What the Senator called our attention to as we drove to the hotel was the conspicuous12 part in municipal politics played by that little old brown river Arno. In most places the riparian feature of the landscape is not insisted on—you have usually to go to the suburbs to find it, but in Pisa it is a sort of main street, with the town sitting comfortably and equally on each side of it looking on. Momma and I both liked the idea of a river in town scenery, and thought it might be copied with advantage in America, it afforded such a good excuse for bridges. Pisa's three arched stone ones made a reason for settling there in themselves in our opinion. The Senator, however, was against it on conservancy grounds, and asked us what we thought of the population of Pisa. And we had to admit that for the size of the houses there weren't very many people about. The Lungarno was almost empty except for desolate14 cabmen, and they were just as eager and hospitable15 to us and our trunks as they had been in Genoa.
In the Piazza16 del Duomo we expected the Cathedral, the Leaning Tower, the Baptistry, and the Campo Santo. We did not expect Mrs. Portheris; at least, neither of my parents did—I knew enough about Dicky Dod not to be surprised at any combination he might effect. There they all were in the middle of the square bit of meadow, apparently17 waiting for us, but really, I have no doubt, getting an impression of the architecture as a whole. I could tell from Mrs. Portheris's attitude that she had acknowledged herself to be gratified. Strange to relate, her gratification did not disappear when she saw that these medi?val circumstances would inconsistently compel her to recognise very modern American connections. She approached us quite blandly18, and I saw at once that Dicky Dod had been telling her that poppa's chances for the Presidency19 were considered certain, that the Spanish Infanta had stayed with us while she was in Chicago at the Exhibition, and that we fed her from gold plate. It was all in Mrs. Portheris's manner.
"Another unexpected meeting!" she exclaimed. "My dear Mrs. Wick, you are looking worn out! Try my sal volatile—I insist!" and in the general greeting momma was seen to back violently away from a long silver bottle in every direction. Poppa had to interfere20. "If it's all the same to you, Aunt Caroline," he said, "Mrs. Wick is quite as usual, though I think the Middle Agedness of this country is a little trying for her at this time of year. She's just a little upset this morning by seeing the cook plucking a rooster down in the backyard before he'd killed it. The rooster was in great affliction, you see, and the way he crowed got on momma's nerves. She's been telling us about it ever since. But we hope it will pass off."
Mrs. Portheris expanded into that inevitable21 British story of the officer who reported of certain tribes that they had no manners and their customs were abominable22, and I, at a mute invitation from Dicky, stepped aside to get the angle of the Tower from a better point of view.
Mr. Dod was depressed23, so much so that he came to the point at once. "I hope you had a good time in Genoa," he said. "We should have been there now, only I knew we should never catch up to you if we didn't skip something. So I heard of a case of cholera24 there, and didn't mention that it was last year. Quite enough for Her Ex. I say, though—it's no use."
"Isn't it?" said I. "Are you sure?"
"Pretty confoundedly certain. The British lion's getting there, in great shape—the brute25. All the widow's arranging. With the widow it's 'Mr. Dod, you will take care of me, won't you?' or 'Come now, Mr. Dod, and tell me all about buffalo26 shooting on your native prairies'—and Mr. Dod is a rattled27 jay. There's something about the mandate29 of a middle-aged30 British female."
"I should think there was!" I said.
"Then Maffy, you see, walks in. They don't seem to have much conversation—she regularly brightens up when I come along and say something cheerful—but he's gradually making up his mind that the best isn't any too good for him."
"Perhaps we don't begin so well in America," I interrupted thoughtfully. "But then, we don't develop into Mrs. P.'s either."
Dicky seemed unable to follow my line of thought. "I must say," he went on resentfully, "I like—well, just a smell of constancy about a man. A fellow that's thrown over ought to be in about the same shape as a widower31. But not much Maffy. I tried to work up his feelings over the American girl the other night—he was as calm!"
"Dicky," said I, "there are subjects a man must keep sacred. You must not speak to Mr. Mafferton of his first—attachment again. They never do it in England, except for purposes of fiction."
"Well, I worked that racket all I knew. I even told him that American girls as often as not changed their minds."
"Richard! He will think I—what will he think of American girls! It was excessively wrong of you to say that—I might almost call it criminal!"
Dicky looked at me in pained surprise. "Look here, Mamie," he said, "a fellow in my fix, you know! Don't get excited. How am I going to confide32 in you unless you keep your hair on!"
"What, may I ask, did Mr. Mafferton say when you told him that?" I asked sternly.
"He said—now you'll be madder than ever. I won't tell you."
"Mr. Dod—Dicky, haven't we been friends from infancy33!"
"Played with the same rattle28. Cut our teeth together."
"Well then——"
"Well then," he said, "do you mind putting your parasol straight? I like to see the person I'm talking to, and besides the sun is on the other side. He said he didn't think it was a privilege that should be extended to all cases."
"He did, did he?" I rejoined calmly. "That's like the British—isn't it?"
"It would have made such a complication if I'd kicked him," confessed Mr. Dod.
The Senator, momma, and Mrs. Portheris stood in the cathedral door. Isabel and Mr. Mafferton occupied the middle distance. Mr. Mafferton stooped to add a poppy to a slender handful of wild flowers he held out to her. Isabel was looking back.
"It will be pleasant inside the Duomo," I said. "Let us go on. I feel warm. I agree with you that the situation is serious, Dicky. Look at those poppies! When an Englishman does that you may make up your mind to the worst. But I don't think anybody need have the slightest respect for the affections of Mr. Mafferton."
