turkey, up in the flickering sunlight.

It was so fixed up as to move its head about, with an expression of exceedingly ridiculous sentimentality, now to the right, now caressingly to the left, as it ascended. The whole Corso rang again with laughter and clapping. The horse-racing at the end was not of much account. The horses start excited by the rocket let off at their tails, and by all the sharp pellets hanging around about them, to say nothing of the howling of the crowd. At six o'clock I was at home and in bed.

K.B. has been here to see me; Filomena hates and despises him from the bottom of her heart since the day that he got drunk on my wine. When he was gone she said: "_Brutta bestia_, I forgot to look whether he was clean to-day." She and Maria declare that he is the only one of all my acquaintances who does not wear clean linen. This point of cleanliness is a mild obsession of Filomena's just now. She prides herself greatly on her cleanliness, and asks me every day whether she is clean or not. She is a new convert to cleanliness, and renegades or newly initiated people are in all religions the most violent. When I came to the house, her face was black and she washed her hands about once a day. R--- then remarked about her--which was a slight exaggeration--that if one were to set her up against the wall, she would stick fast. She noticed with unfeigned astonishment how many times I washed myself, and asked for fresh water, how often I had clean shirts, etc. This made a profound impression on her young mind, and after I came back from the hospital she began in earnest to rub her face with a sponge and to wash herself five or six times a day, likewise to wash the handkerchiefs she wears round her neck. Maria looks on at all this with surprise. She says, like the old woman in Tonietta, by Henrik Hertz: "A great, strong girl like that does not need to wash and splash herself all over like an Englishwoman." The lectures she has given me every time I have wanted to wash myself, on the harm water does an invalid, are many and precious. Whenever I ask for water I might be wanting to commit suicide; it is only after repeated requests that she brings it, and then with a quiet, resigned expression, as if to say: "I have done my best to prevent this imprudence: I wash my hands of all responsibility."

Filomena, in her new phase of development, is quite different. She looks at my shirt with the eyes of a connoisseur, and says: "It will do for to-morrow; a clean one the day after to-morrow!" or, "Did you see what beautiful cuffs the tall, dark man (M. the painter) had on yesterday?"

or, "Excuse my skirt being so marked now, I am going to have a clean one later in the day," or, "Is my cheek dirty? I don't think so, for I have washed myself twice to-day; you must remember that I am very dark- complexioned, almost like a Moor." Or else there will be a triumphal entry into my room, with a full water-can in her hand, one of the very large ones that are used here. "What is that, Filomena? What am I to do with that?" "Look, sir, it is full." "Well, what of that?" "It is the waiter's water-can; it has been standing there full for ten days (scornfully): he is afraid of water; he only uses it for his coffee."

She has forgotten how few months it is since she herself was afraid of water.

She came in while I was eating my supper, and remarked: "You always read at your meals; how can you eat and read at the same time? I do not know what reading is like, but I thought it was more difficult than that. It is a great misfortune for me that I can neither read nor write.