The Carnival had exhausted itself in the two first days, and, at least so thought Murietta, was becoming a bore. And evidently many others thought so too, for, as he set his face in another direction than that of the Corso, and climbed the broad and magniicent tufa steps that lead from the shops up to the top of the Capitoline Hill, past the colossal figures of Castor and Pollux, and right in the face of the grand old brass emperor on his brass horse, he found a whole tide of people pouring up and down, and quite a little army hanging about the broad steps and idling about the little wolf in ite wire cage.
Mothers would lead their little children up carefully to the balustrades that rise before the cage, and point them out the wolf, and tell them the wonderful story of Romulus and Remus. And they would tell it, too, as if it had happened but yesterday. Perhaps these Roman mothers thought this to be the very wolf that had been so kind to the twins, for these peasants seem to have no idea of dates whatever, although they can tell you nearly all the great events in the history of Rome.
And what a queer looking, foxy little wolf it is! It is precisely like a Califomian coyote in action and appearance. Let us hope that it is not so in spirit.
Little boys hold on to each other in a sort of shiver, as they come to look at the harmless little creature, and evidently contemplate it with a feeling of terror. But it is as harmless as a kitten. So is its counterpart in the garden on the Palatine Hill. They are a sort of cross between a very lazy yellow dog of a nameless species and a brown, chicken stealing fox. This one on the Capitoline got out of his wire cage, not long ago, and ran off down through the town. All Rome was in terror. The people thought they were to be devoured by this wolf, and retired to their palaces and shut the portals. An Engllsh gentleman, however, found the little fellow soon after in a side street, took him by the back of the neck, tucked him up imder his coat, and taking him back to the hill, restored him to his keeper. Then Rome was glad once more.
Passing the little wolf and the army of llttle urchins that hung about the "Nurse of Rome," he turned to the left when once on the top of the hill, and entered the museum.
Mounting the first stairs, he stood in the little room where the poor dying gladiator sinks upon his shield and dies.
He was now before the one work in marble worth making the circuit of the world to see. You cannot get away from this pitiful face and figure if you would. The man is down, dying. He is half resting on his right hand, but you seem to see him sinking. You are certain he will fall every moment. His brow seems to perspire. You hold your breath as you look at him, and sympathize with him, and suffer with him. You are actually suffering with this piece of ancient marble. What a despair in his held-down face! What a sick look in his swooning eyes!
It seems to me as if a man could stand before this immortal creation and repeat literally the lines of Lord Byron on the Dying Gladiator, although he had never heard or read the lines in his life.
Once a poet stood before this figure and looked at it long and earnestly. At last he said with a sigh "Byron has done me more wrong than all the world together; he has ruined my future, for if he had not written those poems of his, I should have written them, and it seems to me I should have written them, and written them just as he wrote them."
"Butchered to make a Roman holiday,
bet your life, come; and lots of them too; that's why the Romans have got so many holidays. How d'ye do, Murietta?" And tbe merry-hearted Mollie shot out her hand and shook the artist with all the heartiness of an old veteran who had just met a comrade of many campaigns.
"Come along, governor, here he is! Now then, if you want an antiquity, buy that! 0, how sick he does look. It makes me hungry!" So saying, she took the artist by the arm, and leaving her parents and the party of Americans to walk around and wonder at the "Sick" gladiator, she led him on into the next room.
"And O, thou thunder-stricken nurse of Rome!"
cried Mollie, as she caught sight of the big brass wolf standing up astride of the two twins, and pointing out her sharp nose, and looking as stiff and stupid as a wooden hobby horse.
"O, thou thunder-stricken nurse of Rome!
