Dorothy, and Other Italian Stories

"Those frames of fruit would do for a State fair," said Gray, irreverently. "Queer, solid, stony little place! Somehow it looks fierce, too."

"Naturally. They did almost nothing here but fight for hundreds of years; they fought with every town in Tuscany. And almost every town in Tuscany responded by fighting with them."

When Gray had seen everything, they passed through the western gate, taking the road which leads down the hill and across one of the three bridges; on the other side of this bridge begins the path which is a short-cut to Casa Colombina.

In the open space outside of this gate there stands a small café of the most modern type. Its exterior is adorned in fresco on one side of the door with a portrait of Garibaldi as large as life. On the other side there is a second work of art, a painted open window from whose lattice leans a damsel, dressed in the remarkable apparel which is produced by a translation of the latest Paris fashions into Italian. This damsel hospitably offers to the passers-by a glass of wine. "Let's breathe," said Dennison, seating himself on one of the benches which, with a green table, was placed before the door.

"You want to attach yourself to every bench you see, Jack."

"On the contrary, I much prefer my own, at home. It's only for your sake that I go tramping about the country in this way, on my feet."

"What do they have in such a place as this?" asked Gray, fanning himself with his hat. "We can't sit here without ordering something."

"Yes, we can. Don't be throwing your money about."

"Only a quarter. What can I get for that?"

"Red vinegar."

At this moment the proprietor of the café came forth, carrying a three-legged stool and a brazier filled with hot coals. He saluted the gentlemen with a beaming smile, but made no effort to solicit their patronage; placing the stool and the brazier at a little distance, he returned to the house, and came forth again with a large shallow pan, whose bottom was covered with a layer half an inch deep of coffee in the berry. Seating himself on the stool, he began to roast the coffee, holding the pan over the coals by its long handle, and swaying it slightly from side to side with a rhythmical motion. He was a picturesque young man, with a brilliant pink silk handkerchief round his neck. Whenever his roving glance happened to meet that of either of the Americans he smiled genially, as though he wished to assure them that, whatever their mood might be, he should be sure to sympathize with it if admitted to their confidence.

"Ask him for the wine," said Gray.

"You can't possibly drink it," expostulated Dennison.

"I'll take it to Modesta – for her Friday beggars. You won't? Very well, then, I'll do it myself. Here, vyno! Vyno, do you hear? Vyno bono. Oon liry. Oon!" And he held up one finger.

The young landlord, with cordial smiles, put down his pan, hurried into the house, and returned with two little tumblers, and one of the graceful Tuscan flasks swathed in its covering of plaited straw. Taking out the stopper, he removed with exaggerated care the protecting layer of oil by means of a long wisp, and then placed the flask on the table with a flourish. "Ecco!"

"They always understand me," said Gray, complacently, when the coffee roasting had begun again.

"They would understand a Patagonian; one who was a lunatic, and dumb!"

"That is what I mean; they are so extraordinarily intelligent," replied Gray, declining to be snubbed.

Tre Ponti was keeping the festa with much gayety; the streets were full of strolling figures; the benches in front of all the cafés were full. This little way-side hostlery beyond the gate now began to receive its share; four men coming to town from a distant podere stopped here to refresh themselves with wine and chunks of the dark Italian bread. Then came a procession of youths returning from an expedition up the valley. They wore branches of blossoms in their hats, and kept step as they marched. More wine was brought out, and they all drank.

"I have not seen a drunken man in Italy," said Gray; "it's perfectly wonderful. Think of the whiskey and whiskey-brawls at home! Think of the gin and horrible wife-beating in England!"

"I don't know why I should think of them. They're not pleasant subjects."

A party of women now appeared, coming through the gateway from the town; one of them had a baby in her arms, and another was carrying a heavy boy of three, whose head, adorned with a red cap, lay sleepily on her shoulder. Set in the wall outside of this gateway there is a large shrine shielded by a grating. It bears an inscription in Italian – "Erected in token of mercies felt on this spot." There is a low marble step outside of the grating, and the woman who had the older child knelt down here for a moment, and made the child kneel by her side; taking some flowers from the knot at her belt, she showed him how to throw them through the grating as far as he could, as an offering to the Madonna within. The boy obeyed her; and then she gently bent his head forward with her hand as salutation. The other women knelt also, after this one had risen; but they did it perfunctorily; they bobbed down and bobbed up again, crossing themselves, the whole process taking about two seconds.

