To get to that corner room with its bookcase freighted with twenty dollars' worth of ancient Blackwood and modern spiritualistic literature, I have passed through--undescribed--a room that is my bedroom. Its size is good, its shape is good--thirty feet by twenty-two. Originally it was fifty feet long, stretching from one side of the house to the other, in the true Italian fashion which makes everybody's bedroom a passageway into the next room--kings, nobles, serfs, and all; but this American countess, the present owner, cut off twenty feet of the room and reattached ten feet of it to the room as a bathroom, and devoted2 the rest to a hallway. This bedroom is lighted by one of those tall glass doors, already described, which give upon the terrace. It is divided across the middle by some polished white pillars as big as my body, with Doric capitals, supporting a small arch at each end and a long one in the middle; this is indeed grandeur3 and is quite imposing4. The fireplace is of a good size, is of white marble, and the carvings5 upon it are of the dainty and graceful6 sort proper to its age, which is probably four hundred years. The fireplace and the stately columns are aristocratic, they recognize their kinship, and they smile at each other. That is, when they are not swearing at the rest of the room's belongings7. The front half of the room is aglare with a paper loud of pattern, atrocious in color, and cheap beyond the dreams of avarice8. The rear half is painted from floor to ceiling a dull, dead and repulsive9 yellow. It seems strange that yellow should be the favorite in Europe whereby to undecorate a wall; I have never seen the yellow wall which did not depress me and make me unhappy. The floor of the room is covered with a superannuated10 nightmare of a carpet whose figures are vast and riotous12 and whose indignant reds and blacks and yellows quarrel day and night and refuse to be reconciled. There is a door opening into the bathroom, and at that same end of the room is a door opening into a small box of a hall which leads to another convenience. Those two doors strictly13 follow the law of European dwellings15, whether built for the prince or for the pauper16. That is to say they are rude, thin, cheap planks17, flimsy; the sort of door which in the South the negro attaches to his chicken coop. These doors, like all such doors on the Continent, have a gimlet handle in place of a door knob. It wrenches18 from the socket19 a bolt which has no springs and which will not return to that socket except upon compulsion. You can't slam a door like that; it would simply rebound20. That gimlet handle catches on any garment that tries to get by; if tearable it tears it; if not tearable it stops the wearer with a suddenness and a violence and an unexpectedness which break down all his religious reserves, no matter who he may be.
The bedroom has a door on each side of the front end, so that anybody may tramp through that wants to at any time of the day or night, this being the only way to get to the room beyond, where the precious library is bookcased. Furniture: a salmon-colored silk sofa, a salmon-colored silk chair, a pair of ordinary wooden chairs, and a stuffed chair whose upholstery is of a species unknown to me but devilish; in the corner, an ordinary thin-legged kitchen table; against one wall a wardrobe and a dressing21 bureau; on the opposite side a rickety chest of drawers made of white pine painted black and ornamented22 with imitation brass23 handles; brass double bedstead. One will concede that this room is not over-embarrassed with furniture. The two clapboard doors already spoken of are mercifully concealed24 by parti-colored hangings of unknown country and origin; the three other doors already mentioned are hooded25 with long curtains that descend26 to the floor and are caught apart in the middle to permit the passage of people and light. These curtains have a proud and ostentatious look which deceives no one, it being based upon a hybrid27 silk with cotton for its chief ingredient. The color is a solid yellow, and deeper than the yellow of the rearward half of the walls; and now here is a curious thing: one may look from one of these colors to the other fifty times, and each time he will think that the one he is looking at is the ugliest. It is a most curious and interesting effect. I think that if one could get himself toned down to where he could look upon these curtains without passion he would then perceive that it takes both of them together to be the ugliest color known to art.
We have considered these two yellows, but they do not exhaust the matter; there is still another one in the room. This is a lofty and sumptuous28 canopy29 over the brass bedstead, made of brilliant and shiny and shouting lemon-colored satin--genuine satin, almost the only genuine thing in the whole room. It is of the nobility, it is of the aristocracy, it belongs with the majestic30 white pillars and the dainty old marble fireplace; all the rest of the room's belongings are profoundly plebeian31, they are exiles, they are sorrowful outcasts from their rightful home, which is the poorhouse.
On the end wall of the yellow half of the room hang a couple of framed engravings, female angels engaged in their customary traffic of transporting departed persons to heaven over a distant prospect32 of city and plain and mountain.
The discords33 of this room, in colors, in humble34 poverty and showy and self-complacent pretentiousness35, are repeated everywhere one goes in the huge house.
