Italian Letters of a Diplomat's Wife: January-May, 1880; February-April, 1904

The custode was most conscientious, explained everything—the arena, theatre, baths, temples, etc., but my impression was a mass of grey, broken bits of stones and columns. There were one or two splendid stone pines standing up straight and tall, looking like guardians of past splendour, and in every direction the crooked little grey-green olive trees and fields full of flowers. Gert and I sat on the wall in a shady corner, while W. and the custode went off some little distance to look at a fountain, and we were not sorry to have the rest. The last part of the drive, winding up the hill to Tivoli, was beautiful—such splendid views all the time, either toward Rome (St. Peter's standing out, a faint blue dome at the end of the long, flat plains of the Campagna; or on the other side the Sabine Hills, Soracte, Frascati, etc.).

We went straight to the little old hotel of the Sybilla, which looks exactly the same as in our day, and ordered breakfast. We were quite ready for it, having had our "petit déjeuner" at 7.30. The padrone said he wanted half an hour to prepare it, as the regular table-d'hôte was over. Of course the railway tourists got out much quicker than we did and we met them all over the place, when we went out to see the famous Temple of Vesta. It is perched on the top of the cliff, looking as if it would take very little to precipitate it into the mass of rushing, leaping water tumbling itself over the rocks far below at our feet. We had a very good breakfast, capital trout for which Tivoli is famous, and a most talkative landlord who came to superintend the meal and give us any information we wanted. He said we must have donkeys to make the "giro," which would take us about two hours, and we could finish at the Villa d'Este, where the carriage would come and get us.

We walked about a little in the town after breakfast through narrow, dirty streets with curious old bits of architecture, and into the church, or cathedral as they grandly call it, of San Francesco; but there was really nothing to see; and at two we started for our tournée to the grottoes of Neptune and the Sirena. We all walked at first, two donkeys with the usual pretty little black-eyed boys at their heads following (W. of course wouldn't have a donkey but took a cane which the padrone of the Sybilla strongly recommended as the steps going down to the grotto were steep and slippery). I wondered how the donkeys would get on, but made no remarks as I knew I could always get off. We walked through the little town under a nice old arch and up a path which was pleasant enough at first, but when we wound round the side of the hill Gert and I were glad to mount our beasts as the sun was very hot and there wasn't an atom of shade. It was a beautiful excursion, always something to see—ruins of old castles, temples, gateways—so much really that one couldn't take in details. From certain "points de vue" the Temple of Vesta seemed almost standing on air—one lost the cliff, which disappeared in a sort of mist. As soon as we began to go down the noise of the rushing water was quite overpowering; we couldn't hear ourselves speak, and the glimpses we had of the quantities of little falls leaping over big rocks and stones were quite enchanting.

Our little donkeys were perfectly sure-footed and the path good though steep. We dismounted before getting quite down to the grottoes and the steps certainly were rough and slippery. The guide took charge of Gert, and I followed in W.'s wake very carefully. It was icy cold when we got all the way down. I am generally impervious to that sort of thing, but I felt the cold strike me and didn't stay long. The chill passed entirely as soon as we came out and began the ascent, leaving the dark, deep pool behind us.

The road back was, if possible, more beautiful; great ravines with olive trees half way down their sides, mountain streams in every direction making countless little cataracts, all dancing and sparkling in the sun—rocks covered with bright green moss, and fields carpeted with wild flowers. The guide pointed out various ruins—the Villa of Mæcenas—a great square mass on the top of a hill—but we didn't care to make a long détour to go up to it. We were quite satisfied with all the natural beauty we saw around us—one old bridge, the arches covered with moss and flowers, and every now and then through the olive trees one had glimpses of arches, columns, temples—quite beautiful. The only drawback was the Cook's tourists who were riding and walking and talking all over the place, making jokes with the guides and speaking the most execrable Italian. However they had already done the Villa d'Este, so we lost them there, which was a relief.

