VI At Palazzo Margherita
“The Signorina with the bright eyes, who lives in the handsome villino,” Agnese began, “asks if the Signora can use her carriage today. That fat beast, her coachman, is very avaricious, he will expect a mancia of three francs—still if we employ Napoleone, it will cost more—besides with a private carriage se fa più figura.”
“As to making a good appearance, that’s of no consequence; the Signorina’s carriage, however, has better springs than Napoleone’s, rubber tires as well. What didst thou say?”
“As the Signora was occupied I said yes, with tante grazie, and combined that the ‘milor’ should come at two o’clock. The afternoons are short; as the mancia must be paid, it is better to have one’s money’s worth.” Agnese wears thirty-two flawless pearls in her mouth—as she said these things she showed them all to me with the guileless smile of an infant.
Could it be by chance that Vera’s carriage was offered for this particular day? Impossible! Besides, Agnese knows I never go out till four. I have to believe in miracles, such miraculous things happen. Can it be that Agnese works the oracle? Basta! best not lift the veil from such comfortable mysteries. We were booked to call on the Marchesa Villamarina at half past two o’clock; we had spoken to no living soul of this, and here was a fat coachman, a fine coach and pair coming to take us in state to the palace of the Regina Madre. If our very walls have ears, if our correspondence is tampered with, the result is fortunate—let us accept the “milor” the gods send us!
We drove up sunny Via Veneto, through the Ludovisi quarter, past the smart hotels that have sprung up near the Palazzo Margherita—the Savoy, Regina, Palace, half a dozen more named out of compliment to the Queen Mother. If the sacrifice had to be made, the beautiful Villa Ludovisi cut up into house lots, transformed into the fashionable quarter of Rome, the great winter watering place, it’s a little comfort that the best site now serves for the site of Queen Margherita’s palace.
“Do you remember the violets that used to grow here?
“I can smell them now!”
“It’s hard to forgive that vandalism, even if building lots were necessary.”
Other things are necessary; the cool shade of ancient cedars, their resinous breath at hot noontide, the plashing of water in moss-grown fountains, the rustle of birds at nesting time, the carpet of anemones beneath immemorial trees, the laurel and asphodel that once grew here in the garden that was Sallust’s, that has been sacred ground to poet and artist from Horace’s time to Crawford’s.
Palazzo Margherita faces Via Veneto with its smug hotels; behind the palace lie a few roods of ground, a shrunken splendor, the last vestige of the noble Villa Ludovisi. Here are shadowy walks between gnarled ilex trees, and a few old statues, the last of a great company. A high wall shuts off the Queen’s garden from the Via Sallustiana, on the left; at the back on the Via Boncompagni, the wall is surmounted by a balustrade with antique amphorae etched with a fine network of black and yellow stains. Perhaps they once held the wine that served at Sallust’s banquets—it was of the best, Falernian perhaps.
“A pleasant drive to you!” Herr Schmidt, at the door of his hotel, bowed and smiled. A gong clanged behind him; a crowd of porters in green baize apron and pages in buttons rushed from within, as the big hotel omnibus, covered with travelers’ luggage, crowded with tourists, drew up at the entrance.
“Isn’t he a type with his automobile, his big wife wearing the old Orsini diamonds?” I murmured.
The Roman hotel-keeper today is a far more important personage than the poet and artist he has ousted from their garden of delight, the lovely Villa Ludovisi. If he were really a Roman, it wouldn’t matter so much; but nine times out of ten he is a German or a Swiss. Herr Schmidt is a very rich man and much considered, while Enrico, the painter, who used to spend long delicious days sketching in the Villa—Enrico, who loves and paints the Campagna Romana as it has never been painted before—Enrico’s coat is threadbare as Martial’s only toga.
“Are you asleep?”
“No, only dreaming.”
“Wake up, we’re there.”
We were expected; the sentries at the gate allowed the fat coachman to drive the “milor” into the courtyard.