I am weary of particulars. One may travel two hundred feet down either side of the house, through an aimless jumble36 of useless little reception rooms and showy corridors, finding nothing sane37 or homelike till he reaches the dining room at the end.
On the next floor, over the Blackwood library, there is a good bedroom well furnished, and with a fine stone balcony and the majestic view, just mentioned, enlarged and improved, thence northward38 two hundred feet, cut up in much the same disarray39 as is that ground floor. But in the midst is a great drawing-room about forty feet square and perhaps as many high, handsomely and tastefully hung with brocaded silk and with a very beautifully frescoed40 ceiling. But the place has a most angry look, for scattered41 all about it are divans42 and sofas and chairs and lofty window hangings of that same fierce lemon-colored satin heretofore noted43 as forming the canopy of the brass bedstead downstairs. When one steps suddenly into that great place on a splendid Florentine day it is like entering hell on a Sunday morning when the brightest and yellowest brimstone fires are going.
I think I have said that the top floor has twenty rooms. They are not furnished, they are spacious45, and from all of them one has a wide and charming view. Properly furnished they would be pleasant, homelike, and in every way satisfactory.
End of March. Now that we have lived in this house four and one-half months, my prejudices have fallen away one by one and the place has become very homelike to me. Under certain conditions I should like to go on living in it indefinitely. Indeed, I could reduce the conditions to two and be quite satisfied. I should wish the owner to move out of Italy; out of Europe; out of the planet.
I realize that there is no way of realizing this and so after two and a half months I have given it up and have been house hunting ever since. House hunting in any country is difficult and depressing; in the regions skirting Florence it leads to despair, and if persisted in will end in suicide. Professor Willard Fiske, the scholar, who bought the Walter Savage46 Landor villa fourteen or fifteen years ago, tells me that he examined three hundred villas47 before he found one that would suit him; yet he was a widower48 without child or dependent and merely needed a villa for his lone49 self. I was in it twelve years ago and it seemed to me that he had not bought a villa, but only a privilege--the privilege of building it over again and making it humanly habitable. During the first three weeks of February I climbed around over and prowled through an average of six large villas a week, but found none that would answer, in the circumstances. One of the circumstances, and the most important of all, being that we are in Italy by the command of physicians in the hope that in this mild climate Mrs. Clemens will get her health back. She suddenly lost it nineteen months ago, being smitten50 helpless by nervous prostration51 complicated with an affection of the heart of several years' standing52, and the times since this collapse53 that she has been able to stand on her feet five minutes at a time have been exceedingly rare. I have examined two villas that were about as large as this one, but the interior architecture was so ill contrived54 that there was not comfortable room in them for my family of four persons. As a rule the bedchambers served as common hallways, which means that for centuries Tom, Dick, and Harry55 of both sexes and all ages have moved in procession to and fro through those ostensibly private rooms.
Every villa I examined had a number of the details which I was ordered to find; four possessed56 almost every one of them. In the case of the four the altitudes were not satisfactory to the doctors; two of them were too high, the other pair too low. These fifteen or twenty villas were all furnished. The reader of these notes will find that word in the dictionary, and it will be defined there; but that definition can have no value to a person who is desiring to know what the word means over here when it is attached to an advertisement proposing to let a dwelling14 house. Here it means a meager57 and scattering58 array of cheap and rickety chairs, tables, sofas, etc., upholstered in worn and damaged fragments of somber59 and melancholy60 hue61 that suggest the grave and compel the desire to retire to it. The average villa is properly a hospital for ailing62 and superannuated furniture. In its best days this furniture was never good nor comely63 nor attractive nor comfortable. When that best day was, was too long ago for anyone to be able to date it now.
Each time that I have returned from one of these quests I have been obliged to concede that the insurrection of color in this Villa di Quarto is a rest to the eye after what I had been sighing and sorrowing over in those others, and that this is the only villa in the market so far as I know that has furniture enough in it for the needs of the occupants. Also I will concede that I was wrong in thinking this villa poverty-stricken in the matter of conveniences; for by contrast with those others this house is rich in conveniences.
Some time ago a lady told me that she had just returned from a visit to the country palace of a princess, a huge building standing in the midst of a great and beautiful and carefully kept flower garden, the garden in its turn being situated64 in a great and beautiful private park. She was received by a splendid apparition65 of the footman species, who ushered66 her into a lofty and spacious hall richly garnished67 with statuary, pictures, and other ornaments68, fine and costly69, and thence down an immensely long corridor which shone with a similar garniture, superb and showy to the last degree; and at the end of this enchanting70 journey she was delivered into the princess's bedchamber and received by the princess, who was ailing slightly and in bed. The room was very small, it was without bric-a-brac or prettinesses for the comfort of the eye and spirit, the bedstead was iron, there were two wooden chairs and a small table, and in the corner stood an iron tripod which supported a common white washbowl. The costly glories of the house were all for show; no money had been wasted on its mistress's comfort. I had my doubts about this story when I first acquired it; I am more credulous71 now.