"The one carrying the red-capped boy is your waitress again," said Gray, as the women, their devotions over, drew nearer on their way to the bridge. "What is she doing down here?"

"It's her home; she is a Tre Ponti girl – was born here; and her family live here still. She herself much prefers the town to the country; she shares to the full the ideas which Browning expressed in 'Up in a Villa, Down in the City.'"

Modesta had now discovered them, and paused, while the women who were with her gave such a general greeting to "lordships" that it seemed to Gray that he beheld several yards of white teeth, surmounted by rows of dark eyes whose depths held a sweetness which no Northern orbs could ever contain.

"I accompany for a short distance my friend Paola," explained the waitress, "Paola being tired, and having already the baby to carry. This, the one I have, is her Angelo – as the master can perceive for himself, an angel indeed – though his little ankles are not strong. But – what would they have? That requires patience; it will improve. The masters would like without doubt to see also the baby? A miracle of beauty!" And giving the older child to one of her companions, she took the swaddled infant from its mother, and brought it to Dennison and his friend, a smile of pure enthusiasm irradiating her face. "His cheeks – do the masters behold them? And his eyes like stars? Lordships can note the quality of his arms."

Gray lightly pinched the dimpled roll of fat extended towards him. "Oui, oui. Grandeena!" he said, emphatically.

Modesta appeared to be charmed with this attention; she thanked him warmly. Then she carried the baby back to its mother, kissing it before she gave it up, and, taking the other child, led the way down the hill, the whole party making fresh obeisances before they turned away.

"What frank, pleasant faces they all have!" said Gray.

"Very frank. They never changed a muscle when, as a token of your admiration of the baby, you told them that it was hailing."

"Hailing? What are you talking about? I said the baby's arm was big."

"Grandina happens to mean 'it is hailing'; that's all."

"It couldn't; it wouldn't be such a fool! Are we going to stay here all night? It's awfully dusty."

For the open space outside of the gate was now filled with loungers, and the café of Garibaldi was crowded both inside and out; the two Americans left their bench and strolled down the hill. When they reached the bridge they stopped to watch the water. As they did so they heard music; down the gorge beside the stream came a party of girls, two and two, with linked arms; they were singing all together something slow and sweet, and as they passed under the bridge each gave a glance upward towards the two gentlemen who were leaning over the parapet to look at them.

"What are they singing?" asked Gray.

"A hymn to the Virgin, with an endless number of verses; stay here a month, and you'll hear it so often that you'll sing it in your sleep."

"That girl who was last did not look like an Italian," Gray went on, as the musical band disappeared round a bend.

"She isn't; she is a Swede. She was brought here last summer by a queer old English woman, who has lived for ten years, off and on, in that villa just above the second bridge; she had a fancy for servants who could not speak a word of English, and she picked up this girl in Stockholm during one of her journeys – for when she wasn't in Tuscany, she was trotting all over the globe. She died, at the last, suddenly; it was two months ago, and, so far, her heirs in England, distant cousins, I believe, have refused to do anything for this stranded maid. The Swedish consul, however, has taken it up, and I hear that there is prospect of a remittance some time or other – enough to pay her expenses back to Stockholm. Fortunately for herself, she had learned to speak Italian. And she had made friends in Tre Ponti; she is staying with these friends now, and turning her hand meanwhile to anything that offers in order to support herself until the money comes. Let's go home and have some tea. Dinner will be very late this evening on account of the festa; no hope of its being on the table before nine o'clock."

"Just a minute more," said Gray.