Why don't you quote Byron, Mr. Murietta? Why don't you quote Byron? Don't you know that everybody spouts Byron that comes to Italy? That's why they put so much of Byron in the guide-book Want to have it ready, you see. Why, when I go into the Coliseum I fire Byron at the Colieum. When I go into any place or any city, and I want to stand there and say something nice and sentimental, why I just turn to my red back book, and there it is all ready, all ready, all cooked up. Byron, Byron, Byron"
Then pretty Mollie clasped her ruddy hands, put her parasol up under her wing of an elbow, and pouting out her lips, began in a loud and solemn voice :
"And O, thou thunder-stricken nurse of —
Oh, just see! just look there! how one of her hind legs has been split and torn! Bet that's where the dogs caught her, eh?
"And O, thou thunder-stricken ' —
Poor little twins! How hungry they do look! Come along, come along, let's see this old Socrates. Why, he looks like an Irish plug-ugly, with his nose all knocked up. Bet your life! Square off old Sack!" And then she threw her parasol up under her arm, doubled up her fist and stood in a very warlike attitude before the old philosopher, who had perhaps seen quite enough of that in his lifetime to last him to the end.
At length Mollie fell in with one of the handsome and polite sergeants in attendnce, and went on to another room as the general came up, and Marietta still lingered about "the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome," for to him it was l\ill of history and meaning.
Then Mrs. Wopsus having done with the Dying Gladiator, came in with her face wet with tears, and lifting up her eyes saw the storied wolf and her twins. She then held her head, threw up her hands, clasped them together, and, perfectly certain that she was doing something very original, said
"And 0, thou, thunder stricken nurse of Rome"
Then there came in an old party with green glasses and a very large umbrella, and looking up he started back, and with extended arms and umbrella said, in a deep and dreadful voice that sounded as if it might com up from out a pulpit,-
"And O, thou thunder-stricken nurse of Rome."
as if he had done a good thing and done it well, the green glasses and the great umbrella passed on in the wake of Mrs. Wopsus, as if they had their own opinion of men who could not on great occasions like this quote the immortal poet.
A young man just from school came next, and walking up to the frigid and misshapen wolf, he deliberately opened his red book and, striking an oratorical attitude, read as follows in a loud, clear voice : —
"And 0, thou thunder-stricken nurse of Rome"
Then this young man passed on, feeling very sure that this thing had never been done before.
A tall and bony woman entered now, and lifting her gold rimmed spectacles, she walked straight up before the nose of the brass wolf, put her nose against it, and then stepping back, made a grimace at it and said "Booh" Then she shook her head and said "Don't you think I'm afraid of you if you did have twins." Then steping still further back she opened a book, turned through the leaves, and at last seemed to find what she sought, for she adjusted her spectacles and then she shrieked out in a voice that was sharp enough to split even the brass ears of the brass wolf:
"And O, thou thunder-stricken nurse of Rome."
Then the special correspondent took out a carpenter's rule, and measuring the exent of the rupture on the hind leg, she made a note of it in her book and passed on.
Another figure, tall and gaunt and threadbare, stood in the presence of the bronze wolf. Then a long lean umbrella shot down upon the floor, and the old misionary of Naples, shaking his death's head on the tombstone till the weeping willows waved about it mournfully, said in a voice that seemed to come from the grave :
"And O, thou thunder-stricken nurse of Rome"
Then, taking up his umbrella, and asuming the most meek and humble carriage and expression of countenance, went up and reached out his hand and tried to tear off one of the twins and put it in his pocket, but finding it was too securely fastened, and also finding that a sergeant who seemed to be asleep was not asleep, he passed on, and to the great relief of Murietta, did not see him.
The American party having completed the round of the museum, returned; and Mollie, bouncing into the room as she had first entered it that morning, found Murietta still dividing his attention between the Gladiator and the Wolf.
"Come. Bet your life you've got to come. You can't shake me; I come from California, I do, and I know my way about. Now you come along, that's a good old boy."
Murietta, glad enough to go, go anywhere with this lively, light hearted, and honest creature, this bit of California sunshine, anyhere to get away from himself, away from his thoughts, oflFered her his arm good naturedly, and asked:
"But where do you go, Miss Mollie?"
"0, we're all going to jail, you know! Won't that be jolly? Bet your life I'll have a flirtation with the jailer, make him give me up his keys, and all that you know."
