Encyclicals of a Traveller: I

[The series of familiar letters commenced in this number of the Atlantic Monthly were written home from Europe to a circle of friends.]

ROME, Monday, December 14, 1868.

DEAR SOULS: —Now we are at housekeeping, and this is my house-warming letter. Didn’t we have a time of it to get a house at all ? O, how easy it looked at first ! Every other house has up its sign, “ Camere Mobiliate ” : we were not at all ambitious ; all we demanded was to have sun in all our rooms, three bedrooms, and a fire in each bedroom. What could be simpler ? How our spirits went down, down, as we climbed up staircase after staircase, and found dark rooms, no stoves, or else a kitchen where the padrona must have the privilege of coming to cook “just a little trifle two or three times a day ” ; or else a rent of one hundred and forty dollars a month. Ah, at the end of the first day we were very meek people, and at the end of the second we were abject! There can’t be many things in this world so bewildering as looking after lodgings in Rome. In the first place, the door into which you enter, at the beginning, looks like the very dirty and neglected entrance to some old warehouse on a wharf, in a city where there has not been any business for a hundred years. You stand there a minute, and say, “O dear !” (especially if you have already been up five or six hundred steps that morning,) “ I do wish they would tell on their cards how many rooms there are ! ” Perhaps we shall find somebody on the third floor who can tell us. Not a bit of it; up flight after flight you crawl; on each floor is one great grim iron door, with a ring and a chain hanging outside. You have no business to pull the ring on any floor but the floor with which your business is ; and if you did, they would n’t know anything about any floor but their own. Each floor is its own house, as much as if it were six miles off from any other floor. When you get up to the one hundred and seventh stair you would be so glad to sit down, but you can’t. They don’t put either chairs or benches in these grim passages ; and the stairs are all stone. You can’t sit on them, not if you are half dead; so you lean up against the wall and get your black cloak all white and cobwebbed, while you wait for the mysterious chain and ring, which you have pulled, to bring forth an answer. Then the great door creaks and opens, and you get breath enough to ask if they have furnished rooms to let, and if there are three bedrooms, with sun and fire. After a little while you learn that it makes no difference whether they have or have not; they always say, “ Sì, sì signora.” Before you learn this, you go in quite gayly, and think you are all right. Then you see one great bedroom with two beds, and one little one, on neither of which the sun has apparently ever shone ; a fine parlor, with stands of artificial roses under high glass cases, no end of china teacups sitting around ; usually about twenty frightful pictures on the walls ; in the diningroom there is a great display of glass and china on the table ; and the Padrone, if he is at home, and the Padrona, and the one or two or three daughters, all down at the heel and down at the neck, and huddled up somehow with pins and strings in the middle, and looking like rag-men and rag-women, begin to talk, all at once, with their tongues and their shoulders and their fingers; and they tell you that the sun shines at some impossible hour of the day, at some impossible angle, into all three rooms ; and that two beds in one bedroom are exactly the same thing, as two bedrooms with a bed in each ; and that their linen and their silver and their furniture are “ so much, so much,” and “ so fine, so fine ” ; and they smile and show white teeth, and their eyes are such a lovely brown-black, that you are in some danger of believing them ; and then if you say that you must have a “free kitchen,”which means simply that they are not to have the use of your tea and sugar and bread, they shrug their shoulders, and look at each other, with such an expression of injury, that you feel like an awful sneak yourself, — just as if you had stolen all your life ; and for all that, you know that you are the honest one, and they steal, and you know the rooms won’t do at all, and you edge along to the door ; and then the faces of the Padrone and the Padrona and the daughters all grow black, and the white teeth go down their throats apparently, they disappear so absolutely and forever ; and as you fairly step out of the door, if you wish to know the true character of the people you might have lived with, turn around quickly and look at the faces which have settled down, behind your back ! This is what we did for two days and a half. We exhausted the list which friends had given us ; then we drove slowly up and down the streets where it would do to live (by the way, there are not more than a dozen of them in all this great city), and looked at the signs, and whenever we saw one which we thought promised the least chance of success, out we got, and up we climbed. In one place we would find a parlor so sunny, so comfortable, that we could not leave it; then the bedrooms were wrong ; in another the bedrooms could be made to answer, but the parlor was a den, and cold as a barn ; then we were taken with great love of a view, or of the blankets, or of the china and glass, which we would have liked to take away with us, to use in the other house, which we still firmly believed was awaiting us somewhere. Then we came upon one quite fine and comfortable and sunny, and then the rent would be at least one hundred and fifty dollars a month, and we would meekly say, “ Troppo,” and go away, followed by pitying looks between the landlord and lady. By the way, I never thought before of the composition of the word “landlord and lady”: no wonder they are so lordly in their ways. At last we found our house. It was my inspiration, and I take great credit to myself; high up on the Via Quattro Fontane (four fountains), just opposite the Barberini Palace, on the corner opposite Miss Hosmer’s house. Think of that! Are n’t we in luck ? Well, it happened oddly that the good people, being modest, “had stuck out “ Piccolo appartamento ” on their sign.

