Italian Days and Ways

Februar

sting as yours, from your library, with the mercury at zero outside, and nothing more refreshing to look upon from the window than snow and sleet, does not need to wander in sunny l

o be perfectly candid with you, we ourselves are not wandering in sunny lands at present, and the

clouds, and the air chilly and damp. We can well understand why the prudent and all-informing Baedeker

ity widening out toward the ends of the arc. On the hills, we know, are many beautiful villas, seen to-day but dimly through veils

skies might be pouring down upon us instead of only threatening, and, after all, we are having the sam

it is, however, I have so far no woes to relate, although I know that a sojourn on the Continent has wrecked many a friendship. We three must appear to those who meet us a

e dream." On the other hand, when one is suffering from the discomforts of travel to such an extent that it would be a luxury to moan and groan a bit and find fault with the general condition of things, it is a trifle irritating to see Zelphine sailing serenely upon the seas o

tiful childhood. She is a spirited creature, but with a fine balance of common sense, and with her delicate, spirituelle beauty is astonishingly practical-an up-to-date girl, in fine. Have you ever wondered, among your many ponderings, why the g

They are to be found, we are told, in every old Italian town. Many of them answer to Hawthorne's description of the streets of Perugia, which, he says, are "like caverns, being

i, and the like. The majority of these buildings have fallen from their ancient glory, and look, as Angela says, like tenement houses. This plebeian association is carried out by the squalid appearance of the inhabitants, and by the

out of the window, was so vigorous that no interpreter was needed to make her meaning plain: the merchant was a charlatan and a villain; the saints were all called upon as witnesses to his depravity. He, the so-called vendor of over-ripe fruit, pointed to his wares, beati

ething happened, we know not what; the fruit may have been reduced the fraction of a penny; whatever it was, a truce was declared, during which the signora's basket, filled with fruit and artichokes, was drawn up to the window by a rope. After the lady had carefully inspected each individual fruit and

uch as we had first tasted in Algiers. As we paid the asking price without protest, we felt quite sure that the valiant little merchant was making off us anything that he m

ke inquiries with any certainty of being understood, we finally gained wider and more open streets, an

t it cost the artist his life. Pellegrino Piola's master, insanely jealous of this work of his pupil, rose up in wrath and killed him. Even the patron, St. Eloy, was unable to save poor Piola's lif

rs' stay in Genoa she was quite sure of two characteristics of the Genoese: a passion for jewelry, especially of the filigree sort, and an inordinate appetite for sweets. The pretty, delicate ornaments, I am in

huge stone lions standing guard at the door. Above the entrance-grewsome and realistic spectacle-is poor St. Lawrence broiling away on his stone gridiron! We shall doubtless behold many such spectacles during our travels, and may, like Mark Twain, become quite hardened to the sight of St. Sebastian stuck full of a

erde, where there is a handsome modern statue of Columbus. Beside the really fine figure of the Genoese navigator is a woman who represents either Columbia or an Italianized American Indian, we were not sure which, to whom Columbus is offerin

g out joyously. It was probably an Italian equivalent for "ring-around-the-rosy" or "hot butter-beans." We longed to know just what the words meant. Zelphine bribed the singers with soldi to an encore; but, alas! the song f

doors. We remind ourselves, from time to time, that we are dwelling in marble halls for the first time in our lives, and yet some of the appointments of this rather expensive albergo are not equal to those of a second or third class hotel in America. My room is spacious, with windows opening

than we shall ever be in this damp palace!" said Angela, shivering

ealing a small hole in the wall. "We will bask in the warmth of a chee

ng been used in this century, and so instead of a cheerful blaze we had

uary

tead of the chambermaid there stood a grand gentleman in a blue coat and brass buttons, with a breakfast-tray-the proprietor or head waiter, I should say. We hadn't the courage to say a word about fire to this dignified person. Indeed, he gave us no time to say anything, as he set the tray on

ignorance of Continental ways, to which I had become quite a

he maid and fire," said An

e facchino who attends to the fires, and he, assisted by another facchino, finally succeeded in fanning into a blaze the infinitesimal quantity of wood used here for a fire. This

of stoves and sunshine,'" said Zelphine, as she held her hands

to us, good, bad, or indifferent, as a part of the game. We breakfasted heartily, calling for more rolls and boiled eggs, to t

ondered many times, in language more or less strenuous, why she had ever left her happy home for these inhospitable shores; and I-well, it matters little what I said. Zelphine surprised me weeping over my travelling-hat, which, although it did present a rather dilapidated appearance after yesterday's rain, failed to afford sufficient cause for my tears. She, the heroic one, who had neve

ood when she came up to London in pursuit of her scattered fortune, expressed herself to the effect that foreign travel might be of advantage educationally and enlarging to the mind, but for her part she preferred her own country, and would gladly take the next steamer back to New York. Angela heartily agreed with Bertha, while Zelphine begged h

a cemetery," said Angela, laughing a cheerless laugh, wit

something hopelessly inartistic and artificial. Among the many shockingly realistic and inappropriate monuments we found a few simple and beautiful statues and low reliefs. You remember how many of the monuments in Westminster Abbey are in bad taste and overweighted with carved ornaments; the majority of these are not less artistic, but one has a right to expect more beaut

ess us particularly; but we found ourselves turning again and again to the figure of an old woman in a fine brocade gown, with a ring o

arls, and she carries the bread on her arm just as the peasants do in Spain and in all these southern countries. I wish we could fin

bearing of a peasant, rather tha

ing that her Lady Bountiful was a peasant woman who made quite a sum of money by selling bread and nuts on the streets of Genoa. Having an ambition to rest with the rich and great in the Campo Santo, under a fine monument, sh

uts, after all!" excla

eresting as a study in human nature. I don't doubt the poor woman f

W., "for she died soon after she had ordered it, in a stree

r images and bowl over ou

, as Angela says, besides circumambulating the city, is a clever way of circumventing the cabman. Our homesickness had disappeared amid the shades of the departed, and, a merry party, we made our way to the

uary

ll, but Zelphine and Angela have promised to spend their time with friends in Nice, stopping for a day at Monte Carlo, if their sporting tastes lead them so far afield, whil