Irma in Italy Part 16

Aunt Caroline decided for her. Then when they first set out, she would not tell her just what they were to see until they had mounted the steps of an old casino; after pa.s.sing through a little courtyard,--all that remained of the once fine Rospigliosi garden.

"Look up," cried Aunt Caroline, as they stood in the large salon hung with pictures, and there on the ceiling, more beautiful than any reproduction, Irma saw the familiar Aurora, the G.o.dlike auburn-haired vision and the spirited horses: Apollo seen in a strong yellowish light, and the attendant hours in robes shading from blue to white, and from green to white, with reddish browns in the draperies of the nymph nearest him, and Aurora herself, a lovely figure, scattering flowers in his path.

In the beautiful gallery, with its carvings and paintings, there were other fine pictures, but as she went away Irma still remembered only the Aurora.

The warm sun beat on their heads as they re-entered their carriage. "The Roman summer has begun," said Aunt Caroline, "though it is only May. We must accustom ourselves now to a daily siesta and save our strength; but first for letters."

A rapid drive brought them to their bankers, opposite the Spanish Steps. Irma recognized the place immediately from pictures she had seen, and while Aunt Caroline went inside for letters, she ran across the piazza to buy a bunch of roses from one of the picturesque flower girls gathered on the lower steps. But when, on the house at the right-hand corner, she read an inscription stating that in this house John Keats had died, she immediately unfolded her camera. She was so interested in her photograph, that when she saw her aunt standing by the carriage she recrossed the street without the flowers.

"Here are letters for all of us," said Aunt Caroline, "even for Marion; two for him, the first he has had, poor boy!"

"Aunt Caroline," asked Irma, for the first time since they sailed venturing to put the question, "why do you say 'poor boy' when you speak of Marion?"

Aunt Caroline, who usually answered questions so quickly, was silent for so long that Irma wondered if her audacity had offended her. Then she replied gravely, "Marion has had a most unhappy experience. It is hard to say yet whether he is to be blamed or pitied. Until he is ready to talk about it, your uncle and I prefer not to speak on the subject, even with Marion himself. But when the right time comes, you shall know all about it."

With this Irma, for the present, had to be content. But she realized that the idle remarks of her acquaintance at Cava had some foundation in fact. At _dejeuner_ Aunt Caroline gave Marion his letters, and Irma noticed that his face reddened as he looked at the envelopes, and that then he put them unopened in his pocket. This she thought a strange way of treating his first home letters. But then Marion was a strange boy.

Irma herself had impatiently torn open her own letters even while in the carriage, and had partly read Gertrude's before reaching her hotel.

"We miss you awfully," she wrote, "and Lucy and I hope you won't be so taken up with that other girl that you'll forget all about us."

"She hadn't received my Azores letter about Marion," mused Irma, "when she wrote that. I am sure I wish that Marion were a girl instead of such a queer kind of boy."

"You remember," continued Gertrude, "how jealous you used to be of Sally? Yes, you were, though you wouldn't admit it; well that's the way I feel about your Marian. But even if I am jealous, I do hope that you look better than when you left home, and that you are having a perfectly stunning time. I suppose you will be in Rome when you get this, and I wonder if you have seen the Queen--I mean Margherita. I have a photograph of her that I love, so don't dare come back without seeing her so you can tell me if she is like it. No matter if she hasn't invited you to call, just leave your card, and perhaps they will let you in accidentally. We miss you terribly at school. Until we are called up to recite we never know whether our translations are right. I wonder if you find the old inscriptions in Rome more fun than Caesar. We've just had a week of early warm weather, and we girls have decided to let John Wall and George Belman fight for the head of the cla.s.s."

"The letter sounds just like Gertrude," said Irma, as she finished, "and though it has no news, it makes home seem much nearer."

"Yet you sighed when you finished it; you mustn't let us think you are homesick," and Aunt Caroline patted Irma's shoulder, as they entered the house together.

"There's only one thing for to-day," said Uncle Jim, after _dejeuner_, as they waited for the carriage. "There are said to be three hundred and sixty-five churches in Rome, and if you intend to see them all, you must begin at once with the largest and most important."

"But I don't intend to see them all," expostulated Irma, "nor a tenth of them."

"Then you must begin with St. Peter's just the same. You have been in the Eternal City now nearly twenty-four hours without visiting St.

Peter's. Such a thing is unheard of and will bring disgrace on us all.

Ah, here's the carriage, and your reform will begin."

"Talk of floods in the Tiber," cried Irma, as they drove along the bank of the historic stream. "A little river like that could never do any damage. It could not be energetic enough to overflow its banks, especially when it's so fenced in."

"Even in modern times the embankment has sometimes failed to keep it in place," said Uncle Jim, "and in its three miles of wanderings the yellow Tiber is sometimes hard to manage. There, there, doesn't that please you?" and Irma answered with an exclamation of delight, glancing beyond the bridge to the other side, where she had her first view of the Castle St. Angelo, Hadrian's tomb, the antique circular structure around which cl.u.s.ters so much history.

But their horses were quick, and their driver did not stop for a long view; and after a turn or two they were soon crossing the sunny, paved piazza in front of St. Peter's, with its obelisk and fountain.

