V Royal Visitors
“Not a rose!” Vera scanned the sunny south wall where Ignazio, the gardener, has trained the hardy roses. It has been his boast that we can gather at least one rose every day of the year.
“What do you expect? The earthquake has turned the calendar topsy-turvy. Nena says this is the coldest winter she remembers; she must be nearly a hundred.”
It was the terrace hour; Vera had dropped in to help with the flowers. It was too cold to water them, so we “pottered about,” weeded, and hunted snails.
“That’s a brave flower! See, it has three blossoms; if the sun comes out tomorrow there may be more.” Vera counted the pretty trumpet-shaped blossoms of the freesia, growing in the old terra-cotta cinerary urn.
“This once held the ashes of a soldier of the Pretorian Guard,” said Vera. She had given us the urn. “Do you suppose a pinch of his dust remains in it? There’s your freesia’s courage accounted for. I wonder what he was called. Herminius, Spurius Lartius? There was neither name nor date when I bought it; they must have been on the missing cover. What noble action!” Vera’s thumb followed, with the sculptor’s gesture, the lines of the Pretorian, modelled in low relief on the urn. He wears a mantle, helmet and greaves; his spear is raised against a crouching barbarian. “He must have been a fine man, our Pretorian, though this isn’t a portrait, only a type. Oh, how civilized those old Romans were! No ugly bones, no grinning skulls. The worn-out body to the clean flame, the handful of ashes to this graceful urn, that two thousand years after the Pretorian’s death serves as a flower pot.”
“I believe his name was Philippus,” I said, “and that he looked like our Philippus. The regiment has returned from Messina without him. I fear something has happened to our handsome soldier.”
“Hush!” cried Vera. “The earthquake was a month ago; it still is the only thing we talk or think about.”
“Some of our friends begin to forget. The mother of a pretty girl was grumbling today because the Queen says there shall be no court balls, no more dancing this season. She does not forget; no one who has seen Messina forgets!”
“Come, let us walk!” There was a touch of tramontana in the air, and we began to pace up and down the terrace, Romulus, Vera’s uncouth puppy, shambling at her heel. The bells of St. Peter’s were ringing the Ave Maria; from the Pincio came little gusts of music,—the band was playing Cavalleria Rusticana. At either end of the terrace we lingered to feast on the beauty of the view; to the east the white road climbs zigzag from the Piazza del Popolo to the Pincio, with its crown of dark cypresses and stone pines, its wonderful clipped ilex walk that leads to the Villa Medici, home of nightingale and rose. To the west we looked down to the yellow Tiber, angry and swollen, hurrying to the sea. The river was higher than I ever saw it; the driftwood, caught by the piers of the Ponte Margherita, reached half-way to the level of the bridge.
“A thousand apologies!” said a voice behind us; “is not this the tortoise of your Excellency? The German maid found it on the terrace of the Princess.”
It was Ignazio, holding between scornful thumb and finger that yellow mottled vagrant, Jeremy Bentham, who clawed the air furiously with his ridiculous short legs and snapped fiercely at Ignazio.
“You are aware the tortoise is ours; you yourself carved that date upon his shell. If you had stopped the hole in the wall this would not have happened.”
“Excellency” (Ignazio’s bill was paid that morning; he will call me “Excellency” till the next is due, then it will be “Signora”), “Excellency, this is the most obstinate of all animals, the slowest, the idlest, the most useless.” Ignazio dipped the tortoise in the fountain, then laid him on the parapet out of reach of Romulus, who was making frantic efforts to get at him.
“You yourself tell me he eats the slugs and snails that destroy our flowers!”
“I repeat it, but he has embarrassed me extremely in regard to the Princess, who becomes ill at the sight of him. This is the third time he has invaded her terrace.”
“How about that boy from Messina you promised to employ?” asked Vera. “He is quite well again; it’s time he went to work. I can’t have him idling about my kitchen any longer.”
Ignazio would not have come up to the terrace had he known Vera was there. He nervously nibbled the yellow fibre he had brought to tie up the passion-flower vine.