The Villa was enchanting after the heat and glare of the road, and at first we sat quite quietly on a grassy bank and enjoyed the thick shade of the enormous cypresses. The custode was very anxious we should make the classic tour with him but we told him we knew the place—it was by no means our first visit. I explained to him in Italian that I was a "vecchia Romana" (old Roman), to which he replied with true Italian gallantry, "non tanto vecchia—son to vecchio" (no, not at all old—I am old), and old he was, his face all yellow and wrinkled like the peasants who live on the Campagna and are poisoned with malaria.

I should think, though, the Villa d'Este was healthy, it stands so high. It is almost uninhabited, belongs now to Cardinal Hohenlohe, but they tell me he never lives there, never sleeps—comes out for the day from Rome and goes back at night. It is sometimes let to foreigners. The garden is quite beautiful, perfectly wild and neglected but a wealth of trees, fountains, statues, terraces—it might be made a paradise with a little care. There are few flowers (like most Italian gardens) except those that grow quite wild. There is still the same great arch at one end of the terrace which just frames a stretch of Campagna, making a beautiful picture.

We had a delicious hour wandering about, stopping to rest every now and then, and sitting on some old bit of wall or column—no one there but ourselves and not a sound except the splashing water of the fountains. W. was delighted, and we were very sorry to leave. The afternoon light was so beautiful, penetrating through the black cypress avenue, however, we had a long drive back, longer even than coming, as we wanted to make a détour to look at the sulphur lakes. Our coachman was evidently anxious to leave. We heard an animated parley at the gate of the Villa, and the custode appeared to say the carriage was there and the coachman said it was time to start if we wanted to get back to Rome before nightfall. I think he didn't want to be too late on the road.

It was still warm when we started back, but we hadn't gone very far when it changed completely and I was very glad to put on my jacket and a shawl over it. It is a long, barren stretch of Campagna toward the sulphur lakes; one smelt the sulphur some time before arriving. They were not particularly interesting, looked like big, stagnant ponds, with rather yellowish water. Our man was decidedly uncomfortable. The road was absolutely lonely—not a person nor a vehicle of any kind in sight, the long straight road before us, and the desolate plains of the Campagna on each side. He fidgeted on his box, looked nervously from side to side, whipped up his horses, until at last W. asked him what was the matter, what was he afraid of. "Nothing, nothing, but it was late. We were strangers and one never could be quite sure what one would meet." It was not very reassuring, and when we saw once or twice a figure looming up in the distance, a man or two men on horseback, who might be shepherds or who might be bandits, we were not very comfortable either; we seemed to feel suddenly that it was getting dark, that we were alone in a very lonely road in a strange country, and we didn't mind at all when the coachman urged his horses to a quick gallop, and got over the ground as fast as he could.

We didn't say much until the little twinkling lights of the first "osterias" began to show themselves, and as we got nearer Rome and met the long lines of carts and peasants, some walking, some riding, we felt better and agreed that it wasn't pleasant to feel afraid, particularly a vague fear that didn't take shape.

When we drew up at the door of the hotel, after having deposited Gert at her Palazzo, we asked the coachman what he had been afraid of—was there any danger; to which he (safe on his box in the Piazza di Spagna) replied with a magnificent gesture that a Roman didn't know what fear meant, but he saw the ladies were nervous. It seems absurd now this morning, sitting at the window with the Piazza full of people, that we should have felt so uncomfortable. I asked W. if he was nervous. He said rather, for from the moment of starting he saw the coachman didn't want to take the side-road to the sulphur lakes, which was certainly wild and lonely, also that he was most anxious to get on. If the carriage had been merely stopped to rob us it would have been very disagreeable as we had no means of defence, nothing but our parasols, and of course nobody near to come to our rescue. I don't think our Giuseppe would have made a very vigorous resistance. After all, adventures do happen, and it would have been unpleasant to return to Paris minus one ear or one finger or any other souvenir of a sojourn in a bandit camp.

As we didn't get home until nearly nine I proposed no dinner, but "high tea" upstairs in our salon. W. demurred at first, like all men he loathes that meal dear to the female mind, but upon reflection thought it would be best. The gérant came up to speak about some boxes we want to send to Paris direct from here, and we told him of our return and the coachman's evident terror. He said he could quite understand it, that it was a very lonely, unfrequented bit of road leading to the sulphur lakes, and that we had chosen our time badly; all the tourists went first to the lakes before going to Tivoli, and it would have been a temptation to some of the wild shepherds and Campagna peasants to stop the carriage and insist upon having money or jewels. He didn't think there was any danger to our lives, nor even to our ears. They wouldn't have made much of a haul—I had no jewels of any kind, except my big pearl earrings—and W. very little money—three or four hundred francs. It was a disagreeable experience, all the same. I don't like being afraid, and I was. We went a swinging pace for about three-quarters of an hour—the horses on a good quick gallop.

I went to church this morning. It is a nice walk from here and the day is enchanting—warm, but just air enough to make exercise pleasant. W. was off early with Geoffroy. They put off yesterday's excursion until to-day, as W. was very anxious to see Tivoli.

The trunks are being packed, the gérant apparently superintending operations, as I hear a great deal of conversation in the anteroom. Madame Hubert has an extraordinary faculty for getting all she wants—an excellent quality in a travelling maid. As you know she is very pretty, which again carries out my favourite theory that beauty is the most important gift for a woman. I daresay it won't bear discussion, and I ought to say "goodness," but my experience points the other way. I have so often heard father quote Madame de Staël (who was very kind to him when he was a young man in Paris) who, at the very height of her triumph as the great woman's intelligence of her time, said to him one evening at a big party in Paris, looking at Madame Récamier, who was beautiful, and surrounded by all that was most distinguished and brilliant in the room, "Je donnerai toute mon intelligence pour avoir sa beauté."

I am so sorry to go—though of course I shall be glad to see you all, but we have enjoyed ourselves so much. I wonder when I shall see it all again, and I also wonder what makes the great charm of Rome. It appeals to so many people of perfectly different tastes. W. has been perfectly happy and interested (and in many things, not only in inscriptions and antiquities) and I am sure such an absolute change of life and scenes was the best rest he could have after the very fatiguing life of the last two years.

Sunday, April 19, 1880, 10 o'clock.

We have just come in from our farewell dinner with Gert, our last in Rome, or rather my last. I go to Florence to-morrow morning, but W. stays on till Tuesday. He is going to dine at the Wimpffens to-morrow night with some colleagues and political people. He has stopped downstairs to finish his cigar and give directions about some books he wants sent to Paris, and I will finish this letter. I have nothing to do—the trunks are all packed, some already downstairs, and the salon looks quite bare and uncomfortable, notwithstanding some flowers which Mrs. Bruce and Trocchi have sent for good-bye.

Gert and I had a nice afternoon. It was so beautiful that we went for a last drive in the country, and I shall carry away a last summer impression almost, all blue sky, bright flowers, deep shadows, and a warm light over everything. It is wonderful how the Campagna changes—almost from day to day (not only with the change of seasons), quite like the ocean. To-day, for instance, was enchanting, the air soft and mild, a smell of fresh earth and flowers everywhere, the old towers and tombs standing well out, rising out of a mass of high grass and wild flowers, and taking a soft pink colour in the warm sunlight—so clear that one could see a great distance—and all the little villages made white spots on the hills. It is quite different from the winter Campagna, which stretches away—miles of barren, desolate plains; the rocks look quite bare, the hills are shrouded in mist, and one has a feeling of solitude and of dead nature which is curious. I suppose history and all the old legends work upon the imagination and incline us to idealize the most ordinary surroundings; but there are always the long lines of ruined aqueducts, the square, massive towers, and great memorial stones that one comes upon in most unexpected places; and an extraordinary feeling of a great dead past which I don't think one has anywhere else.