“The last time we were here together was at a dinner of Mrs. Draper’s,” J. reminded me. When General Draper was American ambassador he lived here, as did his predecessor, Mr. Wayne MacVeagh; in those days it was called the Palazzo Piombino. After the death of King Umberto the palace became the Roman residence of the Queen Mother.
A picturesque person in plush breeches, wearing a silver chain of office, received and showed us up the grand staircase. No mean economy of space or height here, or in the long corridor with the marble doorways; our palace builders at home must study Roman interiors as well as Italian gardens.
“Don’t you remember the MacVeaghs’ ball and Queen Margherita walking through this corridor with the Ambassador?” J. asked.
“Of course; she wore a blue brocade dress and her incomparable pearls; it all comes back to me. King Umberto was in uniform; he carried a helmet with white plume under his arm. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Francis Adams were here. Do you remember the Austrian diplomat’s fascinating court dress? And that Russian military attaché in Cossack uniform with a black patch over one eye?”
“Yes, what a hero you thought him till I told you his poor eye had been knocked out by a careless woman’s umbrella.”
The Marchesa Villamarina received us in the room where Mrs. MacVeagh used to give tea. As we sat talking, we heard a merry little scream of dismay; the Marchesa, excusing herself, hurried to the next room. Then we heard a laugh like a silver chime.
“It’s her voice,” I whispered.
In a moment the Marchesa returned, smiling and merry.
Queen Margherita, her eyes bright with laughter, received us in her library. The Queen’s dress was like the plumage of a silver pheasant; dress is a fine art with her. You never know what she has on, but you always know it is the perfect thing for the hour. The library is an immense apartment, even for Rome, full of color and atmosphere. It suits her as the background in a Velasquez portrait suits the central figure. The highest point of light was a blaze of yellow azaleas on the mantel. There was no senseless bric-a-brac, but every article of furniture was a gem. One who reads the character of a person from the room he or she lives in, would guess that this was the home of a woman of taste and of action; it was comfortable rather than luxurious; there was nothing of the “dreadful too much.” On the walls hung a few pictures, among them J.’s Dante in Exile. On the writing table stood his portrait of King Umberto. J. saw in a moment what had happened to it. The portrait is a silver-point drawing. When these are first made their color is very like a pencil drawing; with time the silver becomes oxidized, and turns darker, the tone improving every year till it becomes a rich soft tarnished color. While J. was explaining this to Queen Margherita, the Marchesa told me what had been the matter.
“In writing her name upon the photograph her Majesty designed to give you, she had the misfortune to upset the ink.”
“She too? Is she so human?”
“It is because her Majesty is so human,” said the Marchesa, “that one has that adoration for her.”
“I’ve had a letter from Belknap,” said J. a few days after this, “asking me to go back to Messina with him.”
“You’re not going?” I cried.
“Of course he is,” said Vera. She was playing ball with Patsy on the terrace.
“I can’t bear it; besides you must finish your Pan.’
“Your father would have gone.”
There was nothing for me to say to that.
“Take me with you,” said Patsy.
“And me!” cried Vera, all on fire.
“I can’t take you; but there’s nothing to prevent your all making a trip to Sicily. You have always wanted to—” he looked at me. “This is your chance, a little later though—it’s such a cold season.”
“How can he be so keen about getting back to that awful place?” I exclaimed.
“It’s because there is so much more work to do there than there ever was in the world before,” said Vera. “Every one who has been down feels the same way.”
“You have said it!” This from Patsy, the golden butterfly. “A man’s happiest when he’s working to the limit, when there’s not one minute of time left in the day to get a grouch on!”
“What have you to say about it?” said Vera, looking at J.
“I would rather have had this letter than a big commission; we may start any day. You will see the Q.’s? Bonanno is sure to ask news of them,” J. went on.
“Let’s go now,” said Vera. “The Q.’s are far the most interesting of your profughi.”