Inside the Duomo it was pleasant, and cool, and there was a dim religious light that gave one an opportunity for reflection. I was so much engaged in reflection that I failed to notice the shape of the Duomo, but I have since learned that it was a basilica, in the form of a Latin cross, and was simply full of things which should have claimed my attention. Momma took copious34 notes from which I see that the Madonna and Child holy water basin was perfectly35 sweet, and the episcopal throne by Uervellesi in 1536 was the finest piece of tarsia work in the world, and the large bronze hanging lamp by Vincenzo Possento was the object which assisted Galileo to invent the oscillations of the pendulum36. The Senator was much taken with the inlaid wooden stalls in the choir37, the subjects were so lively. He and his Aunt Caroline nearly came to words over a monkey regarding its reflection in a looking glass, done with a realism which Mrs. Portheris considered little short of profane38, but which poppa found quite an excusable filip to devotions which must have been such an all day business in the sixteenth century. Outside, however, poppa found it difficult to approve the fa?ade. To throw four galleries over the street door, he said, with no visible means of getting into them or possible object for sitting there, was about the most ridiculous waste of building space he had yet observed.
"But then," said Dicky Dod, who kept his disconsolate39 place by my side, "they didn't seem to know how to waste enough in those pre-elevator days. Look at the pictures and the bronzes and the marble columns inside there—ten times as much as they had any use for. They just heaped it up."
"That's so, Dicky, my boy," replied poppa; "we could cover more ground with the money in our century. But you've got to remember that they hadn't any other way worth mentioning of spending the taxes. Religion, so to speak, was the boss contractor's only line."
Dicky remarked that it had to be admitted he worked it on the square, and momma said that no doubt people built as well as they knew how at that time, but nothing should induce her to add her weight to the top of the Leaning Tower.
"It is very remarkable40 and impressive," said momma, "the idea of its hanging over that way all these centuries, just on the drop and never dropping, but who knows that it may not come down this very day!"
"My dear niece, if I may call you so," remarked Mrs. Portheris urbanely41, "it was thus that the builders designed this great monument to stand; in its inclination42 lies the triumph of their art."
"I can't say I agree with you there, Aunt Caroline," said poppa; "that tower was never meant to stand crooked43. It's a very serious defect, and if it happened nowadays, it would justify44 any Municipal Board in repudiating45 the contract. Even those fellows, you see, were too sick to go on with it, in every case. Begun by Bonanus 1174. Bonanus saw what was going to happen and gave it up at the third storey. Then Benenato had his show, got it up to four, and quit, 1203. The next architect was—let me see—William of Innsbruck. He put on a couple more, and by that time it began to look dangerous. But nothing happened from 1260 to 1350, and it struck Tomaso Pisano that nothing would happen. He risked it anyhow, ran up another storey, put the roof on, and came in for the credit of the whole miracle. I expect Tomaso is at the bottom of that idea of yours, Aunt Caroline. He would naturally give the reporters that view."
Mrs. Portheris listened with a tolerance46 as badly put on as any garment she was wearing. "I do not usually make assertions," she said when poppa had finished, "without being convinced of the facts," and I became aware for the first time that her upper lip wore a slight moustache.
"Well, you'll excuse me, Aunt Caroline——"
"All my life I have heard of the Leaning Tower of Pisa as a feat13 of architecture," replied his Aunt Caroline firmly. "I do not propose to have that view disturbed now."
"Perhaps it was so, my dear love," put in momma deprecatingly, and Mr. Dod, with a frenzied47 wink48 at poppa, called his attention to the ridiculous Pisan habit of putting immovable fringed carriage-tops on cabs.
"It undoubtedly49 was," said Mrs. Portheris, with an embattled front.
"But—Great Scott, aunt!" exclaimed poppa, recklessly, "think what this place was like—all marsh50, with the sea right alongside; not four miles off as it is now. Why, you couldn't base so much as a calculation on it!"
"I must say," said Mrs. Portheris in severe surprise, "I knew that America had made great advances in the world of invention, but I did not expect to find what looks much like jealousy51 of the achievements of an older civilisation52."
The Senator looked at his aunt, then he put his hat further back on his head and cleared his throat. I prepared for the worst, and the worst would undoubtedly have come if Dicky Dod had not suddenly remembered having seen a man with a foreign telegram looking for somebody in the Cathedral.
"It's a feat!" reiterated53 Mrs. Portheris as the Senator left us in pursuit of the man with the telegram.
"It's fourteen feet," cried the Senator from a safe distance, "out of the perpendicular54!" and left us to take the consequences.
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1
baneful
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| adj.有害的 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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Neptune
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| n.海王星 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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7
idyllic
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| adj.质朴宜人的，田园风光的 | |
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8
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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9
acclaim
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| v.向…欢呼，公认；n.欢呼，喝彩，称赞 | |
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10
celebrity
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| n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望 | |
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11
homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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12
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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13
feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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14
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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15
hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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16
piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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17
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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blandly
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| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
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19
presidency
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| n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期) | |
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20
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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21
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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22
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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23
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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24
cholera
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| n.霍乱 | |
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25
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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27
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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29
mandate
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| n.托管地；命令，指示 | |
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30
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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32
confide
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| v.向某人吐露秘密 | |
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infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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34
copious
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| adj.丰富的，大量的 | |
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35
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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36
pendulum
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| n.摆，钟摆 | |
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37
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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38
profane
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| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
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39
disconsolate
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| adj.忧郁的，不快的 | |
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40
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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41
urbanely
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| adv.都市化地，彬彬有礼地，温文尔雅地 | |
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42
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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43
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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44
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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45
repudiating
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| v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的现在分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务） | |
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46
tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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47
frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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48
wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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49
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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50
marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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51
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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52
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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53
reiterated
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| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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54
perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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