Longingly I had looked at the corner twice, as we neared it, and said to

S-, “ I suppose there is no use in

looking at anything which an Italian calls in the outset ‘ small.’ ”

“ O no,” she said, “not the least.”

So it came to be near night on the third day, and we were still homeless. We were driving back to our hotel and passed this house. Still the same little sign which had seemed all day to have a magic fascination for me ! I said, “ Let us look at it ; it will do no harm.” A strange sort of delight took possession of me as I first trod on the stairs ; they were stone, but clean ; the flights were short, and the halls were comparatively light. Such a beauty as opened the door for us ! Ah, if you could see her ! Just now she came to bring me an egg beaten up in milk, and as she set it on the table, and said, “ Signora,” the grace and gentleness of her motion, the sweetness of her voice, — ah me, I believe I had tears in my eyes to look at her. I never saw just such a human creature before ! Well, the beauty opened the door (she is only a maid of all work, this beauty, our Marianina), and then she called the Padrona, who came, having the same sweet, gentle ways, but looking so ill, so ill. She, poor soul, has had the fever. The rooms were charming,— a parlor on the southeast corner, two windows ; a dining-room, two bedrooms, and such a kitchen, resplendent with copper. But that I ’ll tell you about later. All except the third bedroom, this was our place. How we looked at each other, and went back and forth through the dear six rooms (there was one great dark room), trying to make them count more than they would. I began to feel like the “ fifth kitten,” and think I might as well be drowned. O dear, only three out of you dear twelve will have the least idea what “ fifth kitten ” means ; never mind, I can t help it, perhaps you can find out. Suddenly I said, “ Why need we have a dining-room ? We are not grand ; we shall not entertain any but our own sort; we can have dinner in the parlor, and the dining-room will make a good bedroom.” So it did.

So it does ; and I-sleeps in it, and

here we are ! And now I wonder if I can tell you how the rooms look, and if you will care if I do ; at any rate, it is Roman housekeeping, so you might like to know how we do it. Ah, if you would all come and do likewise! I don’t believe it is in the least “as the Romans do,” though ; poor souls, I have a lurking doubt whether even the Dorias and the Borgheses are half as comfortable as we are. The two Romans who have come to see us go away out into the northeast corner of our little parlor to sit down, and look with dismay at our great wood-fire, and say,

“ O, thank you, I will sit here ; we do not have fires.” “ I think them ex-

queesetely beautiful,” said Signor L-,

the other day, meaning to be very polite, “but I find them very hot!” I really think he supposed we kept our fire for ornament, and endured the discomfort of the heat as the price of the pretty display. But this is not telling you about the house ; only, from this you will see that we have wood-fires. Ay, that we do, in the parlor and in two of the bedrooms ; mine crackles at this moment as lustily as if it were of Vermont maple, instead of little round sticks of I don’t know what, but something quite worthless and small, which I amuse myself with by building it up into cob-houses on the hearth, and then the fire trips up from side to side and in and out, like an acrobat. Well, well, now I will be exact, and describe a thing or two. You see this old Rome goes to one’s head, and it is not easy to keep a steady hand.

Firstly, comes our parlor ; it is cosey, and that is a rare thing here ; it is long rather than square, and it has one window to the northeast and one to the east; we make much of the east window, for out of it we see such lovely red-tiled roofs and a bit of an orangegarden high up above the roofs, and a whole cypress-tree; into it comes straight sun, and that is worth solid gold, inches deep, for every inch that it covers on our carpet. We don’t spread down any Cranford papers! not we ! Our northeast window looks out unterrified on the Barberini Palace. There is the lovely, sad Beatrice, who will be my friend in rainy days ; I have not sat with her yet, because there has been no rainy day when I dared to go out ; and on the pleasant days there is always some artist or other copying her. which I should so dislike that I could not see her well. Clouds I think could not cut off so much light as one man.

