there was next morning nothing to recall the dismal weather of the day before except the deep mud of the highway and my garments, still dripping wet when i drew them on. the vine-covered hillsides and rolling plains below, the lizards basking on every rock and ledge, peasant women plodding barefooted along the route gave to the land an aspect far different from that of the valley of the rh?ne. it was hard to realize that the open fields and chilling night winds of switzerland were not hundreds of miles away, but just behind the flanking range.
the french and german that had so long served me must now give place to my none too fluent italian. in the grey old town of domo d’ossola i halted at a booth to buy a box of matches.
“avete allumette?” i demanded of the brown-visaged matron in charge.
i have always had an unconquerable feeling that the french “allumette” ought really to be an italian word; but my attempt to introduce it into that language failed dismally.
“cose sono allumette?” croaked the daughter of italy, with such overdrawn sarcasm that it was all too evident that she understood the term, but did not propose to admit any knowledge of the despised francese tongue.
“fiammiferi, voglio dire,” i replied, recalling the correct word.
“ah! ecco!” cried the matron, handing me a box with her blandest smile.
i quickly discovered, too, that the language of the divine comedy was not the one in which to make known my simple wants. but being more familiar with the phraseology of the famous florentine than with the speech of the masses, i found myself, in those first days in the peninsula, prone to converse in poetics despite a very prosaic temperament. as when, in the outskirts of domo d’ossola, i turned to a chestnut vendor at a fork in the road, and pointing up one of the branches, demanded:
44“ah!—er—perme si va nella città dol—confound it, no, i mean is this the road to varese?”
to which the native, to whose lips was mounting a “non capisc’” at sound of the dantesque phrase, answered in a twinkling:
“di s’guro, s’gnor’, semp’ dritt!”
across northern italy, almost in a straight line, are scattered several famous cities, all invaded by the broad highway that leads from the simplon to venice. most beautiful among them is pallanza, a village paradise on the shore of lago maggiore, in the lakeside groves of which i should have tarried longer but for the recollection of how wide the world is to the impecunious wayfarer. i fished out, therefore, from the bin of a second-hand book dealer a ragged baedeker in french, and, thus armed with a more trustworthy source of information than dull-eyed peasants, boarded the steamer that connected the broken ends of the highway. during the short journey a band of english tourists sauntered about on the deck above me, and my native tongue, unheard since paris and not to be heard again until—well, until long after, sounded almost foreign to my ears.
beyond varese next morning, within sight of five snow-capped peaks of the range i had crossed three days before, i espied from afar the white sun-shields of two officers, armed with muskets, and marching westward. anticipating a quizzing, i turned aside from the sun-scorched route and awaited their coming in a shaded spot. strange to say, in this land burdened with a tax on salt and an unholy visitation of soldiers and priests, vagrants enjoy far more liberty than in france. thus far the indifference of the gendarmerie had been so marked that i had come to feel neglected. yet tramps abounded. this very freedom makes italy a favorite land among the handwerksgesellen of switzerland, germany, and austria, many of whom i had already met, marching southward full of wanderlust, or crawling homeward with bitter stories of the miseries of the peninsula.
the carabinieri, spick and span of uniform, their swords rattling egotistically on the roadway, drew near, and, stepping into the shade, opened a conversation that needs no translation.
“di dove siete?”
“di america, dei stati uniti.”
“di america! ma! e dove andate?”
“a venezia.”
“ma! come! a piedi?”
“di siguro. come volete che fare?”
45“ma! perche andare a venezia?”
“sono marinaio.”
“ah! marinaio! bene!” and without even calling for my papers they strutted on along the highway.
a wonderful word is this italian “ma.” let not the uninitiated suppose that the term designates a maternal ancestor. but—and that is its real meaning—it is a useful vocable and like all useful things is greatly overworked. if an italian of the masses wishes to express disgust, surprise, resignation, depression of spirits, or any one of a score of other impressions, he has merely to say “ma” with the corresponding accentuation and timbre and his hearers know his opinion exactly. it takes the place of our “all right!” “hurry up!” “quit it!” “let ’er go!” “the devil he did!” “rot!” “dew tell!” “cuss the luck!” “nuff said!” “d—n it!” and there its meanings by no means cease.
poverty stalks abroad in italy. even in this richer northern section it required no telescope to make out its gaunt and furrowed features. ragged children quarrelled for the possession of an apple-core thrown by the wayside; the rolling fields were alive with barefooted women toiling like demon-driven serfs. a sparrow could not have found sustenance behind the gleaners. in wayside orchards men armed with grain-sacks stripped even the trees of their leaves; for what purpose was not evident, though the beds to which i was assigned in village inns suggested a possible solution of the problem.
the peasant of these parts possesses three beasts of burden: a team of gaunt white oxen—or cows—an undersized ass, and his wife. of the three, the last is most useful. the husbandman does not load his hay on wagons; a few blades might fall by the wayside. he ties it carefully in small bundles, piles them high above the baskets strapped on the backs of his helpmeet, and drives her off to the village, often miles distant. they are loads which the american workman would refuse to carry—so does the italian for that matter; but the highway is animate with what look, at a distance, like wandering haystacks, from beneath which, on nearer approach, peer women, or half-grown girls, whose drawn and haggard faces might have served as models to those artists who have depicted on canvas the beings of dante’s hell.
