AROMANGIRL

AROMANGIRL

—I rememberthe very words—“non parlo Francese, Signore—I do not speak French, Signor”—said the stout lady—“but my daughter, perhaps, will understand you.”

And she called out—“Enrica!—Enrica! venite, subito! c’ è un forestiere.”

And the daughter came, her light-brown hair falling carelessly over her shoulders, her rich, hazel eye twinkling and full of life, the color coming and going upon her transparent cheek, and her bosom heaving with her quick step. With one hand she put back the scattered locks that had fallen over her forehead, while she laid the other gently upon the arm of her mother, and asked in that sweet music of the south—“cosa volete, mamma?”

It was the prettiest picture I had seen in many a day; and this, notwithstanding I was in Rome, and had come that very morning from the Palace of Borghese.

The stout lady was my hostess, and Enrica—so fair, so young, so unlike in her beauty, to other Italian beauties, was my landlady’s daughter. The house was one of those tall houses—very, very old which stand along the eastern side of the Corso, looking out upon the Piazzo di Colonna. The staircases were very tall and dirty, and they were narrow and dark. Four flights of stone steps led up to the corridor where they lived. A little trap was in the door; and there was a bell-rope, at the least touch of which, I was almost sure to hear tripping feet run along the stone floor within, and then to see the trap thrown slyly back, and those deep hazel eyes looking out upon me; and then the door would open, and along the corridor, under the daughter’s guidance (until I had learned the way), I passed to my Roman home. I was a long time learning the way.

My chamber looked out upon the Corso, and I could catch from it a glimpse of the top of the tall column of Antoninus, and of a fragment of the palace of the governor. My parlor, which was separated from the apartments of the family by a narrow corridor, looked upon a small court, hung around with balconies. From the upper one a couple of black-eyed girls are occasionally looking out, and they can almost read the title of my book, when I sit by the window. Below are three or four bloomingragazze, who are dark-eyed, and have Roman luxuriance of hair. The youngest is a friend of our Enrica, and is of course frequently looking up with all the innocence in the world, to see if Enrica may be looking out.

Night after night a bright blaze glows upon my hearth, of the alder faggots which they bring from the Albanian hills. Night after night, too, the family come in to aid my blundering speech and to enjoy the rich sparkling of my faggot fire. Little Cesare, a dark-faced Italian boy, takes up his position with pencil and slate, and draws by the light of the blaze genii and castles. The old one-eyed teacher of Enrica lays his snuff box upon the table, and his handkerchief across his lap, and with his spectacles upon his nose, and his big fingers on the lesson, runs through the French tenses of the verbamare. The father, a sallow-faced, keen-eyed man, with true Italian visage, sits with his arms upon the elbows of his chair, and talks of the pope, or of the weather. A spruce count from the Marches of Ancona, wears a heavy watch seal, and reads Dante withfurore. The mother, with arms akimbo, looks proudly upon her daughter, and counts her, as well she may, a gem among the Roman beauties.

The table was round, with the fire blazing on one side; there was scarce room for but three upon the other. Signoril maestrowas one—then Enrica, and next—how well I remember it—came myself. For I could sometimes help Enrica to a word of French; and far oftener she could help me to a word of Italian. Her face was rich, and full of feeling; I used greatly to love to watch the puzzled expressions that passed over her forehead, as the sense of some hard phrase escaped her; and better still, to see the happy smile, as she caught at a glance, the thought of some old scholastic Frenchman, and transferred it into the liquid melody of her speech.

She had seen just sixteen summers, and only that very autumn was escaped from the thraldom of a convent, upon the skirts of Rome. She knew nothing of life, but the life of feeling; and all thoughts of happiness lay as yet in her childish hopes. It was pleasant to look upon her face; and it was still more pleasant to listen to that sweet Roman voice. What a rich flow of superlatives, and endearing diminutives, from those vermilion lips! Who would not have loved the study, and who would not have loved—without meaning it—the teacher?

In those days I did not linger long at the tables of lame Pietro in the Via Condotti: but would hurry back to my little Roman parlor—the fire was so pleasant! And it was so pleasant to greet Enrica with her mother, even before the one-eyedmaestrohad come in; and it was pleasant to unfold the book between us, and to lay my hand upon the page—a small page—where hers lay already. And when she pointed wrong, it was pleasant to correct her—over and over; insisting that her hand should be here, and not there, and lifting those little fingers from one page, and putting them down upon the other. And sometimes, half provoked with my fault-finding she would pat my hand smartly with hers; but when I looked in her face to know whatthatcould mean, she would meet my eye with such a kind submission, and half earnest regret, as made me not only pardon the offense—but tempt me to provoke it again.

Through all the days of Carnival, when I rode pelted withconfetti, and pelting back, my eyes used to wander up, from a long way off, to that tall house upon the Corso, where I was sure to meet, again and again, those forgiving eyes and that soft brown hair, all gathered under the little brown sombrero, set off with one pure white plume. And her hand full of bon-bons, she would shake at me threateningly; and laugh—a musical laugh—as I bowed my head to the assault, and recovering from the shower of missiles, would turn to throw my stoutest bouquet at her balcony. At night I would bear home to the Roman parlor my best trophy of the day, as a guerdon for Enrica; and Enrica would be sure to render in acknowledgment, some carefully hidden flowers, the prettiest that her beauty had won.

