The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862

'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':

'He had a bull-dog of the English breed, oh!
More savage than all others that we've seen, oh!
Close at his side it always walked, indeed, oh!
And never barked! but then his bite was keen, oh!
When on some poor man straight he sprung, take heed, oh!
His soul from body quickly fled, I ween, oh!
Because with cruel, gnashing teeth he tore, oh!
Him all to pieces, in a manner sore, oh!'

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.

THE MYSTERIOUS IN ART

They were in the presence of a man with flowing hair, flowing beard, and flowing language, in a studio, all light from which was excluded by heavy curtains, except enough to display an easel on which was placed a painting, a background of dark blue where were many apparently spider and crow-tracks.

'Those who in the profundity of their darkness incline to the belief that the vitality of art, butterfly-like, has fled from this sunny world, have made the biggest kind of a mistake,' said Mr. Artaxerxes Phlamm, the Mystic Artist, to Caper. The hit was evidently intended for Rocjean, but that descendant of the Gauls, for some reason, did not smite back again; he contented himself with the remark:

'Art is long.'

'Yes, sir,' continued Mr. Phlamm, 'not only it has length, but breadth, breadth, broadness—it extends from—yes—from—pole to pole.'

'Like a clothes-line,' said Caper.

'Ah!' continued Phlamm, with a pickled smile, 'Fancy, ever Fancy, but it is Imagination that, as it were, brings man to a level with his destiny and elevates him to the Olympium hights of the True, and all that rises much above the meedyochre. But I must not forget that this is your first visit to me studeeyoh. The painting on the easel is a view of Venice on the Grand Canal.'

'But,' said Rocjean, 'I do not see the canal.'

'When you are gazing at the stars do you see your boots?' asked Phlamm.

'I always do,' spoke Caper quickly, 'always gaze at 'em at night—smoke a cigar—put my feet higher than my head—sit in a chair—stars reflected in boots—big thing!'

'You are full of life and spirits, Caper,' continued Phlamm, 'full of 'em; but Rocjean is more serious, more imbued with his nobil calling. My illustration, as he understands, would convey the idea that such a thing as foreground in a painting is false; it's a sham, it's a delusion, and all that. It may do for pre-Raffleites, but for a man who looks Naychure in the face, he sees her operating diversely, and he works according. I repeat it again, when I was on the Grand Canal in Venice, I didn't see the Grand Canal.'

'Neither did I,' spoke Caper, 'we're just alike; I kept my head all the time out of the gondola-window looking for pretty girls—and I saw them!'

'May I ask why you dead-color your canvas blue, and then make your drawing in black outline?' asked Rocjean.

'What is the color of the sky? Is it not blue? Is not blue a cold color; is it not the negative to the warmth, the balance to the scales, the one thing needed on which to rear the glorious fabric that Naychure reveals to the undimmed vision of man? I know your answer, and I refute it. I have studied Art from its roots, and now I'm in the branches, and I grasp the fruit. My manner is peculiar—I have no patent for it—I ask for none. The illimitable passes the legitimate, and the sw-word is carried by the hero—for me the bruzh, the paint-bruzh. You see that painting before you—it is my child—I lavish on it my intentions—I am going to work three years on that picture!'

'I bet you a new hat you sell it, and a dozen more, and send 'em off before six months. You're all the rage now since you sold old Goldburg a picture,' quoth Caper.

'I don't bet, I am opposed to betting. But look that picture of mine in the face, in the face! Here is a finished painting, The Lake of Zurich; see those clouds floating mistily away into the far distance—there's atmosphere for you—there's air! You can't cut those clouds into slices of cheese as you can them of that humbug of a Cloud Lowrain. Cloud Lowrain! he's a purty painter! Naychure is my teacher. I go out mornings and hear the jackdaws chatter, and see trees and all that; sometimes I walk around in a garden for ten minutes and commune with Naychure—that's the way to do it. Look at clouds before you paint 'em—I know it's hard when the sun's in your eyes, but do it—I've spent a week at a time out-doors, like Wordsworth and the great, the grand, the colossial Ruzking.'

'I like that water,' said Rocjean, alluding to that of the painting.