“Excellency, no! I said I would try to find him employment. I have done so. Capperi! I have asked an infinite number of persons—always the same answer. In Rome there is not work enough for the Romans, nor bread to spare. The Sicilians must go back to Sicily, or,” he waved his hand vaguely towards Ostia, “over there.” Over there meant to America.
“Where were you born, Ignazio?” I interrupted. “You do not speak like a Romano di Roma.” His glance was a reproach; I had betrayed him.
“It is true, I am from Siena—but there is a difference between an Umbrian and a Sicilian!”
“It is always the same story!” I said. “I have asked every plumber in Rome to employ Francesco Calabresi. They will give money, bread, clothes; to a man they refuse him work.”
“Self preservation! Oh, how worldly-wise the old race is! The man’s right though; there is not work enough to go round; one must consider one’s own interests or we should all go bankrupt. That’s what ‘mind your business’ means! If you don’t look out for yourself, some one else must.”
J. came up on the terrace at that moment; Vera waved her little hand gaily to him.
“What news from Messina?”
“No news; I wish I knew how they are getting on.”
“I have a letter from the Avvocato Bonanno, asking about the family of Count Q.”
“I have just come from there. I will write him. The Count can speak now, but he’s paralyzed, he will never walk again.”
“You’re fretting to get back to Sicily; so am I.”
It was true; since his return from the cruise of the “Bayern,” Rome, even his studio, seemed tame to J. How could he, and Vera too, long to go back to that place of death, when Rome, the Eternal City, wooed with the voice of her fountains, the perfumed breath of her villas, the beauty of her everlasting hills?
“I have had an inspiration,” Vera made the pretty insistent gesture of her finger that rules us all. “This is the psychological moment to exhibit your Diana. Rome is sick with grief! There’s nothing going on, not a reception, not even a dinner. Any invitation to do anything, besides give money and sew garments pro Calabria e Sicilia, will be a godsend. That’s the practical side of it; then there’s the other side. We have supped full on horrors; comfort us with a sight of the lovely lady.”
Most of her friends follow Vera’s advice, for her’s is a master spirit; when she takes hold of one’s affairs, somehow they always march.
The next week was a busy one. Vera decided that we must ask “all Rome” to the exhibition. In order to do this we borrowed lists from all sorts of people. A little white and gold book, the Roman social register, contains the names of all the Court people, the diplomats, and those who belong to the “smart set.” Then there were the lists of the San Lucca Academy and the Art Club. From the bankers and hotels we gathered as many names of the transient Americans as possible; all our friends helped us. When the long list was ready I sent to an employment bureau for some one to direct the envelopes.
She came, bringing her credentials, at five o’clock; as she was an English lady, and evidently very poor, we asked her to stay to tea. She sat in the Savonarola chair (it belonged to Giovanni Costa, the great artist—J. bought it after his death) and took her tea timidly, spilling a little on her poor faded dress, and crumbling the pan-forte di Siena (sent us at Christmas from Milan) over the best Persian rug. That ought to have been a warning to me, but it wasn’t! We sent the envelopes and the lists to her and turned our minds to other things. The exhibition was to open Tuesday, February 2nd. The envelopes were promised for the previous Saturday, so that the cards might be put in, the stamps affixed, the invitations posted Saturday night. They would then be received on Sunday morning, a good leisure time when busy people have time to read their mail. Vera, Athol, and Wilfred Thompson came to dine Saturday to help us with the envelopes. It was our first social meeting since that fatal night of December 28th; we had all of us need of a little joy; the pain of the last month had left its mark.
Agnese herself bought the stamps; she would trust no other. I had meant to send the cards by hand—it costs no more, and would have given employment to Alessandro, a poveraccio who has attached himself to us.
“These biglietti are important?” asked Agnese when I consulted her about Alessandro.
“Of the greatest importance.”
