Читать книгу The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Various - Страница 4

If one would realize the romantic side of Rome in all its stately grandeur, and receive a solemn and ineffaceable impression of its beauty, by all means let him, like Quevedo's hero, sleep 'a-daytime' and do his sight-seeing by moonlight or star-light; for, save in some few favored quarters, its inspection by gaslight would be difficult. Remember, too, that all that is grandly beautiful of Rome, the traveler has seen before he reaches the Imperial City—with the eyes of understanding, with the eyes of others—in books.

Nothing but a heap of old stones, bricks, and mortar is there here for the illiterate tourist—he can have six times as jolly a time in Paris for half the money that he pays 'in that old hole where a fellow named Culius Jæsar used to live.'

As if the night were not sufficiently dark in this city, there are always those who stand ready with the paint-brush of fancy to make it even of a darker hue; whisperings among the travelers in hotels of certain Jim Joneses or Bill Smiths who have been robbed. Yes, sir, early in the evening, right there in the Corso: grabbed his watch and chain, struck him on the head. You know he was a powerfully built man; but they came behind him, and if he hadn't have done so and so, the rascally Italians would have killed him, and so forth.

'Re-al-ly; well, you won't catch me out at nights!'

There rises up, as I write, the figure of a slim young man, of the day-time negro-minstrel style of beauty, who once dwelt three weeks in Rome. I know that he was profound in knowledge of trick and vice, and that he had an impediment in his speech—he could never speak the truth. He told a fearful tale of a midnight robbery in the Piazza di Spagna—himself the victim. It was well told, and I ought to know, for I read it years before in a romance, only the scene was, in type, laid in Venice. According to this negro-minstrel style of youth, he had been seized from behind, held, robbed of watch and elegant gold chain, red coral shirt-studs, onyx sleeve-buttons, and a porte-monnaie containing fifty scudi, etc., etc. He was the theatrical hero of the hotel for two days, and the recipient of many drinks. Time, the cater of things, never digested this falsehood, and months after the youth had left, I learned that he had lost all his jewelry and money at—twenty-deck poker.

A few nights after Caper was domiciled in the Via Babuino, Rocjean called on him, and as he entered his room, carefully extinguished a taper, and was putting it in his pocket, when Caper asked him what that was for?

'That! it's a cerina. Have you been two weeks in Rome, and not found out that? Why, how did you get up-stairs at night?'

'There was a lamp in the entry.'

'None there to-night, so I had to light this. It's only a long piece of wick, dipped in wax; you see you can roll it up in a ball, and carry it in your pocket, so! Without this and a box of matches, you can never hope to be a good Roman. You must have seen that where the houses have any front-doors, three quarters of them are open all night long; for, as on every floor of a house, there live different families, they find it saves trouble—trouble is money in Rome—to leave the door unclosed. These dark entries, for they are seldom lighted, offer a grand chance for intrigues, and when you have lived here as long as I have, you will find out that they—improve the chances. A cerina, in addition to keeping you from breaking your neck, by tumbling down stone stairs, gives light to avoid the stray dogs that sleep around loose, and to see if there is any enemy around who wants to give you a few inches of cold steel. You may laugh at robbers here; but you may cry for mercy in vain to a Roman who seeks vendetta—revenge, you know. Bad way to use foreign words; but we all do it here. Speak an Italianized English after a time, the effect of had examples. But come, if you want to see Rome by moonlight, it's time we were off.'

As they reached the street, Caper asked Rocjean where he could buy the cerina.

'At any dragheria' said the latter.

'Good, there is a druggist's store up the street—Borioni's.'

'A dragheria means a grocery-store in Rome. If you want molasses, however, you must go to the farmacia for it, [that is the Roman for druggist's shop,] and you will buy it by the ounce.'

'Live and learn,' said Caper, as they entered the grocery and bought the cerina-price, one baioccho a yard.

'And now let us walk out to Saint Peter's, and see the church by moonlight.'

'The want of sidewalks in this city,' remarked Rocjean, 'compelling the Romans to walk over cobble-stones, undoubtedly is the cause of the large feet of the women, added to their dislike of being in pain from tight shoes or boots. For genuine martyrdom from tight shoes, French, Spanish, and Americans—but chiefly Cubans—next to Chinese women, are ahead of the world.'

'But apart from the fact that they do walk on the narrow sidewalks in the Corso, I have noticed that in the side-streets, even where there is a foot-walk, nobody takes advantage of it at night.'

'For a good reason, as we shall probably see,' said Rocjean,' before we reach the bridge of San Angelo. But keep close to me in the middle of the street.'

The moonlight shone brightly down the narrow street they were then walking through, which, but for this, the occasional dim light of an oil-lamp hung in front of a shrine, the light from a wine or grocery shop, and the ruddy blaze of a charcoal-fire, where chestnuts were roasting for sale, would have been dark indeed. The ground-floor of very few Roman houses is ever occupied as a dwelling-place; it is given up to shops, stables, etc., the families residing, according to their wealth, on the lowest up to the highest stories; the light purses going up and the heavy ones sinking. They had walked nearly to the end of this street, when, happening to look up at the fourth story of a house, he saw something white being reversed in the moonlight, and the next instant a long stream of water, reminding him of the horse-tail fall in Switzerland, came splashing down where a sidewalk should have been.

'What do you think of the middle of the street now?' asked Rocjean.

'Let's stick to it, even if we stick in it. I'm going to buy an umbrella, and spread it too, when I go out of nights, after this.'