There was still time before sunset, so Vera and I, escorted by Patsy, started to walk to the Q.’s. We crossed the Tiber, pausing on the bridge to watch the soldiers, maneuvering the big awkward pontoons on the river above, the part that makes the curve of the S. It was a gorgeous afternoon; the air was golden, sparkling, full of life.
“‘How tenderly the haughty day fills his blue urn with fire!’”
Patsy quoted. “I bet that was written in Rome!”
On the Lungo Tevere a young officer passed, riding a spirited bay.
“Look out!” cried Patsy warningly. Vera, startled by the prancing horse, sprang aside; the officer saluted.
“It’s Philippus!” I cried, as the bay danced along sidewise like a skittish crab.
“Whoever he is, he ought to give that beast more work and less corn!” Patsy flicked the dust the bay had kicked up from his sleeve.
“No matter about the dust; he’s alive! We shall all be dust soon enough.”
Patsy left us at the gate.
Although there was a nip in the air, we found old Count Q. in the garden.
“Babbo sits out whenever he can,” said Rosalia, oldest of the Count’s seven remaining daughters. “Since the earthquake he knows no peace within.”
When I told them J. was going to Messina, the Count’s drawn face changed; he began to sob pitifully. Rosalia, a faded beauty with tragic eyes (she had lain beneath the ruins of their house at Messina for twenty-four hours), put a finger to her lips.
“Speak not of Sicily, I pray!” she whispered, “though in truth he thinks of nothing else. He dreams each night the house is falling.”
The Count is seventy years old, and paralyzed. His house was destroyed with his oldest son’s next door. For days he heard his son’s voice and his little grandchildren’s calling for help. They were buried so deep that when help came it was too late. One of the granddaughters was the girl of the emerald scarab ring Bonanno told us of.
“How goes on the sewing?” I asked Rosalia.
“Famously; a thousand thanks for the machine. All the cotton is made up. The parents now sleep between sheets; we others shall have that luxury soon.”
The Countess and her daughters had worked early and late, making bed linen and underclothes of the cotton cloth sent by our committee. I asked Rosalia if there was any message for Bonanno.
“Tell the Signor Avvocato that we are more fortunate than many—God has sent us friends,” she said. “Would the Signore have the infinite kindness to carry him a little notepaper, of the most miserable kind, a few envelopes? His last letter was written on a bit of paper torn from the wall. I am sure he has done everything—but if he would write to mamina and set her mind at rest—tell her the graves are marked, that she will know in which each of them lies—Nonna, Maddelena, Nina?”
“All this shall be related to the avvocato without fail. Courage, remember, look forward, not back!”
“Altro! It is what I most desire.” Rosalia fought back the tears. We left her, smiling bravely, at her post beside the poor old paralyzed father.
“Did you ever see a handsomer family?” I asked Vera as we walked away. “Rosalia is still fine, the next four are pretty as pinks, the two youngest real beauties. Which is that at the window? I can’t tell them apart.”
“Not since they’ve begun to smile? That’s the youngest, Beatrice—watch for the dimple when she laughs.”
“Wherever did she get that smart toggery?”
“Some of you soft-hearted Americans! She was lovely in her big black hat, the latest fashion. Can any of them do anything to earn money?”
“They could not earn a centesimo among them all. The Count owned a lot of valuable real estate in Messina; they lived on their rents. In the end something surely will be saved; you can’t wipe out real estate. Such pretty girls are sure to marry.”
“If you had only seen it all, you would understand—it’s chaos! It will take years, a generation perhaps, before things can be straightened out. Meanwhile ‘it is not always May.’”
“But Beatrice and the other little one—They are lovely!”
“Beauty is a poor dote—young kittens soon make old cats! No, cara mia, they have no chance. You Americans can’t understand: you are still primitive. The American carries off his wife as the Indian his squaw. You are at the natural selection stage.”
“Well, we have been—“
“The man assumes the responsibility of the woman’s support?”
