Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu

"A reason why we should take it while we can," observed Inness.

The Professor and Miss Graves now appeared in sight, for we had come across from the cape in accidental little groups, and these two had found themselves one of them. As the Professor had his sack of specimens and Miss Graves her conglomerate, we thought they looked well together; but the Professor evidently did not think so, for he immediately joined Janet.

"I do not know that there is any surer sign of advancing age in a man than a growing preference for the society of very young girls – mere youth per se, as the Professor himself would say," said Mrs. Clary to me in an undertone.

Meanwhile the Professor, unconscious of this judgment, was telling Janet that she was standing upon the site of the old Roman station "Lumone," mentioned in Antony's Itinerary, and that the tomb was that of a patrician family.

Mrs. Trescott was impressed by this. She said it was "a pæan moment" for us all, if we would but realize it; and she plucked a fern in remembrance.

One bright day not long after this we went to Mentone's sister city, Roccabruna, a little town looking as if it were hooked on to the side of the mountain. As we passed through the "old town" on our donkeys we met a wedding-party, walking homeward from the church, in the middle of the street. The robust bride, calm and majestic, moved at the head of the procession with her father, her white muslin gown sweeping the pavement behind her. Probably it would have been considered undignified to lift it. The father, a small, wizened old man, looked timorous, and the bridegroom, next behind with the bride's mother, still more so, even the quantity of brave red satin cravat he wore failing to give him a martial air. Next came the relatives and friends, two and two, all the gowns of the women sweeping out with dignity. In truth this seemed to be the feature of the occasion, since at all other times their gowns were either short or carefully held above the dust. There was no music, no talking, hardly a smile. A christening party we had met the day before was much more joyous, for then the smiling father and mother threw from the carriage at intervals handfuls of sugar-plums and small copper coins, which were scrambled for by a crowd of children, while the gorgeously dressed baby was held up proudly at the window.

We were going first to Gorbio. The Gorbio Valley is charming. Of all the valleys, the narrow Val de Menton is the loveliest for an afternoon walk; but for longer excursions, and compared with the valleys of Carrei and Borrigo, that of Gorbio is the most beautiful, principally because there is more water in the stream, which comes sweeping and tumbling over its bed of flat rock like the streams of the White Mountains, whereas the so-called "torrents" of Carrei and Borrigo are generally but wide, arid torrents of stone. We passed olive and lemon groves, mills, vineyards, and millions upon millions of violets. Then the path, which constantly ascended, grew wilder, but not so wild as Inness. I could not imagine what possessed him. He sang, told stories, vaulted over Baker, and laughed until the valley rang again; but as his voice was good and his stories amusing, we enjoyed his merriment. Miss Elaine looked on, I thought, with an air of pity; but then Miss Elaine pitied everybody. She would have pitied Jenny Lind at the height of her fame, and no doubt when she was in Florence she pitied the Venus de' Medici.

We found Gorbio a little village of six hundred inhabitants, perched on the point of a rock, with the ground sloping away on all sides; the remains of its old wall and fortified gates were still to be seen. We entered and explored its two streets – narrow passageways between the old stone houses, whose one idea seemed to be to crowd as closely together and occupy as little of the ground space as possible. Above the clustered roofs towered the ruined walls of what was once the castle, the tower only remaining distinct. This tower bore armorial bearings, which I was trying to decipher, when Verney came up with Janet. "Nothing but those same arms of the Lascaris," he said.

"Why do you say 'nothing but'?" said Janet. "To be royal, and Greek, and have three castles – for this is the third we have seen – is not nothing, but something, and a great deal of something. How I wish I had lived in those days!"

As the Professor was not with us, we knew nothing of the story of Gorbio, and walked about rather uncomfortable and ill-informed in consequence. But it turned out that Gorbio, like the knife-grinder, had no story. "Story? Lord bless you! I have none to tell, sir." Inness, however, had reserved one fact, which he finally delivered to us under the great elm in the centre of the little plaza, where we had assembled to rest. "This peaceful village," he began, "whose idyllic children now form a gazing circle around us, was the scene of a sanguinary combat between the French and Spanish-Austrian armies in 1746."

"Oh, modern! modern!" said Verney from behind (where he was throwing Janet into Gorbio).

