The Orchard Fell Into
Other Hands, And Was Parted Off Many Years Ago; But There Used To
Be One Attached
To the house--or at all events there may have,
been,--and the hat (Cappello) the ancient cognizance of the
Family,
may still be seen, carved in stone, over the gateway of the yard.
The geese, the market-carts, their drivers, and the dog, were
somewhat in the way of the story, it must be confessed; and it
would have been pleasanter to have found the house empty, and to
have been able to walk through the disused rooms. But the hat was
unspeakably comfortable; and the place where the garden used to be,
hardly less so. Besides, the house is a distrustful, jealous-
looking house as one would desire to see, though of a very moderate
size. So I was quite satisfied with it, as the veritable mansion
of old Capulet, and was correspondingly grateful in my
acknowledgments to an extremely unsentimental middle-aged lady, the
Padrona of the Hotel, who was lounging on the threshold looking at
the geese; and who at least resembled the Capulets in the one
particular of being very great indeed in the 'Family' way.
From Juliet's home, to Juliet's tomb, is a transition as natural to
the visitor, as to fair Juliet herself, or to the proudest Juliet
that ever has taught the torches to burn bright in any time. So, I
went off, with a guide, to an old, old garden, once belonging to an
old, old convent, I suppose; and being admitted, at a shattered
gate, by a bright-eyed woman who was washing clothes, went down
some walks where fresh plants and young flowers were prettily
growing among fragments of old wall, and ivy-coloured mounds; and
was shown a little tank, or water-trough, which the bright-eyed
woman--drying her arms upon her 'kerchief, called 'La tomba di
Giulietta la sfortunata.' With the best disposition in the world
to believe, I could do no more than believe that the bright-eyed
woman believed; so I gave her that much credit, and her customary
fee in ready money.
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