a traveler, ignorant of italian, wandering into como at my heels on that sweltering afternoon, would have been justified in supposing that the advance agent of a circus had preceded him. had he taken the 46trouble to engage an interpreter, however, he would have learned that a more serious catastrophe had befallen. the very night before a longed-hoped-for heir to the throne of vittore emanuele had dropped into his reserved seat on the neck of the italian tax-payer. on the city gate, on house-walls everywhere, on the very fa?ade of the cathedral, great, paste-sweating placards announced the casuality in flaunting head-lines, and a greater aggregation of adjectives than would be required in our own over-postered land to call public attention to the merits of chow chow chewing gum, or the yum yum burlesque company. worst of all, the manifesto ended, not with expressions of condolence to the proletariat, but with a command to swear at once loyalty and fealty to “il principe di piemonte.” everywhere jostling groups were engrossed in spelling out the proclamation; but it was quite possible to pass through the streets of como without being trampled under foot by its citizens in their mad rush to carry out the royal order.
nightfall found me in quest of a lodging in pusiano, a lakeside village midway between como and lecco. it was no easy task. the alberghi of italy—but why generalize? they are all tarred with the same stick. the proprietor, then, of the pusiano hostelry, relying for his custom on those who know every in and out of the town, had not gone to the expense of erecting a sign. i found, after long and diligent search, the edifice that included the public resort under its roof; but as the inn had no door opening on the street, i was still faced with the problem of finding the entrance. of two dark passages and a darker stairway before me, it was a question which was most suggestive of pitfalls set for unwary travelers, and of dank, underground dungeons. i plunged into one of the tunnels with my hands on the defensive; which was fortunate, for i brought up against a stone wall. the second passage ended as abruptly. i approached the stairway stealthily; stumbled up the stone steps, over a stray cat and a tin pan, and into the common room of the pusiano inn—common because it served as kitchen, dining-room, parlor, and office.
my wants made known, the proprietor half rose to his feet, sat down again, and motioned me to a seat. i took a place opposite him on one of the two benches inside the fire-place, partly because it had been raining outside, but chiefly on account of an absence of chairs that left me no choice in the matter. shrouded in silence i filled my pipe. the landlord handed me a glowing coal in his fingers and dropped back on his bench without once subduing his stare. his wife 47wandered in and placed several pots and kettles around the fire that toasted our heels. still not a word. i leaned back and, gazing upward, watched as much of the smoke as could find no other vent pass up the chimney. now and then a drop of rain fell with a hiss on pan or kettle.
“not nice weather,” grinned the landlord, and the ice thus broken, we were soon engaged in animated conversation. too animated in fact, for in emphasizing some opinion mine host had the misfortune to kick over a kettle of boiling macaroni and was banished from the chimney corner by a raging spouse. being less given to pedal gesticulation, i kept my place, and strove to answer the questions which the exile fired at me across the room.
by meal time several natives had dropped in, and our party at table grew garrulous and in time so numerous that to serve us became a serious problem to the hostess, who was neither lithe nor quick of movement. the supper began with una minestra, a plate of soup containing some species of macaroni and, as usual in these cheap alberghi, several species of scrap-iron. then a bit of meat was doled out, somewhat to my surprise; for the price of this article is so high in italy that a stew of kidneys, liver, sheep’s head, or fat-covered entrails is often the only offering. he who has the temerity and a heavy enough purse to order a cutlet or a bistecca in such an inn is looked upon with awe and envy as long as he remains. i seldom had either.
following the meat dish—it is never served with it—came a bowl of vegetables, then a bit of fruit and a nibble of cheese for each of us. wine, of course, had been much in evidence; the italian has no conception of a meal without his national drink. the wayfarer may call for nothing to eat but the three-cent minestra, and la signora serves it as cheerily as a dinner at one lira; but let him refuse to order wine, and her sympathy is forever forfeited. when drowsiness fell upon me the hostess led the way to an airy, spacious room, its bed boasting a lace canopy, and its coarse sheets remarkably white in view of the fact that the italian housewife does her work in the village brook, and never uses hot water. such labor is cheap in the peninsula and for all this luxury i paid less than ten cents.
early next day i pushed on toward lecco. a light frost had fallen during the night, and the peasants, alarmed at this first breath of winter, had sent into the vineyards every man, woman, and child capable of labor. the pickers worked feverishly. all day women plodded from the fields to the roadside with great buckets of grapes to be 48dumped into hogsheads on waiting ox-carts. men, booted or shod with wooden clogs, jumped now and then into the barrels and stamped the grapes down. once full, the receptacles were covered with strips of dirty canvas, the contadino mounted his cart, turned his oxen into the highway, and fell promptly asleep. arrived at the village, he drew up before the chute of the communal wine-press and shoveled his grapes into a slowly-revolving hopper, from which, crushed to an oozy pulp, they were run into huge vats and left to settle.