“As a rule!”
“It’s bad form for a man to ask a dowry or allowance from the girl’s father?”
“The unpardonable sin.”
“I know; my brother married an American. Her father gave her an allowance, but when she died he never offered to pay her funeral expenses—his own child. We thought this unfeeling—dreadful! Americans tell me it probably never occurred to him.”
“We think it is far better for young people to make their own way,” I maintained.
“The parents who bring a child into the world,” Vera argued, “especially a female child, are responsible for her support. When she marries, they are bound to settle the largest sum upon her they can afford. They must make a sacrifice for their child.”
There is a sort of finality about a disaster like the Q.’s that we Americans can hardly conceive of; with us failure so often spells success. If a young man’s father is ruined, we say of him (we are beginning to say it of his sister)—“This gives him a chance to show the stuff he’s made of!”
After leaving Vera I went back to the terrace, to watch the sun set over Mons Vaticanus. Ignazio was there before me, grafting a new American Beauty rose on the stem of the big Banksia.
“You have three sisters, Ignazio,” I began. “You have told me your father is dead.”
“And in Paradise, I trust, this long time; I have not grudged masses for his soul.”
“A good son! How did he leave his money? Did your sisters have dowries?”
“He divided his money into two parts—my mother already being in glory. A little more than half he left to me, the only son. That was right, for so the greater part of the property remains in the casa paterna. The other half he divided between my three sisters. The oldest went into a convent; it was her wish, you understand. Her share was paid just as if she had married. The second espoused a vignerolo and invested her money in a new vineyard; they have prospered. The little one, Teresina, would go to the convent, where was Maria, the oldest. But that one, she is intelligent, fine, very fine, sent Teresina a letter—God knows how she managed it—telling her on her life not to come to that convent. Soon Teresina found a husband, a baker; he has a good business. Teresina has given him plenty of mouths to feed, three boys and five girls. That is better than a convent. Yes, I believe in the good God, Signora; I am not a free mason, nor an anarchist, but I think a girl can serve Him as well in the world, and far more pleasantly, than in a convent.”
“You have a daughter?”
“With respect, I have four. No convent for them; it is worse than a prison! If my daughter went to a prison I might see her again; but to a convent, never—it is finished.”
“You will give your girls a good dowry.”
“I am a poor man, times are hard, that fellow Cesare, my assistant, is a thief—the Signora knows it—but something I shall do for them.”
Poor Rosalia, poor Beatrice! Who would “do” for them? As Vera said, the Q.’s were my most interesting profughi. That good Samaritan, Miss Jane Sedgwick, found them soon after they came to Rome. When she first saw them, they were living in one dreadful dark room; the whole family sat like statues of stone around that dismal hole; the old Count’s dreadful sobbing was the only sign of life they gave. A pitiful smile dawned on the mother’s face when Miss Sedgwick drew out a fifty-franc bill. Here was a visitor who did more than ask questions and write down answers, a committee that committed itself—recklessly perhaps, but effectively—that justified itself not by its statistics but by its work.
On the twentieth of February, J. departed with his chief, Captain Belknap, for Messina, and I was left to devote myself to my profughi. Before he started we went to take leave of Mr. and Mrs. Griscom; happily we found them at home.
“Don’t you need a suit of clothes?” her Excellency asked J. as she gave him a cup of tea.
“I need several; most of mine have been given away.” He glanced at me. “I must make out with what’s left though—I don’t look too shabby for Messina?”
“The idea! It’s only that—I have a tailor—he makes really very well—I thought you might order a suit—“
“Do, I beg!” interrupted the Ambassador. “That Sicilian tailor has made me six suits already—I can’t use any more—he makes too well—they’ll never wear out!”
“How is your plumber doing?” asked Mrs. Griscom.
“Not so well as your tailor. He can’t follow his trade in Rome; if I could only send him to America, where plumbing is a fine art and takes the place of bric-a-brac!”