“Listen to me, Signora. I would not destroy your confidence in Alessandro, no, nor in any other, but the distances are far, the Tiber is near—Alessandro might, by accident, let fall a bunch of these letters as he crosses the bridge. The postino is obliged to make his rounds, the carabinieri keep an eye on him. No, it is safer to trust the post!”
Agnese’s dinners are not like Attilio’s (Vera’s great Neapolitan chef), but she has a way of cooking truffles in white wine and serving them in a napkin, to be eaten with fresh butter, that seems to please. Checco of the Concordia gets us the truffles from some mysterious unfailing source, when they are not to be had in the market. Agnese’s fritta dorata of shrimps, cuttlefish and artichokes is fit for the King or the Pope, or Mr. Roosevelt—his sister once ate one of Agnese’s golden frys and liked it. After dinner the table was cleared, two white aprons were borrowed for Vera and me, and the big packages of envelopes were opened and laid out on the table.
“We had better look them over, don’t you think?” said Athol, the wise, taking up an envelope. “She has a good handwriting—but she makes queer work of these foreign titles. His Excellency the Count and the Countess Lutzow,—really now that won’t do!”
We looked at each other in despair; each had found the most egregious and impossible blunders. All the addresses except the English and Americans, it had been agreed, were to be written in French.
“They must all be done over again!” I cried.
“No, no, it’s not so bad as that. The English ones are all right. We must go over the whole lot, though, sort out the bad ones and redirect them.
“Who is going to do it?” I groaned. That was the question. Vera’s handwriting, though distinguished, is cryptic, owing to her having learned to write German and Russian before the Latin script. Athol’s tired hand had held the pen for eight hours that day, and could not be further taxed. J.’s handwriting is a work of art, and art is long; my own is frankly bad. Thompson had thrown himself into the work of putting in the cards and sticking up the envelopes.
“Handwriting is the only thing that does not improve with practice—the more a man writes, the worse he writes,” said Athol. Here the bell rang insistently; a minute later Agnese announced:
“Quella Signora bella ed alta!”
The beautiful and tall lady followed close upon her, Elinor Diederich, daughter of those gods of our youth, William and Louisa Hunt. Despair, dismay, doubt vanished before her; she blew them all away, as the fresh west wind blows vapors and fog and leaves the sun bright in the sky; that is what it is to inherit the temperament of genius.
“Of course,” said Elinor, picking up one of the badly directed envelopes, “I knew this would happen. That’s the reason I came. I have had an experience of that poor thing’s work myself. I brought my pen; my handwriting’s the best thing about me.” She was hard at it, directing invitations in a handsome hand, as if that had been her calling.
At ten o’clock the bell rang again; there was a parley in the anticamera; a faint odor of cigarette smoke floated into the room.
“It’s Emilio,” J. exclaimed. “Show the Signorino in!”
Emilio Benlieuri, the Spanish sculptor, one of our familiars, appeared in the doorway, a tall lean melancholy man with the burning eyes and the grave bearing of the Valencian Don.
He bowed low to the whole company. “I kiss your feet, Senora,” he began in Castilian.
“I kiss your hand, Caballero,” I responded.
“It is getting late,” whispered Elinor, “really, this isn’t the time for compliments. Make him put on the stamps—they’ll taste good to a hungry man!”
The Valencian, who speaks no English, understood the large gesture with which Elinor invited him to join the circle, and drew up a chair to the round table.
“One more volunteer to the relief!” murmured Vera. “Per carità Agnese, a sponge; the situation is saved!”
Silence settled upon the dining room; the only sounds were the scratch-scratch of Elinor’s pen, the snores of Romulus curled up at Vera’s feet, the tinkle of the fountain up on the terrace under the stars near the Pretorian’s cinerary urn, the rustle of the cards going into the envelopes. On the Gothic sideboard which J. made for our Roman home, the pile of invitations, sealed and stamped, rose higher and higher, finally hiding the legend carved in quaint letters at the top:
“Better a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.”