"Your pardon," said Inness, with majesty; "not modern at all. In 1746, as I beg to remind you, even the foundation-stones of our great republic were not laid, yet the man who ventures to say that it is not, as a construction, absolutely venerable, from exceeding merit, will be a rash one. In America, Time is not old or slow; he has given up his hour-glass, and travels by express. Each month of ours equals one of your years, each year a century. Therefore have we all a singularly mature air – as exemplified in myself. But to return. Upon this spot, then, my friends, there was once – carnage! The only positive and historical carnage in the neighborhood of Mentone. Therefore all warlike spirits should come to Gorbio, and breathe the inspiring air."

We did not stay long enough in the inspiring air to become belligerent, however, but, on the contrary, went peacefully past a quiet old shrine, and took the path to Roccabruna – one of the most beautiful paths in the neighborhood of Mentone. By-and-by we came to a tall cross on the top of a high ridge. We had seen it outlined against the sky while still in the streets of Gorbio. These mountain-side crosses were not uncommon. They are not locally commemorative, as we first supposed, but seem to be placed here and there, where there is a beautiful view, to remind the gazer of the hand that created it all. Some distance farther we found a still wider prospect; and then we came down into Roccabruna, and spread out our lunch on the battlements of the old castle. From this point our eyes rested on the coast-line stretching east and west, the frowning Dog's Head at Monaco, and the white winding course of the Cornice Road. The castle was on the side of the mountain, eight hundred feet above the sea. Although forming part of the village, it was completely isolated by its position on a high pinnacle of rock, which rose far above the roofs on all sides.

"How these poor timid little towns clung close to and under their lords' walls!" said Baker, with the fine contempt of a young American. "They are all alike: the castle towering above; next the church and the priest; and the people – nowhere!"

"The people were happy enough, living in this air," said Mrs. Clary. "How does it strike you? To me it seems delicious; but many persons find it too exciting."

"It certainly gives me an appetite," I said, taking another sandwich.

Miss Elaine found it "too warm." Miss Graves found it "too cold." Mrs. Trescott, having been made herself again by a glass of the "good little white wine" of Gorbio, said that it was "almost too idealizing." Lloyd remarked that it was not "too anything unless too delightful," and that, for his part, he wished that, with the present surroundings, he might "breathe it forever!" This was gallant. Janet looked at him: he was the only one who had not bowed at her shrine, and it made her pensive. Meanwhile Inness's gayety continued; he made a voyage of discovery through the narrow streets below, coming back with the legend that he had met the prettiest girl he had seen since his "pretty girl of Arles," whose eyes, "enshrined beside those of Miss Trescott" (with a grand bow), had remained ever since in his "heart's inmost treasury." This, like Baker's L' Annunziata speech, was both un-American and unnecessary in the presence of a second young lady, and I looked at Inness, surprised. But Miss Elaine only smiled on.

The Professor now appeared, having come out from Mentone on a donkey. We immediately became historical. It appeared that the castle upon whose old battlements we were idly loitering was one of the "homes" of the Lascaris, Counts of Ventimiglia, who in 1358 transferred it with its domains to the Grimaldis, Princes of Monaco.

"These Lascaris and Grimaldis seem to have played at seesaw for the possession of this coast," said Baker. "Now one is up, and now the other, but never any one else."

But Janet was impressed. "Again the Lascaris!" she murmured.

"What is your idea of them?" said Verney.

"I hardly know; but of course they were knights in armor; and of course, being Greeks, they had classic profiles. They were impulsive, and they were generous; but if any one seriously displeased them, they immediately ordered him cast into that terrible oubliette we saw below."

"That," said the Professor, mildly, "is only the well." Then, as if to strengthen her with something authentic, he added, "The village was sacked by the Duke of Guise towards the end of the sixteenth century, when this castle was reduced to the ruined condition in which we find it now."

"Happily it is not altogether ruined," said Mrs. Trescott, putting up her eye-glass; "one of the – the apartments seems to be roofed, and to possess doors."

"That," said the Professor, "is a donkey-stable, erected – or rather adapted – later."

"Do the donkeys come up all these stairs?" I said, amused.

"I believe they do," replied the Professor. "Indeed, I have seen them coming up after the day's work is over."

"I am sorry, Janet, but I shall never be able to think of this home of your Lascaris after this without seeing a procession of donkeys coming up-stairs on their way to their high apartments," I said, laughing.

"The procession might have been the same in the days of the Lascaris," suggested Baker.

Roccabruna – brown rock – is an appropriate name for the village, which is so brown and so mixed with and built into the cliff to which it clings that it is difficult to tell where man's work ends and that of nature begins.

