Part 56 (1/2)
In the spring Esmeralda came to Rome, and I used often to go to see her in the rooms at Palazzo Parisani. She was very fragile then, and used to lie almost all day upon an old velvet sofa, looking, except for the heavy ma.s.ses of raven hair which were still uncovered, almost like an uncloistered nun, with her pale face and long black dress, unrelieved at the throat, and with a heavy rosary of large black beads and cross at her waist.
_From my_ JOURNAL.
”_Rome, Dec. 21, 1865._--Cardinal Cecchi died last week, and lay in state all yesterday in his palace, on a high bier, with his face painted and rouged, wearing his robes, and with his scarlet hat on his head. Cardinals always lie in state on a high catafalque, contrary to the general rule, which prescribes that the higher the rank the lower the person should lie. Princess Piombino lay in state upon the floor itself, so very high was her rank.
”The Cardinal was carried to church last night with a grand torchlight procession, which is always considered necessary for persons of his rank; but it is expensive, as everything in Rome costs double after the Ave Maria. The fee for a frate to walk at a funeral is four baiocchi in the daytime, but after the Ave it is eight baiocchi. When the Marchesa Ponziani was taken to church the other day, all the confraternities in Rome attended with torches.[309]
”To-day at 10 A.M. the Cardinal was buried in the church at the back of the Catinari. According to old custom, when he was put into the grave, his head-cook walked up to it and said, 'At what time will your Eminence dine?' For a minute there was no response, and then the major-domo replied, 'His Eminence will not want dinner any more (_non vuol altro_).' Then the head-footman came in and asked, 'At what time will your Eminence want the carriage?' and the major-domo replied, 'His Eminence will not want the carriage any more.' Upon which the footman went out to the door of the church, where the fat coachman sat on the box of the Cardinal's state carriage, who said, 'At what time will his Eminence be ready for the carriage?' and when the footman replied, 'La sua Eminenza non vuol altro,' he broke his whip, and throwing down the two pieces on either side the carriage, flung up his hands with a gesture of despair, and drove off.
”The other day Mrs. Goldsmid was in a church waiting for her confessor, who was not ready to come out of the sacristy. While she was waiting, two men came in carrying something between them, which she soon saw was a dead frate. His robe was too short, and his little white legs protruded below. They put him on a raised couch with a steep incline and left him, and her agony was that he would slip down and fall off, and then that the priests would think she had done it. She became so nervous, that, as she kept her eyes fixed on the body, it seemed to her to slip, slip, slip, till at last she made sure the little man was coming down altogether, and going to the sacristy door, she rang the bell violently, and entreated to be let out of the church.
”Mrs. Goldsmid says that the Pope, Pius IX., cannot stop spitting even when he is in the act of celebrating ma.s.s.... Being very jocose himself, he likes others to be familiar enough to amuse him.
The other day a friend asked Monsignor de Merode why the Pope was so fond of him: he said it was because, when he saw the Pope in a fit of melancholy, he always cut a joke and made him laugh, instead of condoling with him.
”The Pope is always thoroughly entertained at the stories which are circulated as to his 'evil eye' and its effects, as well as those about the 'evil eye' of the excellent and strikingly handsome Monsignor Prosperi. When the fire occurred in the Bocca di Leone, and the Pope was told of it, he said, 'How very extraordinary, for Monsignor Prosperi was out of Rome, and I was not there.'
”When the Pope, who does not speak good French, was talking of Pusey, he said, 'Je le compare ? une cloche, qui sonne, sonne, pour appeler les fid?les ? l'?glise, mais qui n'entre jamais.'
”I think there can scarcely be any set of men whose individuality is more marked than the present Cardinals.... Antonelli's manner in carrying the chalice in St Peter's is reverent in the extreme.
Cardinal Ugolini, who is almost always with the Pope, never fails to ruffle up his hair in walking down St. Peter's or the Sistine.”
”_Christmas Day._--The Pope heard of the death of his sister, an abbess, this morning, just as he was going to be carried into St.
Peter's, but the procession and the chair were waiting, and he was obliged to go. The poor old man looked deadly white as he was carried down the nave, and no wonder.”
”_January 15, 1866._--Went, by appointment, with Mrs. Goldsmid to the Church of SS. Marcellino e Pietro--the church with a roof like that of a Chinese paG.o.da, in the little valley beneath St. John Lateran. Inside it is a large Greek cross, and very handsome, with marbles, &c. The party collected slowly, Mrs. De Selby and her daughter, Mrs. Alfred Montgomery, Madame Sainte Aldegonde, the Bedingfields, a French Abb?, Mrs. Dawkins, and ourselves. Soon a small window shutter was opened to the left of the altar, and disclosed a double grille of iron, beyond which was a small room in the interior of the monastery. In the room, but close to the grille, and standing sideways, with lighted candles in front of it, was a very beautiful picture of the Crucifixion. It was much smaller than life, and seemed to be a copy of Guido's picture in the Lucina. The figure hung alone on the cross in the midst of a dark wind-stricken plain, and behind it the black storm clouds were driving through the sky, and beating the trees towards the ground.
As you looked fixedly at the face, the feeling of its intense suffering and its touching patience seemed to take possession of you and fill you. We all knelt in front of it, and I never took my eyes from it. Very soon Mrs. Goldsmid said, 'I begin to see something; do you not see the pupils of its eyes dilate?' Mrs.
Montgomery, in an ecstasy, soon after said, 'Oh, I see it: how wonderful! what a blessing vouchsafed to us! See, it moves! it moves!' Mrs. De Selby, who is always sternly matter-of-fact, and who had been looking fixedly at it hitherto, on this turned contemptuously away and said, 'What nonsense! it is a complete delusion: you delude yourselves into anything; the picture is perfectly still.' Mrs. Dawkins now declared that she distinctly saw the eyes move. Lady Bedingfield would not commit herself to any opinion. The French Abb? saw nothing.