How much better we never realized perhaps till that night, when the loyalty and devotion of our friends helped us out of that tight place. Love is the real lifting power when all is said. The love of the whole world was helping Italy in her dark hour; the love of our little circle of heart friends lifted and carried us over that difficult moment, smoothed out the only hitch in the preparations for Vera’s exhibition.
We worked till long after midnight. The faithful Valencian was the last to go; he departed in a cab, taking the invitations with him to the Posta Generale. Sunday morning “all Rome” received the card at its breakfast.
Lorenzo, the muratore, one of our oldest friends, arrived early Sunday morning to put the studio in order. Lorenzo was Villegas’s factotum in the days when our dear Maestro lived in his Andalusian villa on the Viale Pariole, before his Mother Spain called him to Madrid to be custodian of her greatest treasure, the Prado Museum. We had not sent for Lorenzo because we knew he had met with an accident. What wireless telegraphy had summoned him just when he was needed?
“What a pleasure to see thee!” Agnese exclaimed as she let Lorenzo in. “And thy foot? Will it allow thee to work? The Signore was bewailing that thou couldst not wax the studio floor. Thou knowest he believes no other is to be trusted.”
“It is true that I am lame. Behold my foot. I can wear no boot, only this slipper of a giant. But as to waxing the floor, I can do it on my knees. The Signore is right, I only can execute that labor with fidelity. As to the injury—well, it was received in the service of the electric company that employs me. They have agreed to pay me a pension till I can go back to work. What matters it if the recovery is retarded? I draw my three francs a day, fresh and fresh. Do you think I would abandon the Signore at such a moment? Thou art new in this house. Who was it that prepared the old studio for the visit of her Majesty the Queen? But that was years ago before thy time!”
From that moment I had no anxiety about the studio. Lorenzo, a Romagnolo, is a tireless worker, one of those Italians who have won for their countrymen the reputation of being the greatest workers in the world.
“I wish I could buy him!” sighed J. when I told him Lorenzo had come.
Monday was a busy day; the old Portuguese leather chair, that the Queen sat in on her last visit, was taken over to the studio, the best rugs, the two Japanese screens, and the Savonarola chair. A table was put near the door with some sheets of paper, pens and ink, in case anybody should want to write. At the last minute Brother Harry, who happened to be passing through Rome, gave a valuable hint:
“Of course you are going to send that portrait of the mother to the studio?”
“Why?” said J., “I never thought of it.”
“Well, think of it now,” said Brother Harry. We thought of it, in the end, thought well of it. The day the exhibition opened the portrait of the old Chieftainess stood on an easel in the studio, ready to “receive” visitors with Diana.
Agnese called me early Tuesday morning.
“Signora, let us go to the studio to arrange the flowers,” she said. “With respect I should prefer it were done before Lorenzo comes. He is prepotente, some things he knows, I do not deny; but the flowers—ah, that is an art by itself!”
At five minutes of ten the last touch had been given to the studio; J. and I stood waiting to receive the guests.
“Suppose nobody comes!”
The answer came quick and sharp; Lorenzo, dressed in his best, wearing one ordinary and one giant boot, his hair shining like the studio floor, threw open the door and announced with a beaming smile:
“Quel Signorino matto!” That mad young man.
“So you thought you would play this hand without me?” said a familiar voice.
“Patsy!”
Where had he come from? We last heard of him at the hacienda of our friend the Argentino, in South America.
“Same old two-and-sixpence, always in at the death! There’s no end of a swell from the Celestial Empire on the stairs!”
“His Excellency the Minister of China,” Lorenzo announced.
The Chinese Minister, followed by his suite, walked into the studio on the stroke of ten, the first minute of the first day of the exhibition.
“Art, you see, is a matter of importance to these people,” Pasty murmured to me. “An invitation to a studio deserves to be treated with respect. When you show that tableau in America I wonder if the mayor, the governor, the sheriff, or even the hog-reeve, will take the trouble to come and see it. The representative of the Chinese Empire comes in person at the first possible moment. That’s my idea of a civilized people!”