halting for a morning lunch in the shadow of the statue of manzoni, i rounded that range of mountains, so strangely resembling a saw, which shelters lecco from the east wind, and continuing through the theater of action of “i promessi sposi,” gained bergamo by nightfall. beyond that city a level highway set an unchanging course across a vast, grape-bearing plain, watered by a network of canals. the alps retired slowly to the northward until, at brescia, only a phantom range wavered in the haze of the distant horizon.
about the time of my arrival in italy, a strike had been declared in milan. the milanese motormen had refused to groom their horses or something of the sort. once started, the movement was rapidly growing general and widespread. the newspapers bubbled over with it, the air about me was surcharged with raging arraignments of capitalistic iniquities. strikes and lock-outs, however, were no affairs to trouble the peace of a foot-traveler. when trains ceased to run, i marched serenely on through clamoring groups of stranded voyagers; when the barbers closed their shops, i decided to raise a beard. the butchers joined the movement and i smiled with the indifference of one who had subsisted for weeks chiefly on bread.
the bakers of northern italy concoct this important comestible in loaves of about the size and durability of baseballs. serving in that capacity there is good reason to believe that one of them would remain unscathed at the end of a league game, though the score-book recorded many a three-bagger and home-run. still, hard loaves soaked in wine, or crushed between two wayside rocks were edible, in a way; and, as long as they were plentiful, i could not suffer for lack of food.
a few miles beyond brescia, however, the strike became a matter of personal importance. at each of the bakeries of a grumbling village i was turned away with the cry of:—
“pane non ch’è! the strike! the bakers have joined the strike and no more bread is made!”
49to satisfy that day’s appetite i was reduced to “paste,” a mushy mess of macaroni; and at a verona inn i was robbed of half my sleep by the discussion of this new phase of the situation, that roared in the kitchen until long after midnight.
i was returning across the piazza next morning, from an early view of the picturesque bridges and the ancient colosseum of verona, when i fell upon a howling mob at the gateway of the city hall. joining the throng, i soon gained an inner courtyard, to find what seemed to be half the population of verona quarreling, pushing, and scratching in a struggle to reach the gate of a large wicket that shut off one end of the square. behind it, just visible above the intervening sea of heads, appeared the top of some massive instrument, and the caps of a squad of policemen. i inquired of an excited neighbor the cause of the squabble. he glowered at me and howled something in reply, the only intelligible word of which was “pane” (bread). i turned to a man behind me. he took advantage of my movement to shove me aside and crowd into my place, at the same time vociferating “pane!” i tried to oust the usurper. he jabbed me twice in the ribs with his elbows, and again roared “pane.” in fact, everywhere above the howl and blare of the multitude, one word rang out clear and sharp—“pane! pane! pane!” sad experiences of the day before, and the anticipation of the long miles of highway before me, had aroused my interest in that commodity. i dived into the human whirlpool and set out to battle my way towards the vortex.
with all its noise and bluster, an italian crowd does not know the rudiments of football. even the wretch who had dispossessed me of my first vantage-ground was far behind when i reached the front rank and paused to survey the scene of conflict. inside the wicket a dozen perspiring policemen were guarding several huge baskets of that baseball bread already mentioned. beyond them stood the instrument that had attracted my attention—a pair of wooden scales that looked fully capable of giving the avoirdupois of an ox. still further on, an officer, whose expression suggested that he was recording nominations of candidates to fill the king’s seat, presided over a ponderous book, a pen the size of a stiletto behind each ear, and one resembling a young bayonet in his hand.
one by one the citizens of verona shot through a small gate into the enclosure from the surging multitude outside as from a catapult; to be brought up with a round turn by the shouted question, “pound or two pounds?” once weighed out, the desired number of loaves 50traveled rapidly from hand to hand on one side of the official line; while the applicant, struggling to keep pace with them on the other, paused before the registering clerk to answer several pertinent personal questions, corralled his purchase at the table of the receiving teller, and made his escape as best he could.
almost before i had time to study the workings of this system, the press of humanity behind sent me spinning through the gate. “two pounds!” i shouted, as i swept by the scales en route for the book. just in front of me a gaunt creature paused and gave his residence as florence. “no bread for you!” roared every officer within hearing; policemen, sergeants, and clerks, in a rousing chorus, “only bread for veronese! get out of here!” and, impelled by two official boots, the stranger stood not on the order of his going.
that florentine was a god-send to me. in my innocence i had already opened my mouth to shout “americano” to his self-complacency behind the volume, and, had that fateful word escaped me, i should have gone “paneless” through the long hours of a long day.
“residenza?” shouted the registrar, as i entered his field of vision.
“verona, signore.”
“professione?”
“calzolaio, signore.”
“street and number.”
i remembered the name of one street and tacked on a number haphazard.
