Читать книгу Italian Days and Ways - Wharton Anne Hollingsworth - Страница 5

Via Sistina, Rome, March 16th.

We felt as if we had accomplished a day's work before we left Naples, this morning, the getting away from these places is so laborious. After our trunks were strapped and ready for the facchini and porters, the feeing of the servants had to be attended to. This was Angela's especial task. She had managed the financial part of our six days' trip so admirably that Zelphine and I have honored her by electing her bursar for the party. She does not seem fully to appreciate the honor we have conferred upon her, but with her usual amiability she is quite willing to do the work.

When the servants all lined up in the dining-room, they made a formidable array. I did not wonder that Angela looked as if she would rather be somewhere else. She was getting through the ordeal very creditably, however, when the padrone appeared upon the scene; very indelicate of him, was it not, to come in just then? This so embarrassed Angela that she was very near giving him the generous tip that she had dedicated to the head waiter. Would he have taken it, think you? Zelphine says that he certainly would, as no hotel-keeper in Italy can withstand the glint of silver. Be this as it may, we are glad that Angela did not persist in her indiscriminate generosity, as our purses are already seriously depleted by the demands made upon them by chambermaids, facchini, head porter, sub-porter, concierge, head waiter and his troop of underlings, each one with an empty hand and an expectant eye. There is, we have learned, a long step between the facchini and the porter, and still another social gradation between the porter and the concierge. The latter is quite an important personage, in a fine uniform, who usually speaks excellent English, French, and often several other languages.

At the station we had to undergo the weighing of our luggage, a weariness to the flesh at all times, but especially trying to-day, as all the world seemed to be en route for Rome. We were detained so long that we barely had time to catch our train. I sometimes wonder if any one ever actually lost one of these slow-moving trains. We travelled second class to-day, "for local color," as Zelphine says. In point of comfort there seems to us little difference between first and second class; the former have stuffy plush coverings on the seats, instead of leather and reps, and somewhat more select company. Our companions were two well-to-do young matrons, an old peasant woman, and three children. The two younger women were inclined to be sociable as far as our common vocabularies permitted, and plied us with questions, which we answered with more or less accuracy according to our ability—it is sometimes difficult to be entirely truthful in a language one does not understand; but Zelphine did most of the talking, having developed considerable facility in speaking French with a fine Italian accent. Confusing as this mongrel dialect might be to an educated Italian, it often stands us in good stead with shopkeepers, maids, cabbies, and facchini, and to-day seemed tolerably intelligible to our compagnons de voyage. Indeed, we became so intimate that one of the women asked Zelphine for her vinaigrette for the "bambino" to smell, the bambino having proved herself to be a poor traveller.

Zelphine invariably carries a black satin bag, which we have dubbed "Mrs. Lecks," because, like Frank Stockton's queen of emergencies, it always provides what we need at any given moment, whether it happens to be a shoe-button or a guide-book. The bambino was fascinated by the smelling-bottle, and stretched out her hand for it as soon as Zelphine took it from the depths of Mrs. Lecks and applied it to her own patrician nostrils. As this is a country where bambinos seem to be denied nothing, the mother's hand was also outstretched, and there was nothing for Zelphine to do but to hand over her dainty vinaigrette to that untidy-looking baby. Now was not that a trial of good nature?

Angela was much interested in a half-starved, ill-clad boy of ten or twelve, who was, the old peasant informed us, an orfano adopted by her. We wondered how these people came to be travelling second class, as everything about them indicated extreme poverty. The orphan's eyes gleamed when Angela spread out her luncheon, and she made haste to share her rolls and figs with him, while we offered our refreshments to the other occupants of the carriage, having understood that this is Italian etiquette. They, with many compliments, declined the bounty—which may also be in accordance with good breeding in Italy—all except the orphan, who fell upon Angela's stores with the appetite of youth sharpened by a long fast from dainties. Upon this the old woman, not to be outdone, drew forth from a stuff bag a loaf of brown bread wrapped in a red kerchief such as she wore on her head, and proceeded to cut off a goodly slice. Angela begged her for a small piece, piccolo being one of the words that she knows, and I came to the rescue by handing her a bottle of wine and begging her to give the old dame a generous glass of it. This libation proved so acceptable that I really do not think that the woman knew whether or not Angela had eaten that untempting bit of bread. She finally hid it under her napkin, saying, "A bit of local color, Zelphine, that I will share with you later."

We found little to interest us in this journey of more than five hours over a level, sparsely wooded country, whose monotony was broken now and again by an abrupt rise in the ground. These hills that have been thrown up from the general flatness of the land by some internal disturbance are generally crowned by a church and monastery, and many of them by towns of some size. As they rise from the plain, gray buildings upon gray rocks, standing out against the blue of the sky, they perfectly fulfil one's idea of a fortress town of the middle ages.