The Minister and J. were talking in pantomime, none the less cordially for that. His Excellency wore seraphic clothes, had lovely polished manners; his hand was smooth as a roseleaf, his long nails were miraculous. The party stayed for some time and seemed pleased with their visit. After they had gone, leaving a faint perfume of sandalwood and straw-matting behind them, one of the younger men returned. (He was not of the Legation we heard afterwards). From the first he had seemed deeply impressed with the Diana; he hurried up to J., and pointing to the divine Huntress whispered:
“I beg your pardon, Mister; is that God?”
Our next visitor was a dark energetic Italian, with beautiful manners. He gave no name, none of us had any idea of who he was. He was deeply interested in the painting, looked at it from every point of view, and asked many questions about its final destination. He was not an artist, of that we felt sure, but he was a man with more than a dilettante’s interest in art. At the end of his visit, as he went towards the door, he saw the pens and paper lying on the table.
“Shall I write my name?” he asked politely; then in a bold hand wrote “Luigi Rava.”
“Who is he?” I asked after the dark unknown had driven off in his carriage.
“Only the Minister of Education. Rome seems to be taking your show seriously,” Patsy declared. “That was a good idea, writing his name; mind you make everybody else follow suit. You’re likely to have some interesting autographs before you’re finished.”
None so interesting as the Chinese Minister’s and it was too late for that. We followed Patsy’s advice; after that all the visitors wrote their names. That afternoon the studio was crowded with all sorts and conditions of men and women; artists, tourists, ambassadors, beauties and princes.
“You are the fashion; don’t be too much puffed up by that,” Patsy admonished; “it’s because yours is the only free show open in town!”
The exhibition was to have lasted five days; we had to keep it open a fortnight. As Patsy said, it became the fashion to drop into the studio, a spacious room in the handsome new Studio Corrodi by the Tiber. We never liked it so well as the old studio in the Borgo Sant’ Angelo, but it was more convenient for such a reception. There is a pretty garden with a brand new fountain and brand new flowers at the Corrodi; it is smart, up to date, belonging to the new order of things in Roma Nuova.
One afternoon Archbishop Ireland and his train of attendant Abbesses came to see us. The Archbishop’s sister and several other Mothers Superior had come from America to visit Rome; they were a picturesque group. The Archbishop’s sister was a cheery delightful soul; another of the Mothers was so lovely J. wanted to paint her as Santa Theresa. We met them first at the studio of Carolus Duran (now Director of the French Academy) in the Villa Medici. The “Chèr Maitre” has brought several of his masterpieces from Paris to Rome, among others a study for a crucifixion, a really noble composition; America ought to have it. The Church is so rich in our country that she could well afford to give him a handsome order for it. The Abbesses in their long veils, taking tea with the great French painter, was one of those impressions of the contrasts of Roman life I shall not forget. They all came to our studio; among the treasured names in the list of autographs are those of Mother Celestine, Mother Seraphine, Mother Agnes Gonzaga.
“They remind me,” said Patsy, after the Archbishop and the ladies took their leave, “of Sir Joseph Porter, K. C. B., his sisters and his cousins and his aunts!”
Patsy was of the greatest use. He was at the studio almost as much as we ourselves. He devoted himself to the humbler guests if there happened to be some great personage to whom J. had to attend.
“It’s a good thing to have friends in every calling,” said Patsy; “you never know just when they may come in handy.” I had reproached him for neglecting lovely Donna Beatrice for old Checco, the proprietor of the Concordia restaurant.
“Checco has given me credit many a time when it would have gone hard with me to get a meal anywhere else!” he said.
On the eighth of February a note came from the Marchese Guiccioli, Queen Margherita’s gentleman-in-waiting. The superscription, Casa della Regina Madre, set the whole house in a flutter. Eugenio, the porter, himself brought the royal messenger up in the lift. Agnese, who took the letter from him, came hurrying to the terrace, where Ignazio and I were talking about the wall flowers.
“See to it,” I was saying, “that this thing does not happen again. You were paid a large price for these flowers, enormous sums were charged for concime (fertilizer) and they have done badly. Last season they were poor spindly little things, while those that sprang by chance from a crevice in the wall by the water pipe were a glory. Expound to me the reason of this absurdity.”
“Signora, how can I explain the laws of God? It is according to their nature. Those wall flowers that come up by chance without care always seem the fairest, perhaps because they grow beyond our reach. Those you speak of so abusively smelt like honey; you yourself complained that they attracted not only the butterflies but the bees from the priest’s hive.”
“A messenger from the Palazzo Margherita brought this.” Agnese offered the letter on the best silver tray she so rarely is willing to use. It is not well, she argues, that the first-comer should know we have such a valuable thing in the house, and use it so commonly. It might be stolen or, almost as bad, reported so that the tax for richezza mobile would be augmented.
“This letter is for the Signore,” I said.
“Without doubt—the Signora has reason—but being of so much importance she will open it?”
“Certainly not.” Agnese and Ignazio were burnt up with curiosity about the letter; they could hardly wait till J.’s return. Lorenzo, who had followed Agnese, is more canny though quite as curious.
“Imbeciles! don’t you know that to break the seal of a letter from the Casa Reale is an offense? I know perfectly well what it contains; as I see you are beside yourselves with curiosity, I will tell you that—you too shall know in good time!”
J. had gone for a walk along the Tiber to the Ponto Milvio; he returned sooner than I expected. Eugenio, panting with suspense, had pursued and brought him back. The letter brought the news that Queen Margherita would come to the studio the next afternoon. As we were already in apple-pie order, there was nothing for Lorenzo to do but put fresh laurel branches in the vases and add a little polish to the “Queen’s Chair.”
Punctually to the minute the royal carriage drew up at the door of the Studio Corrodi. The servants on the box were dressed in dark colors,—the splendid scarlet liveries, alas! are Queen Margherita’s no longer; they are only worn by the servants of the reigning Queen. J. received her Majesty at the carriage door and escorted her up the marble stair to the big new studio. What a contrast to the dear old studio with the ancient courtyard, the murmuring fountain hundreds of years old, the water-worn stones dark with ages, where the maiden-hair fern grows in great feathery tufts! It all came back to me with a sudden rush of memory, as I followed the Queen up the wide white marble stair. I saw the two long flights of hollowed travertina steps that led to the old studio, the uneven brick floor, the window that gave on the court, where the falcon and the white doves from the Vatican lived, the birds of whose wings J. made such endless studies for the Hours in his “Triumph of Time.” How many hours, months, years, had flown by since we three last met!
Queen Margherita walked across the polished floor with the light step of a girl, and quite naturally, without prompting, took her place in the “Queen’s Chair.” The social temperature rose—we felt as children for whom “the party has begun.” How does she do it? That’s her secret, she could not tell us if she would. She is one of those rare beings who bring their own sunshine with them, whose presence warms us to the heart’s core! We hold out our hands towards the kindly glow, as we stretch chilled fingers to a cheerful fire.
“It’s because she’s all there!” Patsy said afterwards, trying to explain what we had all felt. After one quick glance about the studio, the royal visitor fixed her eyes on the big canvas.
“This is your Diana of the Tides for the new museum at Washington?” she said to J. “A fine opportunity; I congratulate you. At what height will it be placed, at what distance will it be seen?”
Her questions about the Diana, and the building it was painted for, were direct and to the point. She showed the closely trained mind of a woman used to dealing with many kinds of affairs, of giving instant and undivided attention to the matter in hand. “She was all there,” as Patsy put it. There was a great lesson in the power of concentration she showed. She is a busy active woman; every hour, each quarter of an hour of every day has its appointed duty. We had a sense that she took them up one by one with the same whole-hearted earnestness that made every word she said worthy to be graven on our memories. After she had looked a long time at the Diana, she walked across the studio to the easel with the portrait of the old Chieftainess. J. told her something of her life and work, and referred to the story that appeared a few days before in the Tribuna. In a recent speech before the Circolo Italiano of Boston, my mother had snapped out this witticism:
“The American Eagle came out of the egg of Columbus.”