“And the new baby?” How could she remember that Lucia Calabresi had a baby!
Though aching to go to Sicily, Patsy remained in Rome to help me with my profughi. I had some of my “cases” from Countess Pasolini, some from Miss Noble Jones (her brother, our old friend Wallace Jones, was once Consul at Messina), others I read of in the papers. Patsy was studying counterpoint with a professor of music, Dante with a professor of literature, Arabic with a professor of Oriental languages—all late of the University of Messina.
“The professors and schoolmasters are having the roughest time of all,” he declared. “The devil and the lawyers look after their own. The avvocatos and the medicos all over Italy have organized to help their fellows—but these poor teachers!” He had just ferreted out a new professor and family. “They receive one franc and a half a day from the general committee—that keeps the breath of life in ’em—but the father, the only one capable of earning a soldo, has to stand in line and wait for hours every day to draw the money. If you could have seen their room! I spent those two hundred francs on chairs, beds and blankets. ‘Who gives promptly, gives twice,’ Mr. Parrish says. Isn’t he a corker? Don’t let ’em get discouraged—that’s his argument; it’s the delay that breaks their hearts. Those who have the stuff left in them ought to be kept hard at work, nose to the grindstone.”
Mrs. Griscom’s Ladies’ Auxiliary was the best committee I ever served on because it had the least red tape. Like the old vigilantes of the West, it was created for an urgent need, lived a short life with the maximum of work, the minimum of talk. My colleagues, Mesdames Samuel Abbott, Winthrop Chanler, and Nelson Gay, worked each according to their lights, meeting with the Ambassadress from time to time to compare notes and vote supplies. The work was quietly done, with little fuss or feathers. Every soldo was well spent, and passed direct from the treasury to the sufferer. Jane Sedgwick and Luella Serrao were my right and left hand (Luella is the widow of our dear Teodoro, for years the lawyer of the Embassy, always the friend of the Americans in Rome), Patsy was my flying Mercury, Elinor Diederich took the Q.’s and other profughi under her wing.
Luella had a patriarchal family from Bagnara in her care, an old man and woman with a screed of children and grandchildren. She had been telling me about them one afternoon as we were walking together; just as we turned out of the Piazza Venezia, into the Via Nazionale, a clear voice hailed us:
“Mia grande Signora!” Luella, delicate as a windflower, paused. A great gaunt woman, wearing a black kerchief over her head and a quaint short skirt, stood before us. She touched her fingers to her lips; then with the graceful Oriental gesture stooped and touched the hem of the “grande Signora’s” garment, and passed on.
“That was Sora Clara from Bagnara,” Luella explained. “She was discharged from the hospital yesterday.”
We were now passing the fine old palace of the Preffetura. “How well I remember coming to see you there!” I said, looking at the stern façade, “when the Prefect had that stroke of apoplexy. It was said the nursing of his American daughter-in-law saved his life.”
“Strange you should speak of that!” said Luella. “Pietro Ceccatiello, the young clerk who helped me so much, has been in my mind all day. After we left the Preffetura, Pietro went to Messina and married. He had a good position as an impiegato. We have all been anxious about him since the earthquake. The other day my brother-in-law, walking through a hospital at Naples, heard some one call, ‘Signor Rudolfo!’ He went up to the bed the voice came from, but the patient was so bandaged he did not recognize him. ‘Don’t you know me?’ the man cried. ‘I am Ceccatiello.’ ‘We feared thou wast killed,’ said Rudolfo, and put out his hand to take Pietro’s. The poor fellow held up two maimed swathed stumps. Then he told his story: after the earthquake Pietro found that he, his wife, and child, though little hurt, were buried, sotto le macerie, three metres deep. They could not make themselves heard; they could find nothing to dig with. With his two naked hands Pietro dug his way out of that living tomb, saved his wife and child. His fingers were literally worn away. The hands had to be amputated at the wrist, with one foot that had been crushed.”
