But The Very Gayest Beggar I Remember Was A
Legless Man At The Gate Of The Vatican Museum; The Saddest Was A Sullen
Dwarf On The Way To This Cripple, Whose Gloom A Donative Even Of
Twenty-Five Centessimi Did Not Suffice To Abate.
XII
SUPERFICIAL OBSERVATIONS AND CONJECTURES
It had seemed to me that in the afternoons of the old papal times, so
dear to foreigners who never knew them, I used to see a series of
patrician ladies driving round and round on the Pincio, reclining in
their landaus and shielding their complexions from the November suns of
the year 1864 with the fringed parasols of the period. In the doubt
which attends all recollections of the past, after age renders us
uncertain of the present, I hastened on my second Sunday at Rome in
February, 1908, to enjoy this vision, if possible. I found the Pincio
unexpectedly near; I found the sunshine; I found the familiar winter
warmth which in Southern climates is so unlike the summer warmth in
ours; but the drive which I had remembered as a long ellipse had
narrowed to a little circle, where one could not have driven round
faster than a slow trot without danger of vertigo. I did not find that
series of apparent principessas or imaginable marchesas leaning at their
lovely lengths in their landaus. I found in overwhelming majority the
numbered victorias, which pass for cabs in Rome, full of decent
tourists, together with a great variety of people on foot, but not much
fashion and no swells that my snobbish soul could be sure of. There was,
indeed, one fine moment when, at a retired point of the drive, I saw two
private carriages drawn up side by side in their encounter, with two
stout old ladies, whom I decided to be dowager countesses at the least,
partially projected from their opposing windows and lost in a delightful
exchange, as I hoped, of scandal. But the only other impressive
personality was that of an elderly, obviously American gentleman, in the
solitary silk hat and long frock-coat of the scene. There were other
Americans, but none so formal; the English were in all degrees of
informality down to tan shoes and at least one travelling-cap. The
women's dress, whether they were on foot or in cabs, was not striking,
though more than half of them were foreigners and could easily have
afforded to outdress the Italians, especially the work people, though
these were there in their best.
There was a band-stand in the space first reached by the promenaders,
and there ought clearly to have been a band, but I was convinced that
there was to be none by a brief colloquy between one of the cab-drivers
(doubtless goaded to it by his fair freight) and the gentlest of Roman
policemen, whose response was given in accents of hopeful compassion:
CABMAN: _"Musica, no?"_ (No music?)
POLICEMAN: "_Forse l' avremo oramai"_ (Perhaps we shall have it
presently.)
We did not have it at all that Sunday, possibly because it was the day
after the assassination of the King of Portugal, and the flags were at
half-mast everywhere.
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