Dorothy, and Other Italian Stories

The bandage had slipped down, so that Hannibal had only one eye visible. With this eye he appeared to wink.

After lunch the two men went out for a stroll. The roads were gay with the country-folk, celebrating the festa in the Italian fashion by the simple amusement of being together in the open air. The wrinkled faces of the old women were framed in their new red-and-yellow kerchiefs, which were folded over their heads and tied under their chins. Each girl wore a flower in her hair, and this hair was always thick, rising up round the face in a dense mass, no matter how closely the long ends were braided and coiled behind. The men were dressed in their best, but they all carried their jackets folded and tossed over one shoulder.

The younger men were entertaining themselves.

"They will end by slicing us in two at the ankles," said Gray, indignantly, after he had jumped aside three or four times to escape a sharp disk which met them suddenly as they turned a corner, whizzing past them as it flew down the road, almost invisible from its speed.

"It's a game," said Dennison.

"Oh, is it? I thought it was assassination."

Presently they came to a little stone building adorned with a rusty tin cross. On the side towards the road it has a small, iron-barred window, whose glass within is so thickly covered with dust that it looks as if it had been painted yellow. There is a Latin inscription cut in stone over its long-closed door: "Pul – pulsate, et – Knock and it shall be opened to you," translated Gray, making out the words with difficulty.

"Nobody would dare to knock. And the last thing they wish is to have it opened," remarked Dennison. "It is the private chapel of that old villa across the fields, but for the last two hundred years there has been a tomb inside, whose occupant is supposed to rise and come to the window now and then to glare at the passers-by. She was a Countess Alberoni, who had a tragical end, if the legend is true. Her own children are said to have locked her up in that villa with one attendant and the plainest food, until at last, from sheer melancholy, she died. On the other hand, it is added that the world was well rid of her, for a more wicked old woman never lived. Her crimes, however, whatever they were, have not prevented Modesta, I see, from decorating her with the others," he continued. For as they walked on they perceived that a faded shrine, set in the outer wall of the chapel at its eastern end, had been adorned with a long garland made of fresh green leaves and blossoms.

"The others? What others?"

"Your Madonna beauty decorates every way-side shrine within a mile of Casa Colombina on all the principal festas," said Dennison. "She starts out after lunch, carrying a pile of garlands in her arms, and another poised on her head, so that she is like a walking hay-stack."

They now took a narrow track which leads to the valley. This path winds round a small low house, brilliantly pink on the outside, with a dark and gloomy interior.

"There she is now," said Gray, who, looking at everything with the keen attention of a stranger, had discovered the figure of the Casa Colombina servant within. Her back was towards them; she was talking to some one who was not visible from the road. Hearing their footsteps, she turned. And then, as the light from the doorway fell upon her, they saw that she had Hannibal in her arms.

"Put down that ridiculous animal!" called Dennison.

The waitress came out, and, joining in their laughter, placed the dog on the ground. "With his bandages, yes, he does look comical," she said, assentingly. "But it seemed best to give him a breath of fresh air."

"Have you lugged him all the way from the house?" asked Dennison, who had paused to roll two cigarettes. "The dog and the flowers too?"

"It is nothing; lordship knows his gentleness. He lay among them like a lamb."

"But why did you give a wreath to the wicked countess, Modesta?" Dennison went on. "The Signor Gray is astonished at such an action."

"Povera! to be so treated by her own children," answered the Italian; "that seems to me abominable. She was their mother, even if a bad one. And then one feels for her; only on a festa does any one pass that chapel, and so she has very little to see even when she does look out. The master may not know? This is the home of Pietro."

"The idiot boy?"

"The afflicted of God," said Modesta, gently.

The boy, hearing his name, had come shuffling out. He was a repulsive-looking child, but Modesta smoothed his hair. "To me he appears constantly more intelligent," she said, hopefully.

Dennison and his visitor, having lighted their cigarettes, now passed on. The moment their figures had disappeared round a curve the waitress stooped and took up the waiting Hannibal. "To call thee comical, with thy little paw in pain!" she murmured in his ear. "But thou knowest that I did not mean it. 'Twas but politeness for the masters."

The masters went down to Tre Ponti, where they took horses and a rattling phaeton, and went off on one of those quests with whose mild excitements Dennison enlivened his quiet Italian days. This time it was a search for some tapestry, which had been discovered, so it was said, in a villa six miles distant. The villa was one of those which had degenerated, having been used for the last hundred years as a farm-house. During the preceding week an addition had been pulled down, and the demolition had uncovered a window which corresponded to nothing within; further search had revealed a walled-up chamber, and it was this chamber which contained the tapestry. The chamber was there – a small room with a high ceiling. It contained no tapestry; nothing, in fact, but one singular object: a lady's toilet-table with a lace cover, an old mirror, two candlesticks, and various saucers, vials, and boxes. The lace, which was falling to pieces from age, was ordinary in quality; the mirror-frame and the candlesticks were made of metal that imitates bronze; and the saucers, vials, and boxes were of glass that imitates crystal; nothing, therefore, had intrinsic value. Dennison made a small offer for the whole just as it stood, in case the government should not lay claim to the objects.

"It's only for the riddle," he said to his companion, as they drove back to Tre Ponti. "There is a history, of course, and nobody can ever know it; that is the charm; one can fancy anything one pleases. If I get the table, I'll put it in one of the unused bedrooms. And then when there comes a wild windy night, such as we sometimes have in Tuscany, I'll go there after midnight, and see if she don't glide slowly in and look at herself in her old glass."

It was late in the afternoon when they drove through the eastern gate of Three Bridges. Leaving the phaeton at the stable, they strolled about the village for a while before returning to Casa Colombina.

But village is hardly the word. Although Tre Ponti has never contained more than two thousand inhabitants (at present there are but fifteen hundred), it is surrounded by an important stone wall with bastions, and two of the old gateways, massive arched portals, are still in use. The narrow winding streets are paved with broad flag-stones, which reach to the house walls on each side, so that one seems to be following hallways open at the top rather than roads. Nowhere is there an inch of garden; the high blocks stand side by side in solid rows. The only breathing-place is the central square; one side of this piazza is embellished by a palazzo-pubblico, or town-hall, decorated with griffins and armorial bearings. Along another side there is an arcade ornamented with a row of heads by Andrea della Robbia, old women, monks, knights, children, and others, each looking out with life-like expression from a heavy frame of clustered porcelain fruit.

"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.'"