It was no wonder that the man who was unfamiliar with the scene should wish to linger. The sun was sinking out of sight, sending up broad shafts of gold as he disappeared; above the gold a deep rose tint filled the sky. The water of the stream was gilded, and gilded were the bristling turrets of a fourteenth-century monastery, which here crowns a crag where the gorge makes a bend towards the south. Opposite, beyond Casa Colombina, the soaring Tower of the Dove was flushed with pink. And on the eastern side, over their heads, the little stone town with its bastioned walls was colored in bars of salmon and pearl. The close circle of hills, the wider amphitheatre of mountains behind, all of them clothed in the violet mantle which mountains wear in Italy, were tipped with orange. And somehow all these lovely hues seemed to deepen as the chimes of Tre Ponti began to ring the Angelus. The peal of the monastery on the crag soon joined in the anthem, these latter bells flinging themselves far out from their open belfry against the sky, to and fro, to and fro, with an abandon which was in itself a picture. And when the chime stopped, music of another kind took its place, for coming up the road appeared the same band of girls singing their slow hymn; they had left the gorge, and were returning by way of the bridge to Tre Ponti.

They were no longer a small company; a dozen women had joined them, and six or eight youths followed behind. Modesta accompanied the girls, having finished her duties as escort to Paola and her children.

"Here is your waitress coming back," said Gray. "How handsome she looks!"

The arch of the bridge is high, and the ascent which leads to it steep; the two gentlemen were standing in a small projecting half-bastion, which once served, no doubt, as a sentry-box; their figures were therefore inconspicuous from below, and no one saw them. Modesta walked beside one of the girls. Her arms were folded, her hands resting upon them tranquilly; she was clad in a dress of dark blue tint, with a kerchief of cream-colored silk folded over her breast, and in her hair there was a crimson rose; she was singing as she walked, joining in the hymn to the Virgin, and her eyes were slightly raised, fixed dreamily upon the tinted sky. As the group approached the ascent leading to the bridge, a girl at the end of the procession began playfully to push against one of her companions, and the pushing ended in a hoidenish race, the two turning and rushing back down the road, the one who had been attacked in pursuit of the aggressor. The others paused, and stood watching the chase, but without stopping their hymn, which went steadily on, though, as the pursued girl doubled unexpectedly and baffled her pursuer, the mouths of the singers became so widely stretched in their glee that it was impossible for them to pronounce their syllables, and they carried the melody on mechanically, without words and almost in a shriek.

"Modesta is the only one who appears to remember that it is a hymn," remarked Gray.

"Hymn? It's a him of another kind. She probably doesn't know that she is singing at all; much less what. And she doesn't even see those racing tomboys. She only knows one thing, sees one thing, and that is her Goro."

"Goro?"

"Yes; the young fellow she is going to marry. He is just behind her – there at her elbow. You've seen him in our vineyard half a dozen times."

"He appeared dull enough there! To-day he looks very smart. However, he is much too young for her – hardly more than a boy."

The pursued girl had now escaped, and was returning. The pursuer followed, and as they both reached the waiting group she made a last desperate effort, and succeeded in grasping the other again, and so firmly that they both fell to the ground. The hymn now ceased abruptly, drowned in the general laughter as the two girls struggled in the dust. After a moment they rose, shaking their skirts, and joining in the merriment, until suddenly there came from one of them a high yell. Drawing herself away from the others, she stood with her body stiffened as though it had been turned into wood, and her eyes closed, while she poured forth in a shrill voice a flood of rapid Italian. Her companions meanwhile were so overcome with their laughter as they listened that they rocked to and fro, and clapped their hands on their sides.

"What was she saying?" asked Gray, when at last the piercing voice stopped.

"You wish a sample? She said, 'Brute, thou! Beast, thou! Thou it is who hast done it, pig of a Vanna! For thou puttest me in a fury so that I said evil words. And now what is the use of my Lent? Didn't I drop with fasting? Wasn't I faint? Didn't I do every one of my devotions? And now all lost through thee. Serpent! and frog!'"

Modesta had paid no more attention to this raving outburst than she had paid to the race which had preceded it; she had stopped singing when the others stopped, but her eyes still gazed dreamily at the sky. After a moment or two she turned so that her glance could take in Goro, and then she stood tranquilly waiting, her face serene, content.