We passed through the Piazza Montanara, and by the old theatre of Marcellus on our way out. I wanted to see the little, dark, dirty corner I was always so fond of. The fruit-stall was still there, jammed up against the wall, half hidden by the great stones, remains of balconies, and arched windows that jut out from the great black mass—all that remains of the once famous theatre. The piazza was very full—peasants, donkeys, boys selling fruit and drinks, and in one corner the "scrivano" (public letter-writer) with his rickety little old table, pen, paper, and ink, waiting for any one who needed his services. Thirty years ago, it seems, he did a flourishing trade, Sundays particularly, and there would be a long string of people patiently waiting their turn. Much chaffing and commenting when some pretty girl appeared, smiling and blushing, wanting to have a letter written to her sweetheart away with his regiment in foreign parts or high up on some of the hills with his sheep or cattle. To-day there was hardly any one—a wrinkled old woman dictating something about a soldier and apparently not making it very clear, as the writer (not the classic old man with a long beard, but a youth) seemed decidedly impatient. We had quite time to take it all in, as the people (donkeys too) were all standing in the middle of the street and didn't hurry themselves at all to move apart and let the carriage pass. We were evidently near the "Ghetto," as we saw some fine types of Jewish women, tall, handsome creatures, carrying themselves very well; quite unlike the men, who were a dirty, hard-featured lot, creeping along with that cringing, deprecatory manner which seems inherent in the race.

We crossed the bridge and drove through part of the Trastevere, which certainly looked remarkably dark and uninviting on this lovely summer afternoon. There are of course fine buildings, churches, and old palaces, some half tumbling down, and all black with dirt and age. The streets were dirty, the children (quantities of them playing in the streets) dirty and unkempt; clothes of all kinds were hanging out of the windows, falling over sculptured balconies and broken statues, in what had been stately palaces—every now and then flowers in a broken vase. There were some fine old arched gateways with a rope across on which clothes and rags were drying, and dreadful old men and women sitting under them on dirty benches and broken chairs. There was a smell (not to use a stronger word) of dirt and stale things, fruit and vegetables, also a little "frittura," which one always perceives in the people's quarter in Rome. I had forgotten how wretched it all was, and we were glad to get away from the smells and the dirt and find ourselves on the road along the river which leads to Ponte Molle. It was too late to think of Vei, but we drove some distance along the road. The Campagna looked quite beautiful, and every group we passed a picture in the soft evening light. Sometimes a woman with a baby on her shoulder (the child with a red cap) standing well out against the sky—sometimes one or two shepherds on their shaggy mountain ponies seeming quite close to us, but really far away on the plains (always wrapped in their long cloaks, though it was a summer evening). Every now and then a merry band of girls and soldiers. The "bersaglieri" with their long feathers and the girls with bright, striped skirts swinging along at a great pace, always singing and laughing; of course the inevitable old woman carrying a heavy load of fagots or dried grass on her poor bent back; and equally of course the man with her lounging along, a cigar in his mouth and hands in his pockets, evidently thinking that to carry a heavy burden was "lavoro di donna." Poor old women! I daresay they hardly remember that they were once straight, active girls, singing and dancing in the sunlight with no thought of old age nor fears for the future.

As soon as we crossed the bridge going back there were many more people on the road. There are "osterias," gardens, and small vineyards on each side of the road almost up to the Porta del Popolo, and as it was Sunday, the whole population was abroad. Many of the women carry their babies perched on their shoulders (not in their arms) and steady them with one hand. The little creatures, their black heads just showing out of the sort of bag or tight bands they are wrapped in, look quite contented—some of them asleep.

We went up to the Pincio, to have a last look at St. Peter's and the Doria pines before the sun went down. There were few people; it was late, and we had the terrace to ourselves. The dome stood out, quite purple, against a clear blue sky, and seemed almost resting on the clouds. There was a slight mist, which detached it from the mass of buildings. Rome hardly existed—we only saw the dome. I was sorry W. was not there to have that last beautiful picture in his mind. Del Monte, who was also lingering on the terrace, joined us and said he would walk back with me along the terrace of the Villa Medici, so I sent Gert back to her palazzo in the carriage and he and I strolled along and talked over old times; so many recollections of things done together—rides on the Campagna, hours of music of all kinds, particularly at the Villa Marconi at Frascati. I asked him if he had ever gone back there since we left. The villa was often let to forestieri. One year there was an English family there, father, mother, one son, and eight daughters. They used to go about always in three carriages. He said he had never known any one there since us. He remembered so well all the music we did in the big room. When it was a fine night all the mezzo ceto (petite bourgeoisie) who were in "villegiatura" at Frascati would congregate under our windows, whenever we were singing and playing. If they liked our music they applauded; if they didn't (which happened sometimes, when the strains were not melodious enough) they were too polite to express disapproval, and would remain perfectly silent. We used to hear them singing and whistling our songs when they went home. We amused ourselves often trying them with music they couldn't possibly know—plantation songs or amateur music which had never been published. We would sing them one evening; the next they would come back and sing all our songs perfectly well (no words, of course). They had an extraordinary musical facility. Often when we stopped, or on some of the rare occasions when we didn't do any music, they would sing some of their songs—many of them ending on a long, sustained note quite charming.

It was pleasant to recall all the "tempi passati." We lingered a few moments at the top of the Spanish Steps, quite deserted at this hour of the evening, and when he left me at the door of the hotel I had barely time to talk a little to W. before dressing for dinner. He was rather wondering what had become of me. He had had a delightful afternoon with his friends. They had walked along the banks of the Tiber on the way to Ostia. He says there are all sorts of interesting things to be found there—tombs, bits of Roman wall and pavements, traces of old quays, and subterraneous passages all mixed up with modern improvements. The City of Rome is spending a great deal of money in building new quays, bridges, etc., on a most elaborate and expensive scale. I should think the sluggish old Tiber would hardly know itself flowing between such energetic, busy banks.

They drove out for some distance on the road to Ostia, but only got as far as the Monte di San Paolo (I think), from where they had a fine view of the sea, and the pine forests. I am sorry they hadn't time to go on, but we must leave something for the next time. I wonder when it will be.

Gert's dinner was pleasant—Mrs. Bruce, Comte Palfy, Father Smith, and Mr. Hooker. They all talked hard. Mr. Hooker has lived so many years in Rome that he has seen all its transformations; says the present busy, brilliant capital is so unlike the old Rome of his days that he can hardly believe it is the same place. It is incredible that a whole city should have lived so many years in such absolute submission to the Papal Government. In those days there were only two newspapers, each revised at the Vatican and nothing allowed to appear in either that wasn't authorized by the papal court; also the government exercised a paternal right over the jeunesse dorée, and when certain fair ladies with yellow hair and elaborate costumes appeared in the Villa Borghese, or on the Pincio, exciting great admiration in all the young men of the place (and filling the mammas and wives with horror), it was merely necessary to make a statement to the Vatican. The dangerous stranger was instantly warned that she must cross the frontier.

Palfy, too, remembered Rome in the old days, when the long drive along the Riviera in an old-fashioned travelling carriage (before railways were known in these parts) was a thing planned and arranged months beforehand—one such journey was made in a life-time. He said the little villages where they stopped were something awful; not the slightest idea of modern comfort or cleanliness. The ladies travelled with a retinue of servants, taking with them sheets, mattresses, washing materials (there was a large heavy silver basin and jug which always travelled with his family) and batterie de cuisine; also very often a doctor, as one was afraid of fever or a bad chill, as of course any heating apparatus was most primitive. The Italians sat in the sun all day and went to bed when it was dark and cold. One saw the country and the people much better in that way. Now we fly through at night in an express train, and the Rome we see to-day might be Paris, Vienna, or any modern capital. I mean, of course, inside the walls. As soon as one gets out of the gates and on the Campagna one feels as if by instinct all the dead past of the great city.

I told them that in our time, when we lived one summer in the Villa Marconi at Frascati, the arrangements were most primitive. The palace was supposed to be furnished, but as the furniture consisted chiefly of marble statues, benches, and baths—also a raised garden on a level with the upper rooms, opening out of the music-room, the door behind an enormous white marble statue of some mythological celebrity—it didn't seem very habitable to our practical American minds. There were beds and one or two wash-stands, also curtains in one room, but as for certain intimate domestic arrangements they didn't exist; and when we ventured to suggest that they were indispensable to our comfort we were told, "I principi romani non domandono altro" (Roman princes don't ask for anything more).