They reached the bridge of San Angelo, and studied for a short time the fine effect of the moonlight shining on the turbid, slow-flowing Tiber, and lighting up the heavy pile of the castle of San Angelo. Then they reached the Piazza of Saint Peter's, and here the scene was imperial. Out and in through the semi-circular arcade of massive pillars the moonlight stole to sleep upon the soft-toned, gray old pavement, or was thrown in dancing, sparkling light from the two noble jets of water tossed in the clear night-air by the splashing fountains. In all its gigantic proportions rose up, up into the clear blue of the spangled sky, the grand thought of Michael Angelo—the dome of Saint Peter's.

Returning from Saint Peter's, Rocjean proposed to walk through the Trastevere, the other side of the Tiber, and to cross over the river by the ponte Rótto or broken bridge. They found the street along the river very quiet; here and there a light showed, as on the other side, a wine-shop or coffee-room; but the houses had few lights in them, and spite of the moonlight, the streets looked gloomy and desolate.

'They seem to keep dark this side of the river,' said Caper.

'Yes,' answered Rocjean, 'and live light. They go to bed for the most part early, and rise early; they economize fifty-one weeks in a year, in order to live like lords for the fifty-second—that is Carnival-week. Then you shall see these queenly Trasteverine in all their bravery, thronging the Corso. But here is a clean-looking wine-shop, let us go in and have a foglietta.'

They found the shop full of thirsty Romans—it is safe to say that—although the number of small flasks showed they could not indulge their taste so deeply as they wished to. The centre of the listening group of Romans, was a bright-eyed, black, curly-haired man, who was reciting, with loud emphasis:

THE LIFE AND DEATH

OF THE PERFIDIOUS ASSASSIN,

ARRIGO GARBETINGO OF TRENTO,

Who slew nine hundred and sixty-four grown persons and six children

He had already got through his birth and wicked childhood, and had arrived at that impressive part where he commences his career of brigand at large, accompanied by a 'bool-dog':

The reciter here stopped to drink another tumbler of wine, upon which Caper and Rocjean, having finished their pint, paid their scot and departed.

'Was that an improvisatore?' asked Caper.

'He might pass for such with a stranger of inflammable imagination, who didn't know the language,' answered Rocjean. 'He is, in fact, a reciter, and you can buy the poh, poh-em he was reciting at any of the country fairs, of the man who sells rosaries and crucifixes. It is one of the cent-songs of the Papal States, published con licenza, with license; and a more cruel, disgusting, filthy, and demoralizing tendency than it must have on the people can not well be imagined; and there are hundreds of worse.'

While Rocjean was talking they had crossed the ponte Rótto, and as he finished his sentence they stood in front of the ruined house of—Cola di Rienzil, 'Redeemer of dark centuries of shame—the hope of Italy, Rienzi, last of Romans!'

'Well,' said Rocjean, as he halted in front of the ruined house, and looked carefully at the ornamented stones still left, 'when Saint Peter's church shall be a circus, this house shall be a shrine.'

'That being the state of the case,' spoke Caper, 'let us walk up to the Trevi fountain and see the effect by moonlight of its flashing waters, and inhale the flavor of fried fish from the adjacent stands.'

They stood in front of the wild waters dashing, sparkling over the grand mass of tumbled rocks reared behind the wall of a large palace. Neptune, car, horses, tritons, all, stone as they were, seemed leaping into life in the glittering rays of the moonlight, and the rush and splash of the waters in the great basin below the street, contrasted with the silence of the city, left a deep impression of largeness and force on the minds of the two artists.

'Let us go down and drink the water, for he who drinks of it shall return again to Rome!'

'With all my heart,' said Caper; 'for if the legend has one word of truth in it, Garibaldi will be back again some bello giorno——'

'Bello giorno means fine day; giorno di bello means a day for war: I drink to both!' spoke Rocjean, dipping water up in his hand.

They returned to the street, and were walking toward the Piazza di Spagna, when they overtook two well-dressed men evidently none the better for too much wine. As they passed them, one of the men said to the other:

'J-im! I don't see but what we-we-'ll have to r-r-roost out-tall night. I don't know 'ny 'talian, you don't know 'ny 'talian, we-we-'re nonpl'sh'd, I'm th-think'ng.'

'Ary borry boutére spikinglish?' said the other one to the two artists, as they were walking on.

'Yes,' said Caper, 'four of 'em. If you've lost your way we'll set you right. Where's your hotel?'

''Tel? Why, 'Tel Europe p'aza Spanya. Are you English?'

'No, sir! I'm an American born, bred and—buttered,' said Caper.

'B-bullyf'ryou! We'resame spishies—allrite—d-driv'on!'

'Look here,' said the one of the two men who was least tipsy, 'if this tother g-gen'leman and I could stick our heads into c-cold water we'd come out tall right.'

'It's only a block or two back to the Trevi fountain,' answered Caper, 'and if your friend will go with you, you'll find water enough there.'

They went back to the fountain, and descending the steps with some difficulty, the two men soon had their heads pretty well cooled off, and came up with cleared intellects and improved pronunciation. In the course of conversation it appeared that the two travelers, for such they were, after rather too much wine at dinner in their hotel, had been invited to the German Club, where Rhine wine, etc., had finished them off: attempting to return to their hotel alone, they had lost their way. As the four walked along, it came out that one of them owned a painting by Rocjean, and when he discovered that one of his guides was no other than that Americanized Frenchman, the whole party at once fraternized, and disregarding any more moonlight effects, walked at once to Caper's rooms, where over cigars and a bottle of Copalti's wine they signed, sealed, and delivered a compact to have a good time generally for the week the two travelers intended devoting to Rome. The moral of which is … that you make more friends than meet enemies—walking round Rome by night.