Presently the little company, its laugh out, began to move on again, coming up the ascent in a straggling band, the girl who had yelled forth her accusations with her body stiffened so strangely accompanying them, her fit of excitement ended. She even tried to frolic in a shamefaced sort of way; she took the flower from her hair, threw it up and caught it, as though it were a ball, humming a tune to herself carelessly. As they reached the bridge the band perceived the two gentlemen in the semi-bastion; all, that is, save Modesta. In her absorption the waitress saw nothing, until the girl who was beside her pulled her sleeve.

"The master, thine," she whispered. "Thy two lordships."

The waitress now came back to actual life. She waited a moment, until the others had passed on. "It is Goro," she said, presenting him. "The masters already know him well."

"Not in his festival clothes," answered Dennison. "He is nothing," he added, banteringly; "not half good enough! I wouldn't have him, Modesta, if I were you."

When Dennison said "He is nothing," Goro answered, "È vero" (It is true), and laughed lightly. He was a tall, strong youth, with curling hair and a joyous smile.

"Eh – he wishes me so much good!" replied Modesta, fondly.

The next morning Gray took another sunrise walk; he had but five days more to spend in Tuscany, and he wished to make every hour tell. When he came back the waitress was in the court, occupied in tying a long cord to Hannibal's collar; beside her were two towels and a cake of soap.

"It is Annibale, who goes now for his bath," she explained; "Peppino takes him. A bath is excellent for Annibale."

The dog's spirits were deeply depressed; his elongated little body seemed almost to sweep the ground, owing to the dejected state of his short legs. "It is nothing, thou silly one!" said Modesta, affectionately. "Thou must be washed – that thou knowest. And as the morning is so warm, thou art to go to the pond."

Peppino now came from the kitchen, ready for the expedition. With a salute to their visitor, he took the end of the cord in his hand, and turned down the path which leads to the fields below.

"I'll go too," said Gray. "Ego," he added, tapping his breast violently, to show that he meant himself.

The two servants were charmed with this idea; Modesta said that it would give Hannibal courage to be accompanied by the gentleman, and Peppino added that it was "too much honor." The cook was very tall, with the countenance of a seer; in his spotless white linen jacket, his long white apron, and white linen cap, his appearance, with his dark eyes and thick gray hair, was striking. He was suspected of belonging to a secret society of nihilistic principles; but his nihilism must have applied only to mankind, for he went down the hill as slowly as he could, in order that Hannibal's neck should not be hurt by undue pressure from his collar. For the dog was following at the extreme length of his cord, dragging back obstinately with all his might, and digging his crooked little paws as deeply into the sand as he possibly could with each reluctant step; as Peppino was six feet in height, and Hannibal ten inches, the spectacle was amusing. At the foot of the hill the glitter of the pond became visible, and Hannibal's resistance grew so desperate that Peppino went back and picked him up, carrying him onward in his arms as though he had been a baby. "Most surely he must not be permitted to strangle himself," he explained to Gray in his serious voice.

The valley fields belonging to Casa Colombina are six in number; five are for grain and one for vegetables, and all are bordered by rows of fruit-trees, with grape-vines trained to swing from trunk to trunk. These fields are watered by artificial rivulets, which are fed from the pond. And the pond is in reality a reservoir for the water of a spring above. They passed the spring first. It is covered by a roof which extends some distance beyond it, supported by pillars of brick; the ground beneath is paved with flag-stones, and here were assembled a collection of the large tubs, of red earthen-ware, in shape and hue like mammoth flower-pots, which the Tuscan peasants use for washing clothes. Above the spring, fastened to one of the pillars, was a china image of St. Agnes, and beneath the image there was a hanging lamp with one wick, its tiny flame like a pale yellow point in the brilliant morning light.

"Modesta?" said Gray, indicating the lamp as they passed.

The cook nodded affirmatively.

"She is foolishly superstitious," he said. "But women – " A shrug completed the sentence.