"But what jail are you going to this pleasant weather?"
"Oh, the jail, you know, where they kept St. Paul and St. Peter, and where, poor old Jugurtha was starved, and where the jailer was baptized, and where the spring of cool water came up to baptize him in, and all that, you know. Didn't you never hear of it all? Well, I read it this morning in the guide book. It's just here, you know. There it is! Here's the door. They've turned it into a church, you see."
Down, down, down, and around the old priest led, and as he passed down a step so narrow that Mollie and her mother could hardly pass their crinolines through, he crossed himself devoutly, and told his beads, and mumbled his prayers.
"Say! Look here, Mr. Monk, now what does that mean?"
Mollie stopped the whole party in its dark descent of the narrow stairs, and stopped the good priest in his prayers, and would not pass on till he turned about and explained that tie hole in the wall made to the right was the place where the head of St. Peter struck one day when the jailer pushed him down the steps toward his dungeon, and that it was one of the most sacred things in Rome.
Soon they reached the round dark cell. There, above them, just high enough to permit them to stand and swing a lamp, and by the dim light, you could see the very hole through which the great African king was dropped when they starved him to death. There lay the same great stone that was closed above his living grave. You could almost hear it fall: you could almost hear the stony walls echo —
"Ye gods, how cold are the baths of Rome."
"And this is the stone that St. Peter sat on," began the priest in a mournful voice.
"Oh, is it"said Mollie, and she looked about and sat flat down on the cold, damp rock in a manner so refreshing, that it fairly took the good father's breath.
"And this,"the priest began again"is the holy fountain of water that burst forth to baptize the converted jailer."
"Mollie, I thought you were going to flirt with the jailer."
"Flirt with your grandmother! Do you suppose I want to flirt with a man in a brown petticoat"
"Ah well, Mollie, never mind! We will send for the Count Paolini, and fancy that he is jailer."
"Oh, I'm so hungry! Look here, Mr. Monk, hand me that dipper." The Caliornia girl had been fumbling all the time in her pocket, and at last had brought out a roll of sandwiches and a wing of chicken.
The astonished priest passed the dipper of water, and as he proceeded to tell all the wonderful things that had taken place in that terrible prison, the little lady sat no the sacred stone, drank from the holy fountain, and eat her lunch of sandwiches and chicken wing with perfect satisfaction, while her mother stood by and looked tearfully on, and tried to follow the good priest in his mournful catalogue of crimes.
"No more, Mr. Monk, thank you. Now I am ready to go" and the arbitrary litlle tyrant led off up the narrow steps, munchng a chicken bone as she went.
She stopped at the holy hole in the wall, and laid her head in it, and then began to scream and shout like an Irish milkmaid. It was over in an instant. But poor Mrs. Wopsus was in a fountain of tears at once.
"Oh my child, my child! what in the world has happened?"
"Bet your life I don't put my head in there again," said Mollie, half laughing, half crying, as she stood out on the upper floor.
"But, my child, my dear Mollie, what in the world has happened?"
"Nothing, nothing's up, I tell you. It's all hunky now. I only put my head in there while I was chewing my chicken, and I chucked my chin. That's all. See there! That's blood. Scratched my chin on old St. Peter's rock. Bet your life he's got a harder head than I have"
Mollie stood rubbing her chin; Mrs. Wopsus stood rolling her eyes, and the general was fumbling in his vest pocket for the usual five-franc piece for seeing this gloomy dungeon; while Murietta was thinkng of the mighty men who had gone down in the great whirlpool of Rome, that for centuries drew all things to its centre and swallowed them up as if it had been a living monster.
"And they have turned this into a church too." dsaid the quiet old general, looking up as they passed out and bent their steps toward the Temple of Vesta. Passing over the sort of bridge that crosses the excavations of the Forum, that in fact runs right over and above the remnants of the ancient Forum, they soon stood before a little round structure of marble, topped with a rotund roof of tiles, and not a great deal larger than a wigwam of buflFalo skins in the West.