"This is to be only the most general view. You must come again some day when there is a great ceremony, when you can see various dignitaries; now you are merely to get a first impression."

"A first impression!" cried Irma. "Can I put it into words? It's a tremendous building; I shall never see another as large, and yet, it doesn't seem too large. What a great man the architect was!"

"I have been reading up a little to-day," said Marion, "so things are fresh in my mind. I won't pretend I'll remember them to-morrow, but it's true that this is not the first church on the spot. In the beginning there was a circus of Nero's here, where that beautiful emperor was in the habit of torturing Christians to death. There's a tradition that St.

Peter himself was burned here, and so Constantine built the first St.

Peter's over the spot. Perhaps we can go down into the tomb to-day."

"But this isn't Constantine's church?" There was a decided note of interrogation in Irma's voice. Perhaps it would have been better for her not to ask the question, for Marion's reply was in the nature of a snub.

"Any one can see that this St. Peter's is comparatively new. It was begun by Julius II in the first part of the sixteenth century, and Bramante probably made the original plans."

"Why, I thought Michelangelo----"

"Yes, my dear," interposed Uncle Jim, "in the end Michelangelo did come to the rescue of the first plan. For after Bramante died, leaving the building far from completed, some of his successors made changes that affected the beauty of the building. I believe the dome was largely the result of Michelangelo's skill."

"It took long enough to finish it!" exclaimed Marion, who had been looking at his guidebook. "It was not consecrated until 1626, more than a hundred years after Bramante's death."

"Just six years after the landing of the Pilgrims," added Irma.

"To compare small things with great," said Uncle Jim, with a laugh.

"Which is which?" asked Irma, and for the moment no one answered.

"Perhaps you don't care for guidebook information. But up to the end of the seventeenth century, St. Peter's had cost about fifty million dollars, and it now takes about eighteen thousand dollars a year to maintain it."

"The salary of one of our amba.s.sadors for a year," interpolated Irma.

"Don't laugh," she cried, "that's the way I always try to remember things."

"Then," continued Marion, "perhaps you will remember the height of the dome, four hundred and thirty-five feet from the cross to the pavement, is twice that of Bunker Hill Monument."

"We are getting into the realm of useless knowledge," protested Uncle Jim, "and as this is but a bird's-eye view, we need only remember the beautiful proportions of the dome and the grandeur of the whole. Yet there are one or two things to see now. I must point out Canova's tomb of Clement XIII, and over there, by the door leading to the dome, you'll find Canova's monument to the last of the Stuarts. You ought to go over there and shed a tear or two, Irma, for you doubtless have the usual school girl sentimentality for the Stuarts. There are busts of the Old Pretender and his two sons."

"Guidebook information would probably be as useful as that of a misguided guide," said Irma, refusing to express herself about the Stuarts.

"Twenty-nine altars and one hundred and forty-eight columns," read Marion.

"Come," said Uncle Jim, "don't listen to him. I can show you something better worth seeing," and he led her to the nave, where he showed her in the pavement the round slab of porphyry on which the emperors were formerly crowned.

"Why, Charlemagne, of course," began Irma, and then she reddened. For Marion was standing near, and she suddenly realized that Charlemagne had been dead eight hundred years before St. Peter's was consecrated.

"Oh, it was in Constantine's church that Charlemagne was crowned, but though this slab is older than the present St. Peter's, I doubt that he or his earlier successors stood on it, and best of all, I doubt that Marion can inform us," he concluded in a whisper.

When at last the four turned toward the door, Irma noticed the people about her more than she had on entering. Bareheaded peasants were walking about in groups; laboring men, who had stolen an hour from work, bowed before various altars. Tourists of all nations were studying mosaic pictures, sculptured tombs, or were gazing at the priests in rich vestments and the altar boys in one of the chapels where there was a service. Here an old woman hobbled along, and there was a mother with two or three awestruck children. There were two or three soldiers in uniform, and several long-coated priests, visitors evidently from outside Rome.

"It is the People's Church," said Aunt Caroline, "the church of the people of the whole world," she added. "There may not be as many languages as there are people in this large building, but I'll warrant a dozen nations are represented here."

The fifteenth century bronze doors of St. Peter's amused Irma, with their curious mingling of Christian and pagan subjects, Europa and the bull, Ganymede, as well as scenes directly from the scriptures. She had a chance to admire her favorite Charlemagne, whose statue on horseback and one of Constantine were on either side of the entrance.

"Over there," and Uncle Jim pointed to the left, "is the German cemetery, which Constantine originally filled with earth from Mt.

Calvary, and made the first Christian burying ground. We have as little time for that to-day as for the sacristy with its treasures, or the chapels with their pictures and sculptures. There is just one other important thing to see before we reach our hotel. Wake up, _cocchiere_, here we are."

As they drove between the colonnades away from St. Peter's and then along the Tiber bank, Uncle Jim called their attention to the new Rome rising on every side.

"It is the Rome of the ma.s.ses," he said. "Many of these tall apartment houses are occupied by people of very moderate means. And see that great public building across the river! It is as ugly as some of our own city halls."