The mot so delighted the Italians that it was quoted by the Italian press all over the world.
“What a beautiful old age!” sighed the Queen Mother, as she looked at the portrait of the woman who has been called in Boston’s Little Italy, “La Nonna degl’ Italiani.”
“You have painted a portrait of old age as it ought to be,” Queen Margherita continued; with that smile of hers, a little graver than of old but with the same piercing sweetness.
“Remember that,” murmured Patsy. “She hits the nail on the head every time; that’s the reason she has done so much for her generation. Come to think of it, they are two of a kind; both have served greatly and been greatly rewarded!” He looked from the face of the portrait on the easel to the face of the royal lady who stood before it.
“Your portrait of Il Povero Re,” said the Queen Mother to J., “has changed color. I am troubled about it. I fear it may be because I always take it with me from Rome to Gressoni every year. I fear the jarring may have hurt it.”
It was arranged then and there that J. should call upon the Countess Villamarina, the Queen Mother’s companion, and see what was wrong with his portrait of King Umberto. We all went down to the carriage; the Queen Mother shook hands with us all graciously, and promised she would come again to the studio some day.
We watched the landau with the sober liveries drive away. Across the Tiber the regiment of Philippus was returning to the barracks, after rifle practice at the Tor di Quinto. The gay notes of the royal march sounded joyously; the proud horses of the royal landau arched their beautiful necks—it was as if they recognized the music and tried to keep step to it.
Three days later, on the twelfth of February, we were waked at half past seven in the morning, with the news that the King would be at the studio in an hour. He came in an automobile with two aides, an admiral and a general. They all wore uniform and looked very smart and well turned out. Agnese and I watched them from the terrace (the studio is opposite the palazzo where we live). I was not allowed to go to the studio; Athol and J. decided it would not be suitable, the visit being so early and of so informal a nature; I was, of course, dreadfully disappointed. Lorenzo was there to open the door; he apparently managed to leave it ajar, for he gave me an account of the visit.
“His Majesty speaks every language as if it were his own—they all do, it is a gift like another. It was most unfortunate for me, considering the Signore talks Italian, that they spoke in Ingerlish, which resembles—with respect, Signora—the chatter of monkeys. Something I understood, however, by observing their faces. His Majesty pointed to the horses; they interested him; has he not the finest horses in the world? Before his Majesty departed he inquired if he should write his name in the book. The Signore ran to turn over a virgin page; this his Majesty would not allow but wrote his name with all the others, just where it came naturally, when he could have had a whole page to himself. You can see for yourself what a fine big signature he has; he might well be proud of it, but he is not proud—nostro re! He handed the pen to the Signor Ammiraglio, saying—that I could understand for it was in Italian—‘See that you write your name better than I have written mine.’ On the table lay the photographs the Signore made at Messina; when his Majesty saw them he turned back. They studied all those terrible pictures of the ruins together, and they talked again in that language I do not understand.”
They stayed twenty-five minutes by the clock on the Castle Sant’ Angelo,—Agnese kept watch of the time; then they all came down to the street. The King shook hands with J., wrapped his long military cloak about him (the air was keen), and got into the motor. The porter and Lorenzo, standing very straight like soldiers on either side of the door, saluted. The porter’s wife, the little stepson and the new baby all leaned from the window over the door.
“Observe, observe, Signora mia, his Majesty smiles, he is pleased,” whispered Agnese, all in a flutter. “Ah, what a good kind heart!”
The motor flashed past the Palazzo Frankenstein, and Agnese and I came down “to hear all about it.” Coffee for all hands was demanded and furnished forthwith. In the kitchen Lorenzo, Eugenio and Agnese talked for an hour about the King’s visit. All I could get out of J. was the last precious sentence of the interview:
“When I thanked him for the honor of the visit, King Victor said, ‘Not at all, my mother told me to come.’ His English is beautiful, just like Queen Margaret’s.”