We sent Pietro three hundred francs of American money. The messenger who took it to him warned us not to give money again to those in hospitals, but to wait rather till they were discharged.
“The miserable one in the next bed to Pietro, who was quite as badly hurt, wept because I had no money for him—invidia (envy)!”
I told Vera and Patsy Pietro’s story that evening. Vera’s jewelled hands flashed as she hid her face in them.
“I can’t bear it!” she cried, as if she felt the loss of Pietro’s hands in hers. “What was that you said to Rosalia—‘look forward, not back’? Remember the English verse Athol taught us.”
“The inner side of every cloud
Is always bright and shining,
And so I turn my clouds about
And always wear them inside out,
To show their silver lining!”
“Right!” cried Patsy, “look for the silver lining. If every cloud had one, it’s this that darkens Italy!”
Let us turn the cloud about, dwell no more on Italy’s anguish unparalleled, but on the silver lining, the love and help her sisters lavished upon her. If we dwell most upon our country’s share, it is because we know more of it—not to set it above the others.
The minutes of the meeting of the Ladies’ Auxiliary (I was the Secretary), held January 9th, contain this entry:
“Mr. Parrish gave an account of an interview with Signor Nathan, the Syndic of Rome, who expressed the opinion that if the American Committee had a considerable sum of money at its disposal, it could best be invested in buying lumber and building houses in the devastated districts.”
That was the seed,—a good seed that bore fruit. By far the most important work done by America for the earthquake sufferers was the building of these houses in the devastated districts. In this enterprise our Ambassador proved worthy of his high office, of the great trust imposed upon him; from the moment the plan was decided upon, he devoted every ounce of energy to furthering it both at home and abroad. The details of his work do not properly belong to those outside the magic circle of diplomacy; his was a labor of Hercules—only the old Greek hero had seven labors, and the young American, seventy and seven. He was fortunate in having Captain Belknap to carry out the practical part of the work.
It was to help Belknap that J. left his studio, the terrace where the tromboni were blowing their golden trumpets, and the bees from the priest’s hive hummed in and out the wall flowers. Patsy and I stayed in Rome, worked for our profughi, played with our flowers. The Andalusian carnations, sent from Spain by our friend Don Jaime, were an intense interest. It seemed at first they would die; with the first touch of the March sun, they took heart of grace and decided that life was worth while, even for an Andalusian transplanted to Rome.
Ignazio’s bills had been growing heavier and heavier every month; he had not grafted the promised number of innesti on the roses; there were other small grievances. In a moment of exasperation I resolved to put an end to these things. I surprised him early one morning as he was changing the earth of the big azalea; he was on his knees, patting the rich brown loam about the roots.
“Ignazio,” I began firmly, “the time has come when we must part.”
He shook the earth from his slim fingers, sprang to his feet, agile as a faun, and fixed me with his clear hazel eyes.
“E vero? This is a fount of sorrow to me! Where might your Excellency be going?”
“It is not I who am going.”
“Si capisce! The Signora will soon join the Signore? Let her be at ease; everything will go on as if she were at home. Behold the primole the Signora has asked for these many years! They are not a garden flower, therefore it was extraordinarily difficult to obtain these wild things. With infinite labor I got them from the guardiano of the Villa Caprarola, where they cover the hills like a weed.”
This was my last attempt to part with Ignazio; whatever else is fleeting, he is permanent. To cover my defeat, I changed the subject and asked him what he knew of the Sicilians.
“I am from upper Italy, a Sienese; I have naught to do with those of the south; I do not say there are not brave people among them but they have too hot blood. They all go armed too, even the women; I have proof of it—” he glanced half consciously at a scar on his wrist; when he spoke again an odd note of resentment had crept into his voice, a shadow into eyes clear as a forest brook. “We who have nothing but our two arms—or at best a little gingillo of a knife, so long, what can we do against them? Nothing! It is best to keep away from them, to have nothing to do with them—enough, I have said it!”