ITALY.
GETTING INTO ITALY.
GETTING INTO ITALY.
Rome, June 27, 1905.
One can hardly realize until he has had some experience how quick and how decided is the transition from one country to another, and especially the change in language. At 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon we were in France, everybody around us and on the train talking French. At 6 o’clock we were in Italy: everybody was talking Italian, and the French language had disappeared as quickly as did the English when we landed at Calais. You know when you are going from one country to the next, also, because the custom-house is on the line and you have to haul out all your dirty clothes and souvenirs for the officials to examine to see if you are a smuggler. Let me tell how we came into Italy.
We boarded the train on the French railroad at Monte Carlo and had an hour’s ride to the frontier. By this time I had picked up enough French so I could get along reasonably well with the help of the sign language and a little money. But neither of us knew a word of Italian, and there was no one with us that day who could talk English. At Vintimille, where we crossed the line, we had to change trains, have our tickets signed and our baggage examined in forty minutes. With a full realization that nobody could understandme and I could understand no one, I tackled the job, putting my trust in Providence and a pocketful of small Italian coins which I had secured at Monte Carlo. When the train stopped in the Vintimille station a porter came alongside and according to the custom of the country I handed the four “bags” which constitute our baggage to him through the car-window. Then we got out and I told him in English what I wanted. He reeled off a lot of Italian and two or three bystanders chipped in, and a hotel runner attempted to capture us. But I took out my through ticket, pointed to it, jingled the coins in my pocket, and the porter understood. Of course I did not know at first whether he did or not, but we followed him and he led us into the custom-house and put our grips on a big table. Up came an inspector and jabbered Italian and I jabbered back in English. We both laughed, and of course neither understood what the other wanted. He asked me several questions, to all of which I said, “Can’t understand,” and then he gave me a final grin and said, “Tobac?” To that I said “No,” and shook my head. Without looking into the grips at all he chalked something on them which I suppose corresponds to our “O. K.,” threw up his hands and said something to the porter which made him and the surrounding onlookers burst forth in a loud guffaw. I felt as I suppose a poor Dago does when he strikes America. I again showed my ticket to the porter and pointed to the place where it must be signed. He puzzled over that a while and then took it and went away for a few minutes and came back with thework properly done. Then he took us to the Italian train the other side of the station, put our bags in the racks and we hoped we were on the right train—we were. I gave that porter a lot of Italian money, aggregating about 20 cents American, and he saluted me as if I were a duke or a saint. Mrs. Morgan says I spoiled him with my extravagant tip. But I felt so grateful to him that I didn’t care if I did make him proud with all that money at once. Let him swell up inside and parade the avenue all the evening and take his family out to dinner if he wants to. Let him take that 20 cents and pose as an Italian Rockefeller.
Then we were in Italy and couldn’t even read the signs. It makes you foolish to look over the door of your car and see the words which mean “Smoking permitted,” or “Smoking forbidden” and not know which. We were the only people in the compartment, and the conductor took a great deal of interest in us. He tried to tell us something and I tried to tell him something, but when we got through neither of us had added to our stock of knowledge. After the train had been going for a while he came to us and began to make signs and chatter. He held up both hands with the fingers extended. Mrs. Morgan was quite sure he meant $10 fine for smoking in that compartment, so I threw away my cigar, but he didn’t stop. At last I realized that he was making the signs of a man eating and drinking. I guessed he meant by both hands that the train would stop ten minutes for lunch, or that we wouldn’t get anything to eat until 10 o’clock. Whenthe train stopped at the next station it turned out that the first of these two was right.
The road from Vintimille to Genoa is a branch, and the ticket had to be signed and trains changed again at Genoa, and we also wanted to get a sleeping-car on to Rome. We had twenty-seven minutes at the station in Genoa, which is bigger than the Union Depot at Kansas City. Again I threw the grips out of the window and followed the porter. Then I left Mrs. Morgan with the baggage while the porter led me a merry chase around the block to the office where the ticket was to be signed or “viséd.” It was 11 o’clock at night, and you can imagine how it felt to be guided around among those Italians wondering all the while if the porter knew what I wanted. But he did and I returned in safety, and then I tried to find out about the sleeping-car. In French this is called a “Litts-salon,” and in German a “Schlaf-wagen,” literally a sleep-wagon. I tried English, French and German, but finally found the sleeper by examining the train,—next to the engine, of course, just where I wasn’t expecting it. We got on board safely, and after distributing a lot more Italian coppers I found we had transacted the business and had five minutes to spare,—as good time as I could have made in America to do all those things. All I then had to do was to hand out the required sleeper fare, $7.50 to Rome, 300 miles, three times what Mr. Pullman would have charged. But I reserve my comments on European sleeping-cars until I get a little more experience for a letter on railroads in the Old World.
And this is an old world. When I was in Boston I looked with awe upon the churches and monuments of 1776. In England these years seemed recent, and it took a cathedral or a castle of Elizabeth’s time or back to William the Conqueror. But here in Rome the very latest and newest buildings that we look at are those of the early Christians, and to get a real thrill they have to show me something B. C. It is really a good deal like living back in those times. I can’t read the newspapers and don’t know what has happened since I left Paris nearly a week ago. At that time the Russians and Japs were either going to have a conference or a fight, or both. Sometimes I wonder what has occurred, but generally I am concerning myself with what Julius Cæsar did, standing by the old forum and imagining Mark Antony denouncing the boss-busters, or wondering if Cicero’s speech against Catiline was not a political blunder which would make the old man trouble at the next city election. The only difficulty is to make the modern Italians fit in with the old Romans. Somehow or other it is hard to imagine the lazy gents who hold out their hands for coppers as real Romans who ruled the world.
The first real striking feature of Italy we noticed at Vintimille was the policemen. They wear handsome full-dress uniforms with red braid down the trousers, gilt lace and epaulets on the coats, tri-cornered hat with an immense plume, and carry in sight a sword and revolver. An Italian policeman walking his beat makes a gorgeous Knight Templar uniform look cheap. Younever see one policeman—there are always two together. The police of the whole country are appointed by the royal government, not by local officials, and are selected from the army. They are good-looking fellows, and wear their tight, heavy coats buttoned up in front regardless of the fact that it is Italy and the climate is not better than Kansas the last of June. One of the troubles with Italy is that it is really a second-class power, but it tries to keep up an army and navy in rivalry with Germany, Russia, and France. Every Italian must put in three years in active service. Take a country about the size of Kansas, fill it up with an army of 300,000 men and you see soldiers in every direction. Immense cathedrals and palaces filled with valuable gems and works of art, an army of expensive uniforms, and a poverty-stricken people,—that is Italy. The tourist hurries along and shuts his eyes to the distress as much as he can, visits the galleries and the churches, the ruins and the historic spots. He tries to see only the Italy of 2,000 years ago. He is fortunate if he can keep himself worked up in an ecstasy over the Cæsars and the old masters, so that the half-clothed children, the broken-down women and the men working without hope, do not leave an impression on his heart. I can’t shut my eyes tight enough to avoid seeing those things and sympathizing with the poor Italian people who have no show.
But here we are in Italy, not the Italy of to-day, but the Italy of Cæsar and Cicero, Nero and Constantine, the Italy where Paul and Peter planted the Christian religion and where they died the death ofmartyrs; the Italy of temples and colosseums, cathedrals and catacombs,—the Italy we read about, if you please, and not the Italy now on the map.