Sometimes upon those Carnival nights, she arrays herself in the costume of the Albanian water-carriers; and nothing, one would think, could be prettier than the laced crimson jacket, and the strange headgear with its trinkets, and the short skirts leaving to view as delicate an ankle as could be found in Rome. Upon another night, she glides into my little parlor, as we sit by the blaze, in a close velvet bodice, and with a Swiss hat caught up by a looplet of silver, and adorned with a full-blown rose—nothing you think could be prettier than this. Again, in one of her girlish freaks, she robes herself like a nun; and with the heavy black serge, for dress, and the funereal veil—relieved only by the plain white ruffle of her cap—you wish she were always a nun. But the wish vanishes, when you see her in a pure white muslin, with a wreath of orange blossoms about her forehead, and a single white rose-bud in her bosom.

Upon the little balcony Enrica keeps a pot or two of flowers, which bloom all winter long; and each morning I find upon my table a fresh rosebud; each night, I bear back for thank-offering the prettiest bouquet that can be found in the Via Conditti. The quiet fireside evenings come back; in which my hand seeks its wonted place upon her book; and my otherwillcreep around upon the back of Enrica’s chair, and Enricawilllook indignant—and then all forgiveness.

One day I received a large packet of letters—ah, what luxury to lie back in my big armchair, there before the crackling faggots, with the pleasant rustle of that silken dress beside me, and run over a second, and a third time, those mute paper missives, which bore to me over so many miles of water, the words of greeting, and of love. It would be worth traveling to the shores of the Ægean, to find one’s heart quickened into such life as the ocean letters will make. Enrica threw down her book, and wondered what could be in them—and snatched one from my hand, and looked with sad, but vain intensity over that strange scrawl. What can it be? said she; and she laid her finger upon the little half line—“Dear Paul.”

I told her it was—“Caro mio.”

Enrica laid it upon her lap and looked in my face; “It is from your mother?” said she.

“No,” said I.

“From your sister?” said she.

“Alas, no!”

“Il vostro fratello, dunque?”

“Nemmeno”—said I, “not from a brother either.”

She handed me the letter, and took up her book; and presently she laid the book down again; and looked at the letter, and then at me—and went out.

She did not come in again that evening; in the morning, there was no rose-bud on my table. And when I came at night, with a bouquet from Pietro’s at the corner, she asked me—“who had written my letter?”

“A very dear friend,” said I.

“A lady?” continued she.

“A lady,” said I.

“Keep this bouquet for her,” said she, and put it in my hands.

“But, Enrica, she has plenty of flowers; she lives among them, and each morning her children gather them by scores to make garlands of.”

Enrica put her fingers within my hand to take again the bouquet; and for a moment I held both fingers and flowers.

The flowers slipped out first.

I had a friend at Rome in that time, who afterward died between Ancona and Corinth; we were sitting one day upon a block of tufa in the middle of the Coliseum, looking up at the shadows which the waving shrubs upon the southern wall cast upon the ruined arcades within, and listening to the chirping sparrows that lived upon the wreck—when he said to me suddenly—“Paul, you love the Italian girl.”

“She is very beautiful,” said I.

“I think she is beginning to love you,” said he soberly.

“She has a very warm heart, I believe,” said I.

“Ay,” said he.

“But her feelings are those of a girl,” continued I.

“They are not,” said my friend; and he laid his hand upon my knee, and left off drawing diagrams with his cane; “I have seen, Paul, more than you of this southern nature. The Italian girl of fifteen is a woman; an impassioned, sensitive, tender creature—yet still a woman; you are loving—if you love—a full-grown heart; she is loving—if she loves—as a ripe heart should.”

“But I do not think that either is wholly true,” said I.

“Try it,” said he, setting his cane down firmly, and looking in my face.

“How?” returned I.

“I have three weeks upon my hands,” continued he. “Go with me into the Appenines; leave your home in the Corso, and see if you can forget in the air of the mountains, your bright-eyed Roman girl.”

I was pondering for an answer, when he went on: “It is better so; love as you might, that southern nature with all its passion, is not the material to build domestic happiness upon; nor is your northern habit—whatever you may think at your time of life, the one to cherish always those passionate sympathies which are bred by this atmosphere, and their scenes.”

One moment my thought ran to my little parlor, and to that fairy figure, and to that sweet angel face; and then, like lightning it traversed oceans, and fed upon the old ideal of home, and brought images to my eye of lost—dead ones, who seemed to be stirring on heavenly wings, in that soft Roman atmosphere, with greeting, and with beckoning.

—“I will go with you,” said I.

The father shrugged his shoulders, when I told him I was going to the mountains, and wanted a guide. His wife said it would be cold upon the hills, for the winter was not ended. Enrica said it would be warm in the valleys, for the spring was coming. The old man drummed with his fingers on the table, and shrugged his shoulders again, but said nothing.

My landlady said I could not ride. Cesare said it would be hard walking. Enrica asked papa, if there would be any danger. And again the old man shrugged his shoulders. Again I asked him, if he knew a man who would serve us as a guide among the Appenines; and finding me determined, he shrugged his shoulders, and said he would find one the next day.

As I passed out at evening, on my way to the Piazzo near the Monte Citorio, where stand the carriages that go out to Tivoli, Enrica glided up to me, and whispered—“Ah, mi dispiace tanto—tanto, Signor!”

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