“bene! va!” an official hand pushed me unceremoniously towards the teller. i dropped ten soldi, gathered up my bread, and departed by the further wicket-gate down a flagstone alley.
let him who has not tried it take my word that to carry two pounds of edible baseballs in his arms is no simple task. a loaf rolled in the gutter before i had advanced a dozen paces. the others squirmed waywardly in my grasp. with both hands amply occupied, i was reduced to the indignity of squatting on the pavement to fill my pockets, and even then a witless observer would have taken me for an itinerant juggler. never since leaving detroit had i posed as a philanthropist, but the burden of bread called for drastic measures; i must either be charitable or wasteful.
he who longs to give alms in italy has not far to look for a recipient of his benefaction. i glanced down the passageway, and my 51eyes fell on a beggar of forlornly mournful aspect crouched in a gloomy doorway. with a benignant smile i bestowed upon him enough of my load with which to play the american national game among his confrères until the season closed. the outcast wore a sign marked, “deaf and dumb.” either he had picked up the wrong placard in sallying forth, or had been startled out of his r?le by the munificence of the gift. for as long as a screeching voice could reach me i was deluged with more blessings, to be delivered by the virgin mary; her son; every pope, past, present, or to come; or any saint, dead, living, or unborn, who had a few stray ones about him; than i could possibly have found use for.
i plodded on towards vincenza. all that day the hard-earned loaves, which i dissolved in a glass of wine at village inns, aroused the envy of pessimistic groups gathered to curse the strike in general and that of the bakers in particular.
when morning broke again i summoned courage to test the third-class accommodations of italy, and took train from vincenza to padua. at least, the ticket i purchased bore those two names, though the company hardly lived up to the printed contract thereon. we started from somewhere off in the woods to the west of vincenza and, at the end of several hours of jolting and bumping, not excused, certainly, by the speed of the train, were set down in the center of a wheat field, which the guards informed us, in blatant voices, was padua. i had a faint recollection of having heard somewhere that padua boasted buildings and streets, like other cities. it was possible, of course, that the source of my information had been untrustworthy; i am nothing if not gullible. but fixed impressions are not easily effaced, and i wandered out through the sequestered station to whisper my absurd delusion to the first passerby.
“padova!” he snorted, “ma! di siguro! certainly this is padua! follow this road for a kilometer. just before you come in sight of a whitewashed pig-sty turn to the left, walk sempre dritt’, and the city cannot escape you.”
i set out with the inner sense of having been “done” by the railway company, but the good man’s directions proved accurate and brought me in due time to the city gate.
the italian stammers two excuses for this enchanting custom of banishing his stations to the surrounding meadows. if the city admitted railways within her walls—and every town larger than a community of goat-herds is walled—how could the officials of the 52octroi collect the duty on a cabbage hidden in the fireman’s tool-box? or in case of foreign invasion! a regiment of austrians ensconced under the benches of the third-class coach might, if they survived the journey, butcher the entire population before their presence was suspected. besides, who could live in peace and contentment knowing that the sacred intermural precincts might at any moment be deluged with a train-load of cackling, bebaedekered tour—but no, now i think of it, my informant offered only two apologies.
those who are victims of insomnia should journey to padua. there may be in the length and breadth of europe another community as conducive to sleep, but it has thus far escaped discovery. the sun is undoubtedly hot in italy during the summer months. there runs a proverb in the peninsula to the effect that only fools and the english—which of course, includes americans—venture forth near noonday without at least the protection of a parasol. but having suffered no evil effects during weeks of tramping in the country with only a cap on my head, i, for one, should hesitate to charge entirely to climatic conditions the torpor of the padovans.
at any rate the city was lost in slumber. the few horses dragged their vehicles at a snail’s pace; the drivers nodded on their seats; those few shopkeepers who had not put up their shutters and retired to the bosom of their families could with difficulty be aroused from their siestas to minister to the wants of yawning customers. the very dogs slept in the gutters or under the chairs of their torpescent masters, and, to judge from many a building that was crumbling away and falling asleep like the inhabitants, this morpheusatic tendency was no temporary characteristic.
however, the general somnolence permitted me to view in peace the statues and architecture for which the drowsy city is justly renowned, and leaving it to slumber on, i set off at noonday on the last stage of my journey across northern italy. the phantom range of the alps had disappeared. away to the eastward stretched a land as flat and unbroken as the sea which, tossing its drifting sands on a lee shore through the ages, has drawn this coast further and further towards the rising sun. walking had been easier on the long mountain ascents behind, for a powerful wind from off the adriatic pressed me back like an unseen hand at my breast. certain as i had been of reaching fusiano on the coast before the day was done, twilight found me still plodding on across a barren lowland. 53with the first twinkling star a faint glow appeared to the left and afar off, giving center to the surrounding darkness. steadily it grew until it illuminated a distant corner of the firmament, while the wind howled with ever-increasing force across the unpeopled waste.
night had long since settled down when the lapping of waves announced that i had overtaken the retreating coast-line. a few ramshackle hovels rose up out of the darkness, but still far out over the sea hovered the glow in the sky—no distant conflagration, as i had supposed, but the reflected lights of venice. long cherished visions of a cheering meal and a soft couch, before my entrance into the city of the sea, vanished; for there was no inn among the hovels of fusiano. i took shelter in a shanty down on the beach and awaited patiently the ten-o’clock boat.