At first our parlor had so much glass case and stack of flowers and marbletop table, that we did not know what to do ; now it has only two marble-topped affairs, and they are covered with books; then there is a marvellous square dining-table which can be stretched into any size, and I firmly believe also into any shape; I haven’t yet seen it in an octagon, but I expect to. As soon as I have learned the Italian verbs, I shall attack this table and find out how it goes. Then we have great armchairs, called poltronas; (why ? for lazy cowards who shirk sitting up straight, I suppose ;) and a sofa and common chairs innumerable; and all these are green and the paper is green, and the carpet is green and red. The mantel is covered with red velvet, with a deep fringe ; on it is a pretty clock under a glass case, and a shepherd and shepherdess, who hold candles. There were two china vases, big as hay-stacks, but we banished them to our art gallery in the dark room ! Our parlor would delight us unqualifiedly, if it were not for the pictures. We have banished so much of the sweet Padrona’s china and glass finery, that we have not the heart to ask to have all the pictures carried off; I think we shall do it ultimately, though, and are wasting our strength in this interval of martyrdom; — it is incredible till you have seen it, this profusion of awful pictures. Out of the parlor opens a

bedroom, Miss C-’s; high iron

bedstead, lace curtained, handsome dressing-table, wardrobe with full-length glass, bureau, etc., all marble-topped ; then comes the dark room ; ah, chaos itself! trunks, chairs,—there! I mean to go this minute and count the chairs in our house. There are thirty-two, in this tiny little house ; it is very droll to see so many ; only four small rooms and thirty-two chairs, I am not certain that there are not more, for I could not count those very well which were piled up in stacks in the dark room. Everything is of the nicest quality, solid woods, black-walnut or mahogany, with seats of morocco or green or crimson damask. But now I shall tell you no more about furniture, excepting of my writing-desk ; this alone proves that the house was predestined for us. Miss

F-says she never saw such a thing

in a Roman house before ; I never sat to write at anything half so fine ; solid mahogany, quite finely carved, four drawers, then a desk covered with green morocco which lets down, and reveals a shelf with a looking-glass back, and five drawers (one with a false bottom ; how I pine for a secret!); then above this another drawer, and on the top, room for many of my dear books, if they ever, ever get here. This stands across one corner of my sunny little bedroom, and one window on my right hand opens on a little ledge called a balcony, and looks out on the wall of the Quirinal. Ought I not to write to you better than I shall from such a corner as this ?

Now I must tell you about our kitchen. This is, after all, the crowning glory of this wonderful little “apartment,” our house. Such sun as lies in our kitchen, two windows full ! and such copper as it shines on ! They must have made ready for a minute prince and princess, who would give dinners to retinues of small people in the little dining-room ; twelve shining copper casserolas, all sizes, up to big ones so big an orchard could be made into apple-sauce in them ; copper jars with handles, copper basins, copper kettles, all hanging on the wall in the sun ; all new, shining like mirrors ; white wooden table, solid log, on legs, to pound beefsteak on ; I think the log must have come from America ; it is huge and looks like hickory. Ah, but the place for the fire ! — I don’t believe I can tell you how odd it is. Every time I go into the kitchen, I stand and look and look at it, and Marianina comes in and finds me, and looks so anxious, because she is afraid something is wrong. Imagine the biggest range you ever saw, only not a range at all, just a great stone table with an arch under it and a chimney above it ; you can look right up the chimney; all the steam from things you boil goes up this big chimney. You keep the charcoal in this arch under your stone table, and you build a fire on your stone table, anywhere you like, and then there is a little square hole on one side, and you fill that with hot coals from your fire, and set your teakettle on them ; and then you put a great gridiron above the whole of your fire, or half of your fire, and set your copper casserolas on the gridiron, and that is the way you cook. People who know say great and delicious dinners can be gotten up by these fires on these tables ; we don’t cook our dinners ; they come in a tin box on a man’s head, and are smoking hot when we get them ; so we only try the wonderful table-cooking to make our tea, and boil our rice, and bake our potatoes for breakfast ; but we are going to stew pears, and make oatmeal