The pool was square, paved within, and bordered by a low stone parapet; the water was not quite a foot deep. Peppino soaped Hannibal carefully until he was a mass of white lather; then he placed him gently in the pool, and kept him from returning to the shore by the aid of a long branch. "Walk about, then; walk! Agitate thyself," he said, pressing him softly with the twigs. Hannibal walked as little as he possibly could; his indignation was plainly visible even in the tip of his nose, which was the only part of him above the water. When he was judged to be sufficiently laved the branch was withdrawn, and as he leaped out the cook caught him and dried him with a towel. Another towel was then folded closely round him and fastened with long tapes, leaving only his head and paws and tail free. "Now must thou run back, so as not to take cold," said Peppino, putting on the collar and readjusting the cord. And then the procession returned, the swathed Hannibal this time as far in advance as the cord would permit, and pulling up the hill like a miniature steam-engine. "He is anxious to get back to Modesta," said Gray.

The cook comprehended. "It is true. She spoils him with her indulgence; it is a melancholy weakness in her character," he replied, as with his disengaged hand he took his red handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face, which was heavily bedewed with drops of perspiration, owing to his exertions at the pond.

As they reached the level ground behind the house the cat could be seen audaciously reposing in Hannibal's basket, which had been set outside to air. The dachshund barked angrily; the cook did not set him free, but hurried forward himself to eject the intruder; and as he did so, in some way his foot slipped, and he came down full length on the grass with a thud. And then Modesta, who had appeared at the kitchen door, began to call out in excitement: "He laughs – behold him! Annibale laughs!" And, in truth, the dog had that look as, with his mouth set in a broad grin, his tongue hanging out a little, his tail wagging, and his eyes brilliant with glee, he surveyed his prostrate companion. Modesta ran and took him up. "Didst thou laugh, little one? Like a human creature? And, indeed, thou art one; 'tis a man thou art!" Peppino, as soon as he was on his feet again, was almost as much interested as she was; between them they took off the towel, and dried him anew with a fresh one, watching him tenderly meanwhile with bated breath, as though they were expecting every instant to hear him speak.

In spite of her mirth, Gray had noticed that the eyes of the waitress were reddened, as though she had been shedding tears.

At breakfast Dennison also noticed this. "Anything the matter?" he said.

"Ah, nothing, nothing," replied Modesta, waving her hand contemptuously. "It is only that I am of so great a carelessness – I have shame about it. Will they figure it to themselves that I actually took off the cover of the large pepper-jar and emptied the contents into a bowl, my face held over it meanwhile and a breeze blowing through the pantry! That was acting like a fool; the pepper naturally flew into my eyes. But enough; it will pass."

After breakfast Dennison went down to Tre Ponti on business connected with his olive-grove. But he returned very soon, and, entering the library, rang the bell sharply.

"What's up?" said Gray, who was writing letters by the window.

"A poor old man was terribly injured while passing the house this morning; his donkey slipped on a rolling stone and fell, and the man was thrown from his two-wheeled cart with great violence. Peppino was out apparently – I can't imagine where, at that hour, as it's not his day for going to town."

"He was down at the pond washing the dog; I was with him."

"That explains it. Modesta, therefore, having the field to herself, absolutely refused to allow them to bring the poor creature in here; she let him go in a jolting wagon down to Tre Ponti, telling me nothing whatever about it. What makes it worse is that the man is a contadino who used to work for me; he worked for me, in fact, until he grew too old to work anywhere."

"Probably she has some reason for disliking him."

"On the contrary, she likes him; I happen to know it. And she has a very soft heart for old people, for all kinds of infirmity and suffering. She will fly down to see him upon the very first opportunity; she will rob herself to take him the best food and wine, and everything else she can think of; she will take the very pillows from her bed! She had cried her eyes out over him, that was evident. With her yarn about the pepper!"

"But why in the world, then – "

"Simply because her idea is never to speak of unpleasant subjects to her superiors if she can possibly avoid it; if forced to tell something of the truth, she envelops it in roundabout, optimistic phrases that would deceive even Solomon! But you'll hear for yourself. I'll translate what she says afterwards."

Modesta now appeared in answer to the ring.

"Two men are coming to-day to work in the olive-grove," said Dennison; "tell Peppino to have the tools ready; they will come every afternoon for a week. Your eyes are better, I trust?"

"Almost well, as lordship can behold. It was too much carelessness – mine – with that pepper!"