by the appointed hour there had gathered enough of a swarthy crowd to fill the tiny steamer that made fast with great difficulty to the crazy wharf. on the open sea the wind was riotous, and our passage took on the aspect of a transatlantic trip in miniature. now and then a wave spat in the faces of the passengers huddled aft. a ship’s officer jammed his way among us to collect the six-cent tickets. behind him the officials of the venice octroi were busily engaged in levying dues on produce from the country. two poor devils, gaunt as death’s heads, crouched in the waist, guarding between them a bundle of vegetables that could be bought a few centesimi cheaper on the mainland than in the city. the stuff could not have satisfied the normal appetite of one man; yet in spite of their pleadings, the pair were compelled to drop their share of soldi into the official bag.
by and by the toss of the steamer abated somewhat. i pushed to the rail to peer out into the night. off the port bow appeared a stretch of smooth water in which were reflected the myriad lights of smaller craft and the illuminated windows of a block of houses rising sheer out of the sea. we swung to port. a gondola, weirdly lighted up by torches on bow and poop, glided across our bow. the houses born of the sea took on individuality, a wide canal opened on our left and curved away between other buildings, the splendor of their fa?ades faintly suggested in the light of mooring-post lamp and lantern. it was the grand canal. the steamer nosed its way through a fleet of empty gondolas, tied up at a landing stage before 54a marble column bearing the lion of st. mark, and the passengers hurried away across the cathedral square to be swallowed up in the night.
in a city of streets and avenues there are certain signs which point the way to the ragged section, but among the winding waterways and arcade bridges of this strange metropolis such indications were lacking. a full two hours i tramped at utter random, on the blisters of the highway from padua, only to turn up at last in an albergo within a stone’s throw of my landing-place and the palace of the doges.
the squares and alleys of venice are strewn with human wreckage. in the rest of italy the most penurious wretch may move from place to place in an attempt to ameliorate his condition; but on this marshy island the man unable to scrape together a few soldi for boat or car fare is a prisoner. the captives are little accustomed to sleep within doors. lodging, obviously, must be high in a city where space is absolutely limited; but there are “joints” where food sells more cheaply than anywhere else on the continent.
on the evening following my arrival, i came upon one of these establishments which rubbed shoulders with the cathedral of st. mark. appetite alone certainly could not have enticed me inside, but eager to scrape acquaintance with the submerged tenth—the fraction seems small—of venice, i crowded my way into the kennel. a lean and hungry multitude surged about the counter. at one end of it was piled a stack of plates; near them stood a box which, to all appearances, had long done service as a coal scuttle, filled to overflowing with twisted and rust-eaten forks and spoons. the room was foggy with the steam that rose from a score of giant kettles containing as many species of stew, soup, and vegetable rago?t.
each client, conducting himself as if he had been fasting for a week past, snatched a plate from the stack; thrust a paw into the box for a weapon of attack, and dropping a few coppers of most unsanitary aspect into the dish, shoved it with a savage bellow at that one of the kettles the contents of which had taken his fancy. a fogbound server scraped the soldi into the till, poured a ladleful of steaming slop into the outstretched trencher, and the customer fought his way into a dingy back-room.
a venetian pauper on the rialto bridge
my gondolier on the grand canal
amid the uproar i had no time to inquire prices. i proffered six cents to a wrinkled hag presiding over a caldron of what purported to be a tripe and liver rago?t. she cried out in amazement, 55handed back four cents, and filled my plate to the rim. i reached the back-room with half the mess—the rest being scooped up in the coat sleeves of the famished throng—and took my place at an already crowded table. neither bread nor wine was to be had in the house. on a board propped up across a corner of the room were several cylinders of corn mush, three feet in diameter and half as thick. a hairless creature, stripped to the waist, cut off slabs of the cake for those who would have something to take the place of bread. the yellow dough sold at two cents a pound, yet each order was carefully weighed, and purchaser and server watched the scales jealously during the operation. as a substitute for wine there was a jar of water, that abominable, germ-infested water of venice, from which each drank in turn.
every type of wretch which the city shelters was represented in the emaciated gathering. rag-pickers snarled at cathedral beggars. street urchins jostled bearded bootblacks. female outcasts rubbed elbows with those gruesome beings who pick up a few cents a day at the landing stages. my boisterous appetite dwindled away at sight of the messes around me and in the exploration of the mysteries of my own portion. all at once there burst upon me the recollection that i had seen neither a dog nor a cat during all that day in venice, and i turned and fought my way to the door. behind me rose a quarrel over my unfinished portion. outside, on the square beside the fallen campanile, kind-hearted tourists were feeding wholesome grain to a flock of pigeons, above which magnificent statues looked down upon a crowd of homeless waifs huddled under the portico of the palace of the doges.
i turned down to the landing stage one morning resolved on the extravagance of a gondola excursion. the water cabmen of venice are not wont to solicit men in corduroys and flannel shirt. a score of them, just recovering from a stampede on a tow-head in regulation tourist garb, greeted my arrival with the fishy eye of indifference. when i boldly announced my plan, they crowded around me to laugh in derision at the laborer seeking to play the lord. for some time they refused to take my words seriously, and even then the first skeptic to be convinced insisted on proof of my financial solvency before he proffered his services.
along the grand canal passing gondoliers, without passengers to keep them decorous, flung cutting jests at my propeller.