pudding, and L-and I have our eye

on a surprise of a hash some morning, if we have a chopping-tray, which we have n’t yet remembered to find out. I must not forget our well; that is in the kitchen too, and it has a door to it, a little square door, black like the door to an oven ; and it is close to the stone table and chimney, so I said,” Of course this is the oven ”; and I popped my head in, — such a stream of cold air ! and a slender iron chain, and a dark, wonderful place, which did n’t seem to begin or end. Then I looked up and I saw the sky ; and I looked down, and way, way down, near China I should think, — or is it you who are at bottom now? — there was a gleam of sunshine on water ; then I drew my head out, and there stood the Padrona laughing hard. How this water is carried about I do not yet understand ; but there it is, ready and flowing, day and night; sun on it by day, and stars by night, and it comes from the fountain of Trevi. So we, of all people in Rome, are sure to get so spell-bound that we shall return and return, since we not only drink once, but daily of the charmed water ; and not only drink it daily, but bathe in it daily! From each story in this house opens a little black door into this secret wellturret. Many times a day I hear the chain clinking up and down, as the people above draw water.

Now one thing more is really part of our house. It is on the floor above ; a little open loggia, out-doors room, where, when it is warmer, we shall sit and study and work ; this is over our parlor, so looks down on the palace, and off over the roofs ; to the east and north it has a railing, and rows of geraniums and orange-trees in pots around it, and chairs more than we need. This is the best thing of all. perhaps.

Upon this upper floor live our sweet Padrona and her husband and little girl. The husband is a master-mason, and his name is Biagio Frontoni; the Padrona is Vittoria, and the little girl who has, like two thirds of the lucky little girls in Rome, the lovely low broad brow and straight nose and curved lips on which mothers here look all their days, is called Erminia. Erminia owns four hens and a cock ; and they live very happily on corn up five flights of stairs, and never go out. All the money for the eggs is Erminia’s, and we are so sorry that we don't eat a great many. I take one every noon, beaten up in milk, partly for love of Erminia. Yesterday Marianina came running at eleven o’clock into the parlor, and, talking very fast, just as if I could understand her, laid one of two snow-white eggs against my cheek so that I might feel how warm it was ! not more than half a minute old I should say ! Then, seeing that I was so pleased with that, she darted off, and in a minute more came back with the very hen cuddled under her arm, as quiet as a kitten ! The hen looked as if she must be purring. I dare say she was — in Italian, which I don’t understand.

Now what remains for the housewarming, except to tell you what we have to eat ? Soup, roast-beef, or lamb, or mutton, with potatoes ; a chicken or a pair of pigeons, with cauliflower, or spinach, or celery ; one dish of dolci for dessert; sometimes boiled rice, with wonderful sauce made of raspberry jelly ; sometimes puffy pie, which people who eat pie would like ; sometimes charlotte russe; sometimes stewed pears with raisins, very delicious ; always four courses. This all comes in a tin box on a man’s head from a restaurant, and we pay for it daily only seven francs ; always there is meat enough left for our breakfast and lunch the next day. Then when we add Graham bread from the English bakery, almost as good as home-made, and butter fresh each day, a bottle of cream each morning, and oranges and apples by dozens, it is plain that we are feasting.

How much does it cost us ? Ah, we don’t yet know ; we are a little afraid that when we add all up at the end of the month, we shall be constrained to decide not to eat two oranges apiece at every meal any longer. But just now we don’t count costs. The rent of our house, with the service of the beauty Marianina, who does all we want done in doors and out, is seventy-six scudi a month, about eighty-one dollars and fifty cents. The dinners cost us about forty-five dollars a month, — about forty-three dollars a month each, this makes, all told—and we hope to get in the wood and the oil and the bread and the butter and the cream and the oranges, etc., within twenty dollars a month more (for each). This is not very cheap living, but then it is Rome. If we had come earlier, we could have found cheaper rooms ; and if it had been last winter instead of this, everything would have been cheaper still ; but if gold will only “ stay put,” or not get above 1.35, we shall not grumble at paying sixty-five dollars a month for such life as this. Now what will there be to tell you next month, since I have told you all this now, and I am under bonds never to write about ruins ? We shall see ; perhaps it will be Ostia, after all ; for if we go down into those depths with Signor L-, the archæol-

ogist, who promises to take us, I think there will be something worth telling, in spite of its being ruins! If I do not hear regularly each month from you all, I shall write no more. How shall I know you care to hear ? How shall I know you are alive ? God bless you all. Good by.

H. H.