The party entered. There was one priest there to open the door, and another to stand before the altar and beg money. They saw some old relics, some wretched pictures, and that was all.
"And when was this built?" asked the general. The priests could not tell. They could not tell when it was built, who built it, or what it was built for. They only knew that it was called the Temple of Vesta that it was a church now, and that someimes it stood up to its waist in the waters of the Tiber, on whose very brink it stood.
The general again fumbled in his vest pocket for the expected five firancs, and Mollie rubbed her chin at the blue Madonna with the lamp at her feet, and Murietta mused and wondered what was the differnce between this lamp, this fine evening time now, and the lamp and the sacred fire of the vestal virgins that burned in these same walls attended by never sleeping virgins twenty centuries before.
"Well," said General Wopsus, feeling that he was buying a great deal of reliion, as he tapped his vest's pocket, "well, they have turned this into a Catholic church, too."
It was but a few steps from the Temple of Vesta to the Temple of Fortune, just across the narrow, dirty street from the house of Rienzi the Tribune.
They found that this ancient and venerble statue was of more imposing proportions by a great deal than the Temple of Vesta; but, to the infinite disgust of the general, who was anything but a Catholic, they found a great leathern apron swinging there, and a priest to pull it back and importune you for alms.
The same mournful pictures, the same blue Madonna, with the dim lamp at her feet, and that was all they found in the anient and storm stained Temple of Fortune.
Again the general fumbled in his pocket. Murietta mused and wondered if the godess would be kinder to him now that he had made a pilgrimage to her shrine. And Mollie still rubbed her chin, and Mrs. Wopsus rubbed her nose, and said, —
"My! what a smell"
"And what next" asked the general, with a smiling air and gesture, of the group as they stood under the marble eaves of the house of the Last of the Tribunes.
"Let us see the Cloaca Maxima." said Murietta "It is just here, close by the Temple of Janus."
"The Cloaca Whatima?"asked the mischievous Mollie.
"Why, the great cloaca," answered Muietta. "It is the great drain cut by the Tarquins, and it has been the sewer of Borne for more than twenty centuries."
"No, no," said the general, raising his voice. "We will not go there to see a sewer so old as that, for if we did we should find it turned into a Catholic church."
Murietta laughed." Then I propose the Theatre of Marcellus." said he.
"But is it not shut in Carnival?" asked the general.
"Ah yes," answered Murietta. "This theatre is shut this Carnival and every Carnival. And, in fact, it has been shut ever since about the time of the death of Julius Caesar."
"Bet your life I want to go there. I've heard all about this place. Lively lizards there, and all that. Thieves, banditti! Jolly, won't it be! Come along! Buckle on your swords!"
And off led the lively Mollie up and amid the way of the Montenare between the Tiber and the Capitoline Hill.
"How tired and hungry it looks!" Mollie stood before the mighty structure with her back to the Tarpeian Rock, and in that one sentence photographed the grand old battle torn edifice better than many a polished page could do it.
By degrees they drew up to the dingy shops and dens in the once lofty and beautifully chiselled arches of the theatre.
Soon they found their way into the shop of the old maker and vendor of antiquities, and the general was at once at home and very delighted. Ah yes! the general knew an old coin at the first glance. He had at least a thousand coins all procured at immense cost of time and money. He felt of those before him, and pronounced them about the best he had ever seen. He talked in a very patronizing way to the cunning old vendor, and told him that they had got to making spurious old coins in England as well as in America, and shiping them to Rome,
The cunning old prince — for this was the father of the four countesses — seemed greatly surprised, as no doubt he was at some part of this information, and crossed himself devoutly, and then proceeded to express his contempt and abhorrence of such deception in the wildest terms.
"Be careful," said the simple-hearted Californian general, "be careful, my old friend, or they will impose upon you! You see they may come down here to you in your isolated retreat, and sell you these coins at a seeming sacrifice, and ruin you; ruin you both in fortune and your good name."