“eh! amico! what’s that you’ve got?”
56“ch’è un rico, colui quà, eh?”
“sangue della vergine, caro mio, dove hai accozzato quello?”
but once assured of his fare, the fellow lost his smirk and became all servility, pointing out the objects of interest with a mien of owl-like solemnity, and rebuking his fellow-craftsmen with an admonishing shake of the head.
fear drove me forth from venice before i had rested the miles from paris out of my legs—fear that in a few days more the mosquitoes would finish their nefarious work and devour me quite. on the sunday evening following the opening of the carnival, i fought my confetti-strewn way to the station and “booked” for bologna. i had not yet, however, learned all the secrets of italian railway travel. the official who snatched my ticket at the exit to the platform and the midnight express handed it back and pushed me away with a withering glare:
“no third-class on this train,” he growled, “wait for the slow train at five in the morning.”
how any particular one of the trains of italy could be discriminated against by being called slow was hard to comprehend. perhaps i misunderstood the gateman. he may have said “the more slower train.” at any rate, i was left to stretch out on a truck and await the laggard dawn.
under a declining sun our funereal caravan crawled into bologna, and i struck out along the ancient highway to florence. between the two cities stretches an almost unbroken series of mountain ranges, a poverty-stricken territory given over to grazing and wine-production, and little known to tourists, for the railway sweeps in a great half-circle around the northern end of the barrier. a few miles from the university town the highway began a winding ascent in simplon-like solitude, save where a vineyard clung to a wrinkled hillside. at such spots tall, cone-shaped buckets of some two bushels’ capacity stood at the roadside, some filled with grapes, others with the floating pulp left by the crushers.
what species of crusher was used i did not learn until nearly nightfall. then, suddenly rounding a jutting boulder, i stepped into a group of four women, their skirts tied tightly around their loins, slowly treading up and down in as many buckets of grapes. one of them, a young woman by no means unattractive, sprang out of the bucket with a startled gasp, let fall her skirts over legs purple with grape-juice far above the knees, and fled to the vineyard. her companions, 57too young or too old to find immodesty in the situation, gazed in astonishment at the fleeing girl and continued to stamp slowly up and down.
darkness overtook me in the solitude of an upper range, far from either hut or hamlet. a half hour later, a mountain storm burst upon me.
an interminable period i had plunged on when my eyes were gradually drawn to a faint light flickering through the downpour. i splashed forward and banged on a door beside an illuminated window. the portal was quickly opened from within, and i fell into a tiny wine-shop occupied by three tipplers. they stared stupidly for some time, while the water ran away from me in rivulets along the floor. then the landlord remarked with a silly grin:—
“lei è tutto bagnato?” (you are all wet.)
“likewise hungry,” i answered. “what’s to eat?”
“da mangiare! ma! not a thing in the house.”
“the nearest inn?”
“six miles on.”
“suppose i must go to bed supperless, then,” i sighed, drawing my water-soaked bundle from beneath my coat.
“bed!” cried the landlord, “you cannot sleep here. i keep no lodging house.”
“what!” i protested, “do you think i am going on in this deluge?”
“i keep no lodging house,” repeated the host, doggedly.
i sat down on a bench, convinced that no three italians should evict me without a struggle. one by one they came forward to try the efficacy of wheedling, growling, and loud-voiced bluster. i clung stolidly to my place. the landlord was on the verge of tears when one of the countrymen drew me to the window and offered me lodging in his barn across the way. i made out through the storm the dim outline of a building, and catching up my bundle, dashed with the native across the road and into a stone building, with no other floor, as i could feel under my feet, than mother earth. an american cow would balk at the door of the house of a mountain peasant of italy; she would have fled bellowing at a glimpse of the interior of the barn that loomed up as my host lighted a lantern, and pointed out to me a heap of corn-husks in a corner behind the oxen and asses. fearful of losing a moment with his cronies over the wine, he gave the lantern a shake that extinguished it and, leaving me in utter darkness, hurried away.
58i groped my way towards the heap, narrowly escaped knocking down the last ass in the row, and was about to throw myself down on the husks when a man’s voice at my very feet shouted a word that i did not catch. being in italy i answered in italian:
“che avete? voglio dormire qui.”
“ach!” groaned the voice. “nur ein verdammter italiener!”
“here friend!” i protested, in german, prodding the prostrate form with a foot, “who are you calling verdammter?”
before the last word had passed my lips the man in the husks sprang to his feet with a wild shout.