"The town was the companion of Mentone in its rebellion against the Princes of Monaco," said the Professor. "Mentone and Roccabruna freed themselves, but Monaco remained enslaved."

"They are all now in France," said Baker.

"Sir!" replied the Professor, with heat, "it is in a much worse place than France that wretched Monaco now finds herself!"

We went homeward down the mountain-side, passing the little chapel of the Madonna della Pausa – a pause being indeed necessary when one is ascending. Here, where the view was finest, there was another way-side cross. Farther on, as we entered the old olive wood below, Margaret dismounted; she always liked to walk through the silver-gray shade; and Lloyd seemed to have adopted an equal fondness for the same tint.

That evening, when we were alone, Margaret explained the secret of Inness's remarkable and unflagging gayety. It seemed that Miss Elaine had, during the day before, confided to Verney – as a fellow-countryman, I suppose – her self-reproach concerning "that poor young American gentleman, Mr. Inness." What should she do? Would he advise her? She must go to some one, and she did not feel like troubling her dear mamma. It was true that Mr. Inness had been with her a good deal, had helped her wind her worsteds in the evening, but she never meant anything – never dreamed of anything. And now, she could not but feel – there was something in his manner that forced her to see – In short, had not Mr. Verney noticed it?

Now I have no doubt but that Verney told her he had "seen" and had "noticed" everything she desired. But in the meanwhile he could not resist confiding the story to Baker, who having been already a victim, was overcome with glee, and in his turn hastened to repeat the tale to Inness.

Inness raged, but hardly knew what to do. He finally decided to become a perfect Catharine-wheel of gayety, shooting off laughter and jokes in all directions to convince the world that he remained heart-whole.

"But it will be of no avail," I said to Margaret, laughing, as I recalled the look of soft pity on Miss Elaine's face all day; "she will think it but the gayety of desperation." Then, more soberly, I added: "Mr. Lloyd told you this, I suppose? You are with him a great deal, are you not?"

"You see that I am, aunt. But it is only because she has not come yet."

"Who?"

"The brighter and younger woman who will take my place." But I did not think she believed it.

On another day we went to Castellare, a little stone village much like Gorbio, perched on its ridge, and rejoicing in an especial resemblance to one of Cæsar's fortified camps. The castle here was not so much a castle as a château; its principal apartment was adorned with frescos representing the history of Adam and Eve. We should not have seen these frescos if it had not been for Miss Graves: I am afraid we should have (there is no other word) shirked them. But Miss Graves had heard of the presence of ancient works of art, and was bent upon finding them. In vain Lloyd conducted her in and out of half a dozen old houses, suggesting that each one was "probably" all that was left of the "château." Miss Graves remained inflexibly unconvinced, and in the end gained her point. We all saw Adam and Eve.

"Why did they want frescos away out here in this primitive little village to which no road led, hardly even a donkey path?" I said.

"That is the very reason," replied Margaret. "They had no society, nothing to do; so they looked at their frescos exhaustively."

"What do those eagles at the corners represent?" said Janet.

"They are the device of the Lascaris," replied the Professor.

"Do you mean to tell me that this was one of their homes also?" she exclaimed. "Let a chair be brought, and all of you leave me. I wish to remain here alone, and imagine that I am one of them."

"Couldn't you imagine two?" said Inness. And he gained his point.

On our way home we found another block in the main street, and paused. We were near what we called the umbrella place – an archway opening down towards the old port; here against the stone wall an umbrella-maker had established his open-air shop, and his scarlet and blue lined parasols and white umbrellas, hung up at the entrance, made a picturesque spot of color we had all admired. This afternoon we were late; it was nearly twilight, and, in this narrow, high-walled street, almost night. As we waited we heard chanting, and through the dusky archway came a procession. First a tall white crucifix borne between two swinging lamps; then the surpliced choir-boys, chanting; then the incense and the priests; then a coffin, draped, and carried in the old way on the shoulders of the bearers, who were men robed in long-hooded black gowns reaching to the feet, their faces covered, with only two holes for the eyes. These were members of the Society of Black Penitents, who, with the White Penitents, attend funerals by turn, and care for the sick and poor, from charitable motives alone, and without reward. Behind the Penitents walked the relatives and friends, each with a little lighted taper. As the procession came through the dark archway, crossed the street, and wound up the hill into the "old town," its effect, with the glancing lights and chanting voices, was weirdly picturesque. It was on its way to the cemetery above.

"Did you ever read this, Mr. Lloyd?" I heard Margaret say behind me, as we went onward towards home: