The Dodge Club Part 41

[Ill.u.s.tration: Poor d.i.c.k!]

The Pope was there. In one of the adjoining chambers he was performing a ceremony which sometimes takes place in this church. Guided by instinct, b.u.t.tons pressed his way into the chamber. A number of people filled it. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation.

Just as His Holiness was rising to leave, b.u.t.tons saw the group that had filled his thoughts for weeks.

The Spaniards! No mistake this time. And he had been right all along.

All his efforts had, after all, been based on something tangible. Not in vain had he had so many walks, runnings, chasings, searchings, strolls, so many hopes, fears, desires, discouragements. He was right! Joy, rapture, bliss, ecstasy, delight! There they were: _the little Don_--THE DONNA--IDA!

b.u.t.tons, lost for a while in the crowd, and pressed away, never lost sight of the Spaniards. They did not see him, however, until, as they slowly moved out, they were stopped and greeted with astonis.h.i.+ng eagerness. The Don shook hands cordially. The Donna--that is, the elder sister--smiled sweetly. Ida blushed and cast down her eyes.

Nothing could be more gratifying than this reception. Where had he been? How long in Rome? Why had they not met before? Strange that they had not seen him about the city. And had he really been here three weeks? b.u.t.tons informed them that he had seen them several times, but at a distance. He had been at all the hotels, but had not seen their names.

Hotels! Oh, they lived in lodgings in the Palazzo Concini, not far from the Piazza del Popolo. And how much longer did he intend to stay?--Oh, no particular time. His friends enjoyed themselves here very much. He did not know exactly when they would leave. How long would they remain?--They intended to leave for Florence on the following week.--Ah! He was thinking of leaving for the same place at about the same time. Whereupon the Don expressed a polite hope that they might see one another on the journey.

By this time the crowd had diminished. They looked on while the Pope entered his state-coach, and with strains of music, and prancing of horses, and array of dragoons, drove magnificently away.

The Don turned to b.u.t.tons: Would he not accompany them to their lodgings? They were just about returning to dinner. If he were disengaged they should be most happy to have the honor of his company.

b.u.t.tons tried very hard to look as though he were not mad with eagerness to accept the invitation, but not very successfully. The carriage drove off rapidly. The Don and b.u.t.tons on one seat, the ladies on the other.

Then the face of Ida as she sat opposite! Such a face! Such a smile!

Such witchery in her expression! Such music in her laugh!

At any rate so it seemed to b.u.t.tons, and that is all that is needed.

On through the streets of Rome; past the post-office, round the column of Antoninus, up the Corso, until at last they stopped in front of an immense edifice which had once been a palace. The descendants of the family lived in a remote corner, and their poverty compelled them to let out all the remainder as lodgings. This is no uncommon thing in Italy. Indeed, there are so many ruined n.o.bles in the country that those are fortunate who have a shelter over their heads. b.u.t.tons remarked this to the Don, who told some stories of these fallen n.o.bles. He informed him that in Naples their laundress was said to be the last scion of one of the most ancient families in the kingdom.

She was a countess in her own right, but had to work at menial labor.

Moreover, many had sunk down to the grade of peasantry, and lived in squalor on lands which were once the estates of their ancestors.

b.u.t.tons spent the evening there. The rooms were elegant. Books lay around which showed a cultivated taste. The young man felt himself in a realm of enchantment. The joy of meeting was heightened by their unusual complaisance. During the evening he found out all about them.

They lived in Cadiz, where the Don was a merchant. This was their first visit to Italy.

They all had fine perceptions for the beautiful in art or nature, and, besides, a keen sense of the ludicrous. So, when b.u.t.tons, growing communicative, told them about Mr. Figgs's adventure in the ball of St. Peter's, they were greatly amused. He told about the adventures of all his friends. He told of himself: all about the chase in Naples Bay, and his pursuit of their carriage from St. Peter's. He did not tell them that he had done this more than once. Ida was amused; but b.u.t.tons felt gratified at seeing a little confusion on her face, as though she was conscious of the real cause of such a persevering pursuit. She modestly evaded his glance, and sat at a little distance from the others. Indeed, she said but little during the whole evening.

When b.u.t.tons left he felt like a spiritual being. He was not conscious of treading on any material earth, but seemed to float along through enchanted air over the streets into his lodgings, and so on into the realm of dreams.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

WHAT KIND OF A LETTER THE SENATOR WROTE FOR THE "NEW ENGLAND PATRIOT,"

WHICH SHOWS A TRITE, LIBERAL, UNBIASED, PLAIN, UNVARNISHED VIEW OF ROME.

"d.i.c.k," said the Senator, as he sat with him in his room, "I've been thinking over your tone of mind, more particularly as it appears in those letters which you write home, such as you read the other day.

It is a surprising thing to me how a young man with your usual good sense, keenness of perception, and fine education, can allow yourself to be so completely carried away by a mawkish sentiment. What is the use of all these memories and fancies and hysterical emotions that you talk about? In one place you call yourself by the absurd name of 'A Pensive Traveller.' Why not be honest? Be a sensible American, exhibiting in your thoughts and in all your actions the effect of democratic principles and stiff republican inst.i.tutions. Now I'll read you what I have written. I think the matter is a little nearer the mark than your flights of fancy. But perhaps you don't care just now about hearing it?"

"Indeed I do; so read on," said d.i.c.k.

"As I have travelled considerable in Italy," said the Senator, reading from a paper which he drew from his pocket, "with my eyes wide open, I have some idea of the country and of the general condition of the farming cla.s.s."

The Senator stopped. "I forgot to say that this is for the _New England Patriot_, published in our village, you know."

d.i.c.k nodded. The Senator resumed:

"The soil is remarkably rich. Even where there are mountains they are well wooded. So if the fields look well it is not surprising.

What is surprising is the cultivation. I saw ploughs such as Adam might have used when forced for the first time to turn up the ground outside the locality of Eden; harrows which were probably invented by Numa Pompey, an old Roman that people talk about.

"They haven't any idea of draining clear. For here is a place called the Pontine Marsh, beautiful soil, surrounded by a settled country, and yet they let it go to waste almost entirely.

"The Italians are lazy. The secret of their bad farming lies in this. For the men loll and smoke on the fences, leaving the poor women to toil in the fields. A woman ploughing! And yet these people want to be free.

"They wear leather leggins, short breeches, and jackets. Many of them wear wooden s.h.i.+fts. The women of the south use a queer kind of outlandish head-dress, which if they spent less time in fixing it would be better for their own worldly prosperity.

"The cattle are fine: very broad in the chest, with splendid action.

I don't believe any other country can show such cattle. The pigs are certainly the best I ever saw by a long chalk. Their chops beat all creation. A friend of mine has made some sketches, which I will give to the Lyceum on my return. They exhibit the Sorrento pig in various att.i.tudes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sketches By A Friend.]

"The horses, on the contrary, are poor affairs. I have yet to see the first decent horse. The animals employed by travellers generally are the lowest of their species. The shoes which the horses wear are of a singular shape. I can't describe them in writing, but they look more like a flat-iron than any thing else.

"I paid a visit to Pompeii, and on coming back I saw some of the carts of the country. They gave one a deplorable idea of the state of the useful arts in this place. Scientific farming is out of the question.

If fine plantations are seen it's Nature does it.

"Vineyards abound everywhere. Wine is a great staple of the country.

Yet they don't export much after all. In fact the foreign commerce is comparatively trifling. Chestnuts and olives are raised in immense quant.i.ties. The chestnut is as essential to the Italian as the potato is to the Irishman. A failure in the crop is attended with the same disastrous consequences. They dry the nuts, grind them into a kind of flour, and make them into cakes. I tasted one and found it abominable. Yet these people eat it with garlic, and grow fat on it. Chestnut bread, oil instead of b.u.t.ter, wine instead of tea, and you have an Italian meal.

"It's a fine country for fruit. I found Gaeta surrounded by orange groves. The fig is an important article in the economy of an Italian household.

"I have been in Rome three weeks. Many people take much interest in this place, though quite unnecessarily. I do not think it is at all equal to Boston. Yet I have taken great pains to examine the place.

The streets are narrow and crooked, like those of Boston. They are extremely dirty. There are no sidewalks. The gutter is in the middle of the street. The people empty their slops from their windows. The pavements are bad and very slippery. The acc.u.mulation of filth about the streets is immense. The drainage is not good. They actually use one old drain which, they tell me, was made three thousand years ago.

"Gas has only been recently introduced. I understand that a year or two ago the streets were lighted by miserable contrivances, consisting of a mean oil lamp swung from the middle of a rope stretched across the street.

"The shops are not worth mentioning. There are no magnificent _Dry-goods Stores_, such as I have seen by the hundred in Boston; no _Hardware Stores_; no palatial _Patent Medicine Edifices_; no signs of enterprise, in fact, at all.

"The houses are very uncomfortable. They are large, and built in the form of a square. People live on separate flats. If it is cold they have to grin and bear it. There are no stoves. I have suffered more from the cold on some evenings since I have been here than ever I did in-doors at home. I have asked for a fire, but all they could give me was a poisonous fire of charcoal in an earthen thing like a basket.

"Some of their public buildings are good, but that can't make the population comfortable. In fact, the people generally are ill-cared for. Here are the wretched Jews, who live in a filthy quarter of the city crowded together like pigs.