“lieber gott!” he shrieked, clutching at my coat and dancing around me. “lieber gott! du verstehst deutsch! you are no cursed italian! gott sei dank! in three weeks i have heard no german.”
even the asses were protesting before he ceased his shouting and settled down to tell his troubles. he was but another of those familiar figures, a german on his wanderjahr, who, straying far south in the peninsula, and losing his last copper, was struggling northward again as rapidly as strength gained by a crust of bread or a few wayside berries each day permitted. one needed only to touch him to know that he was thin as a side-show skeleton. i offered him the half of a cheese i carried in a pocket, and he snatched it with the ravenous cry of a wolf and devoured it as we burrowed deep into the husks.
all night long the water dripped from my elbows and oozed out of my shoes, and a bitter mountain wind swept through the unmortared building. morning came after little sleep, and i rose with joints so stiff that a half hour of kneading barely put them in working order. outside a cold drizzle was falling, but the peasant grew surly, and, bidding farewell to my companion of the night, i set out along the mountain highway.
two hours beyond the barn i came upon a miserable hamlet, paused at an even more miserable inn for a bowl of greasy water, alias soup, in which had been drowned a lump of black bread, and plodded on in the drizzle. a night and day of corn-husks had given me a rococo appearance that i only half suspected before my arrival at a mountain village late in the afternoon. it was a typical apennine town; surrounded on all sides by splendid scenery, but itself a crowded collection of hovels where steep, narrow streets reeked with all the refuse of a common habitation of man and beast. the chief enigma of italy is to know why ostensibly sane humans choose to house themselves in an agglomeration of stys, as near each other as they can be stacked, the outside huts jostling and crowding their neighbors, as if enviously waiting to catch them off their guard, that they may push nearer to the center of the unsavory jumble; while round about them spread great valleys and hillsides uninhabited.
going for the water. a village north of rome
italy is one of the most cruelly priest-ridden countries on the globe
59wallowing through the filth of such a hamlet, i came upon a tumble-down hostelry of oppressive squalor. about the fire-place were huddled several slatternly, downcast mortals. i paused in the doorway, wondering to which to address myself. the rural innkeeper of italy will never speak to a new arrival until he has been accosted by the latter. i once put the matter to the test by entering an inn at five in the afternoon and taking a seat at one of the tables. many a side glance was cast upon me, many a low-toned discussion raged at the back of the room, but at nine in the evening i was still waiting for the first greeting.
here, then, i stood for several moments on the threshold. at length, a misshapen female, unkempt and unsoaped to all appearances since infancy, fumbled in her apron, rose, and stumped slowly towards me holding out—a cent! i stepped back, and the charitable lady, misunderstanding my gesture of protest, returned to her seat, snarling in a cracked falsetto that beggars nowadays expected francs instead of soldi.
disgusted at this invidious reception, i pigeon-holed my appetite and marched on. but i seemed permanently to have taken on the aspect of an eleemosynary appeal. two miles beyond the village i passed a ragged road-repairer and a boy, breaking stone at the wayside. hard by them was a hedge, weighed down with blackberries, to which i hastened and fell to picking my delayed dinner. the cantoniere stared a moment, open-mouthed; laid aside his sledge, and mumbled something to the boy. the latter left his place, wandered down the road a short distance beyond me and idled about as if awaiting someone. with a half-filled cap i set off again. the boy edged nearer as i approached and, brushing against me, thrust something under my arm and ran back to the stone-pile. in my astonishment i dropped the gift on the highway. it was a quarter-loaf of black bread left over from the ragged workman’s dinner.
late that night i reached a hamlet with a more energetic, if less charitable innkeeper; and the next afternoon found me looking down upon 60the vast florentine valley, the winding arno a bluish silver under the declining sun. by evening i was housed in the city of dante and michael angelo.
during four days in florence i played a sort of jekyll and hyde r?le, living with the poorest self-supporting class, but spending hours each day in cathedral and galleries. paupers were everywhere in evidence, fewer than in venice, perhaps, for here they could escape. lodgings all but the utterly penniless could afford. i paid a half-franc daily for an uncramped chamber within a hop, skip, and jump of the roasting-place of savonarola. but those ultracheap eating houses of the canal city were lacking. florentines on the ragged edge patronized instead a species of traveling restaurant. as night fell, there appeared at various corners, in the unwashed section of the city, men with push-carts laden with boiled tripe. around them gathered jostling throngs whose surging ceased not for a moment until the last morsel had been sold. each customer seemed to possess but a single soldo, which he had carefully guarded through the day in anticipation of the coming of the tripe-man. never did the huckster make a sale without a quarrel arising over the size of the morsel; and never did the vendee retire until a second strip, about the size of a match, had been added to the original portion to make up what he claimed to be the just weight.
i spent an undue proportion of my fourth day in florence viewing her works of art; for sunday is the poor man’s day in the museums and galleries of europe, there being no admission charged. when the throng was driven forth from the pitti palace in the late afternoon, i decided not to return to my lodging and wandered off along the highway to rome. the mountain country continued, but the ranges were less lofty and more thickly populated than to the north, and when night settled down, i was within sight of a hilltop village.
it is doubtful if there is another nation on the globe whose people are such general favorites as our own citizens. the american is a popular fellow in almost every land, certainly not the least so in italy. through all the peninsula there hovers about one, from that—to the italian—magic world of america, a glamor which is sure to arouse interest to the highest pitch. more than that; there is, among the lower classes, an attitude almost of deference towards the man in any way connected with the el dorado across the sea, as if every breast harbored the vague hope that this favored of the gods might be moved to carry home on his return a pocketful of his admirers.
longing for america, however, does not imply any great amount 61of knowledge thereof. in this northern section especially, where one rarely meets a man whose remotest friend has emigrated, ignorance of the western hemisphere is astonishing.
an average village crowd, showing some evidence of education, was gathered in the hostelry of this first town beyond florence. my arrival at first aroused small interest in the groups before fire-place and table. in ordering supper, however, i betrayed a foreign accent. immediately there passed between the cronies of the band sundry nods and occult signs which they fondly believed were entirely incomprehensible to a newcomer, but which, in reality, said as plainly as words:—
“now where the deuce do you suppose he comes from?”
i volunteered no information. the cronies squirmed with curiosity. several more mysterious symbols flitted across the room, and one of the tipplers, clearing his throat, suggested in the mildest of tones:—
“hem—ah—you are german, perhaps?”
a tedesco being no unusual sight in italy, the listeners showed only a moderate interest.
“no.”
the speaker rubbed his neck with a horny hand and turned an apologetic eye on his fellows.
“hah! you are an austrian!” charged another, with a scowl.
“no.”
“swiss?” suggested a third.
“no.”
interest picked up at once. a voyager from any but these three countries is something to attract unusual attention in wayside inns.
“ah!” ventured a fourth member of the group, with a glance of scorn at his more obtuse companions, “you are a frenchman?”
“no.”
the geographical knowledge of the party was exhausted. there ensued a long, wrinkle-browed silence. the landlady wandered in with a pot, looked me over out of a corner of her eye, and retreated slowly. the suspense grew unendurable. a native opened his mouth twice or thrice, swallowed his breath with a gulp, and purred, meekly:
“er—well—what country does the signore come from?”
“sono americano.”
a chorus of exclamations aroused the cat dozing under the fire-place. the hostess ran in, open-mouthed, from the back room. the landlord dropped his pipe on the floor and emitted the italian variation of 62“dew tell!” the most phlegmatic of the party abandoned their games and stories and crowded closely around me.
my advent seemed to two of the habitués to be providential. some time before, a wager had been laid between them which, till now, there had seemed small chance of deciding. one man had wagered that the railway trains of america run high up in the air above the houses, a tenet which he sought to defend against all comers by an unprecedented amount of lusty bellowing, and one which his opponent pooh-poohed with equal vehemence. for a time i was at a loss to account for his claim that he had read the information in a newspaper. in the course of his vociferations, however, he mentioned “nuova york,” and inquired if it were not also true that its buildings were higher than the steeple of the village church, and whether the railways were not thus built to enable the people to get into such high houses; implying, evidently, his conviction that americans never come down to earth. only then was the source of his mental picture of an a?rial railway system clear. he had read somewhere of the new york elevated and had applied the article to the whole country.
moreover “nuova york” was synonymous with america to the entire party. not a man of them knew that there were two americas, not one had ever heard the term “united states.” america represents to the italian of the masses a country somewhere far away, how far or in what direction he has no idea, where wages are higher than in italy. countless times i have heard questions such as these from italians who were not without education:—
“is america further away than switzerland?”
“did you walk all the way from america?”
“who is king of america?”
“why! are you a native american? i thought americans were black!”
once a woman added insult to injury by inquiring in all sincerity:—
“in america you worship the sun, non è vero?”
on some rare occasions a wiser native appeared, to display his erudition to the assembly. one evening i mildly suggested that the united states as a whole is as large, if not larger, than italy. my hearers were deafening me with shouts of derision, when one of the party came to my rescue.
“certainly, that’s right!” he cried, “it is larger. i have a brother in buenos ayres and i know. america, or the stati uniti, as this 63signore prefers to call it, has provinces just like italy. the provinces are brazil, uruguay, república argentina, and nuova york.”
squelched by which crushing display of geographical erudition, the gathering maintained a profound silence for the rest of the evening; and the authority on america began a lecture on that topic, in the course of which i learned many a fact concerning my native land which i had never suspected.
one can be little surprised that the italian fears to embark for a country so little known. i met often with people who had set out for america, gone as far as genoa, and there abandoned the journey, perché aveva paura. many, indeed, journey to the seaport, never suspecting that to reach this land of fabulous wealth they must travel on the ocean; more than one has only the vaguest notion of what an ocean is. when the endless expanse of water stretches out before them, all the combined miseries of their native land and the wheedling of the most silver-tongued steamship agent cannot induce them to trust themselves on its billows; and in dread and fear they hurry home again.
it may be said with little danger of error, too, that the average american knows very little of the italian of this northern section. he is, quite contrary to popular notions, a very kind and obliging, even unselfish fellow, decidedly a different person from the usual immigrant to our shores. the riffraff and off-casts of their native land, that are spreading far and wide in our country, living in clans and bands wherein the moving spirit seems to be he whose record at home is most besmirched, the “dagoes” of common parlance, are no product of this northern portion of the peninsula. we have, possibly, been too quick to attribute to all italians the characteristics of those undesirables with whom we have come in contact, more than seven-eighths of whom hail from the southern section. the neapolitan, the sicilian, the sardinian, from lands where congested districts breed characters held in as much contempt by the italian of the north as by our own citizens, have little in common with the venetian, the florentine, and the sienese.