”Meanwhile Madame Ste. Aldegonde had fallen into a rapture, and with clasped hands was returning thanks for the privilege vouchsafed to her. 'Oh mon Dieu! mon Dieu! quelle gr?ce! quelle gr?ce!' Shortly after this the French Abb? saw it also. 'Il n'y a pas le moindre doute,' he said; 'il bouge les yeux, mais le voil?, le voil?.' They all now began to distress themselves about Mrs. De Selby. 'Surely you must see _something_,' they said; 'it is impossible that you should see _nothing_.' But Mrs. De Selby continued stubbornly to declare that she saw nothing. While Madame Ste. Aldegonde was exclaiming, and when the scene was at its height, I could fancy that I saw something like a scintillation, a speculation, in one of the eyes of the Crucified One, but I could not be certain. As we left the church, the other ladies said, apropos of Mrs. De Selby, 'Well, you know, after all, it is not a thing we are _obliged_ to believe,' and one of them, turning to her, added consolingly, 'And you know you _did_ see a miracle at Vicovaro.'
”Mrs. Goldsmid declared that she was so shocked at my want of faith, that she should take me immediately to the Sepolti Vivi, to request the prayers of the abbess there. So we drove thither at once. The convent is most carefully concealed. Opposite the Church of S. Maria del Monte, a little recess in the street, which looks like a _cul de sac_, runs up to one of those large street shrines with a picture, so common in Naples, but of which there are very few at Rome. When you get up to the picture, you find the _cul de sac_ is an illusion. In the left of the shrine a staircase in the wall leads you up round the walls of the adjoining house to a platform on the roof. Here you are surrounded by heavy doors, all strongly barred and bolted. In the wall there projects what looks like a small green barrel. Mrs. Goldsmid stooped down and rapped loudly on the barrel. This she continued to do for some time. At last a faint m.u.f.fled voice was heard issuing from behind the barrel, and demanding what was wanted. 'I am Margaret Goldsmid,'
said our companion, 'and I want to speak to the abbess.'--'Speak again,' said the strange voice, and again Mrs. G. declared that she was Margaret Goldsmid. Then the invisible nun recognised the voice, and very slowly, to my great surprise, the green barrel began to move. Round and round it went, till at last in its innermost recesses was disclosed a key. Mrs. Goldsmid knew the meaning of this, and taking the key, led us round to a small postern door, which she unlocked, and we entered a small courtyard. Beyond this, other doors opened in a similar manner, till we reached a small white-washed room. Over the door was an inscription bidding those who entered that chamber to leave all worldly thoughts behind them.
Round the walls of the room were inscribed: 'Qui non diligit, manet in morte'--'Militia est vita hominis super terram'--'Alter alterius onera portate,' and on the side opposite the door--
'Vi esorto a rimirar La vita del mondo Nella guisa che il mira Un moribondo.'
Immediately beneath this inscription was a double grille, and beyond it what looked at first like pitch darkness, but what was afterwards shown to be a thick plate of iron, pierced, like the rose of a watering-pot, with small round holes, through which the voice might penetrate. Behind this plate of iron the abbess of the Sepolti Vivi receives her visitors. She is even then veiled from head to foot, and folds of thick serge fell over her face. Pope Gregory XVI., who of course could penetrate within the convent, once wis.h.i.+ng to try her faith, said to her, 'Sorella mia, levate il velo.'--'No, mio Padre,' replied the abbess, '? vietato dalle regole del nostro ordine.'
”Mrs. Goldsmid said to the abbess that she had brought with her two heretics, one in a state of partial grace, the other in a state of blind and outer darkness, that she might request her prayers and those of her sisterhood. The heretic in partial grace was Mrs.
Dawkins, the heretic in blind darkness was myself. Then came back the m.u.f.fled voice of the abbess, as if from another world, 'Bisogna essere convert.i.ti, perch? ci si sta poco in questo mondo: bisogna avere le lampane accese, perch? non si sa l'ora quando il Signore chiamer?, ma bisogna che le lampane siano accese coll' olio della vera fede, e se ve ne manca un solo articolo, se ne manca il tutto.' There was much more that she said, but it was all in the same strain. When she said, 'Se ve ne manca un solo articolo, se ne manca il tutto,' Mrs. Goldsmid was very much displeased, because she had constantly tried to persuade Mrs. Dawkins that it was _not_ necessary to receive _all_, and the abbess had unconsciously interfered with the whole line of her argument. Afterwards we asked the abbess about her convent. They were 'Farnesiani,' she said; 'Sepolti Vivi' was only 'un nome popolare;' but she did not know why they were called Farnesiani, or who founded their order. She said the nuns did not dig their graves every day, that also was only a popular story. When they died, she said, 'they only enjoyed their graves a short time, like the Cappuccini (a year, I think), and then, if their bodies were whole when they were dug up, they were preserved; but if their limbs had separated, they were thrown away. She said the nuns could speak to their 'parenti stretti' four times a year, but when I asked if they ever _saw_ them, she laughed in fits at the very idea, 'ma perch? bisogna vederli?' Mrs.
Goldsmid was once inside the convent, but could not get an order this year, because, when it had been countersigned by all the other authorities, old Cardinal Patrizi remembered that she had been in before, and withdrew it.
”I heard afterwards that generally when the crucifixion at S.
Marcellino is shown, a nun of S. Teresa, with her face covered, and robed from head to foot in a long blue veil, stands by it immovable, like a pillar, the whole time.”