The old prince was very much afraid they would indeed, and his hands trembled and shook as he handled his coins, that seemed older even than the baby toys of Father Time.
Mollie was amused with all the many curiosities the venerable dealer set before them with a trembling hand on the rickety bench by the door, and so was her mother. They liked these things because the goodatured general liked them. They were his great delight, and the party lingered here even till the setting of the sun.
Many and many a coin, and many a curious sphinx and cat and serpent were seected and set aside, and the old dealer kept blessing his patron saint and the good Madonna who had led these people to his door,
"You should be on the Corso with these things, you should be on the Corso, by all means, or at least in the Via Condotti," said the general to the old palsied prince.
"Ah, that has been the ambition of my life. But my children are so many and my customers so few, that I have never dared leave the shelter of this gloomy den of ours, and here I must live and die,"sighed the old man"unless the good Madonna sends me some day another customer as kind and generous as yourself."
"Another customer! Well, I will send you another customer, I will send you two, three, four; we will buy, before we leave Rome, the whole of your stock."
"Then at last my fortune will be made, my daughters will be married, and I shall have a shop on the Corso," said the old man, clasping his hands before the good general and shedding tears of genuine joy.
It was getting chilly in that damp and cheerless part of Rome, and the party preared to move on. The general drew out a full wallet of Italian notes, and counted down the old prince, the maker and vendor of antiquities, his full price and demand without a murmur. It was like a fairy tale. He had never seen, or at least never touched, so much money in all his life. It was nearly a thousand francs, and his fortune was indeed made.
The store of antiquities was carefully packed in a little bag, and one from the dozens of idle boys about the door was selected to bear them on his back for the general to the door of his hotel.
Suddenly the old prince threw up his hand to the side of his head, as if he had just remembered a very important and wonderful secret. He touched the general with his finger.
"Signor."
The general bent his head to listen.
"I have the serpent!"
The general waited for an explanation.
"I have a bronze of the original serpent seen by Eve in the Garden of Eden."
The general was both astonished and delighted. "Will you only look at it — look at it now? I will tell you the history of it some other time. I will only tell you now that this little coiled-up image, which I will find in a moment," and he kept feeling about in the cracks of the wall as if he was looking for, and was about to find, a real live serpent, "I will only tell you now, I say, that this serpent was modelled by one of the grandchildren of Eve; the name, I regret to say, has not reached us, but there is no doubt about this."
The general had begun to smile with that incredulous smile that is the terror of dealers in antiquities.
"I tell you that it was made by one of the grandchndren of Eve, while she sat by in the chimney comer smoking her pipe of an evening, and reading her Bible, and at inervals giving him directions as to how the serpent looked and behaved when she saw him in the Garden of Eden."
"But," protested the honest old general and railroad king, "I — I — I don't believe a word of it."
"I can prove it — prove it; will you, signor, only let me prove it?"
The general bowed his assent, and the old prince laid hold of his coat and began to talk as only an Italian merchant can talk.
It was getting late, and Mollie was getting hungry. The general really was becoming convinced.
"And what will you take for it"
"Five hundred — ^no, no, you have been so generous, so just— one hundred-" he stopped, looked in the general's face, and thought he still saw a smile there, and catchng his breath, went on, "fifty francs — I will take fifty francs for the bronze serpent of the Garden of Eden." and he laid it, coiled up, in the general's hand, as he all breathless finished his speech.
The general paid him the money, and the party moved away, as the railroad king stood lifting the precious serpent in his hand, and rubbing its scaly coils and very remarkable looking head.
Taking a step after the party, while the delighted old vendor of antiquities followed hat in hand, and bowing all the time, he turned and said to the old prince and dealer:
"But what makes it so very smooth?"
The remarkable old merchant put on his hat, struck an attitude, and then throwing out and reaching his arms as if he was about to hand something down and down and down through the hands of a thousand people standing in a line, he said :
"Ah, that was done by handing it down from generation to generation."
Start reading Chapter 28 ofThe One Fair Lady