A word or two more concerning the furnishings of the Villa di Quarto. The rooms contain an average of four pictures each, say two photographs or engravings and two oil- or water-color paintings of chromo degree.
High up on the walls of the great entrance hall hang several of those little shiny white cherubs72 which one associates with the name of Delia Robbia. The walls of this hall are further decorated, or at least relieved, by the usual great frameless oval oil portraits of long-departed aristocrats73 which one customarily finds thus displayed in all Florentine villas. In the present case the portraits were painted by artists of chromo rank, with the exception of one. As I have had no teaching in art, I cannot decide what is a good picture and what isn't, according to the established standards; I am obliged to depend on my own crude standards. According to these the picture which I am now considering sets forth74 a most noble, grave, and beautiful face, faultless in all details and with beautiful and faultless hands; and if it belonged to me I would never take a lesson in art lest the picture lose for me its finished, complete, and satisfying perfection.
* * * * * *
We have lived in a Florentine villa before. This was twelve years ago. This was the Villa Viviani, and was pleasantly and commandingly situated on a hill in the suburb of Settignano, overlooking Florence and the great valley. It was secured for us and put in comfortable order by a good friend, Mrs. Ross, whose stately castle was a twelve minutes' walk away. She still lives there, and had been a help to us more than once since we established relations with the titled owner of the Villa di Quarto. The year spent in the Villa Viviani was something of a contrast to the five months which we have now spent in this ducal barrack. Among my old manuscripts and random75 and spasmodic diaries I find some account of that pleasantly remembered year, and will make some extracts from the same and introduce them here.
When we were passing through Florence in the spring of '92 on our way to Germany, the diseased-world's bathhouse, we began negotiations76 for a villa, and friends of ours completed them after we were gone. When we got back three or four months later, everything was ready, even to the servants and the dinner. It takes but a sentence to state that, but it makes an indolent person tired to think of the planning and work and trouble that lie concealed in it. For it is less trouble and more satisfaction to bury two families than to select and equip a home for one.
The situation of the villa was perfect. It was three miles from Florence, on the side of a hill. The flowery terrace on which it stood looked down upon sloping olive groves78 and vineyards; to the right, beyond some hill spurs, was Fiesole, perched upon its steep terraces; in the immediate79 foreground was the imposing mass of the Ross castle, its walls and turrets80 rich with the mellow81 weather stains of forgotten centuries; in the distant plain lay Florence, pink and gray and brown, with the rusty82 huge dome83 of the cathedral dominating its center like a captive balloon, and flanked on the right by the smaller bulb of the Medici chapel84 and on the left by the airy tower of the Palazzo Vecchio; all around the horizon was a billowy rim44 of lofty blue hills, snowed white with innumerable villas. After nine months of familiarity with this panorama85, I still think, as I thought in the beginning, that this is the fairest picture on our planet, the most enchanting to look upon, the most satisfying to the eye and the spirit. To see the sun sink down, drowned on his pink and purple and golden floods, and overwhelm Florence with tides of color that make all the sharp lines dim and faint and turn the solid city to a city of dreams, is a sight to stir the coldest nature and make a sympathetic one drunk with ecstasy86.
Sept. 26, '92.--Arrived in Florence. Got my head shaved. This was a mistake. Moved to the villa in the afternoon. Some of the trunks brought up in the evening by the contadino--if that is his title. He is the man who lives on the farm and takes care of it for the owner, the marquis. The contadino is middle-aged87 and like the rest of the peasants--that is to say, brown, handsome, good-natured, courteous88, and entirely89 independent without making any offensive show of it. He charged too much for the trunks, I was told. My informant explained that this was customary.
Sept. 27.--The rest of the trunks brought up this morning. He charged too much again, but I was told that this also was customary. It is all right, then. I do not wish to violate the customs. Hired landau, horses, and coachman. Terms, four hundred and eighty francs a month and a pourboire to the coachman, I to furnish lodging90 for the man and the horses, but nothing else. The landau has seen better days and weighs thirty tons. The horses are feeble and object to the landau; they stop and turn around every now and then and examine it with surprise and suspicion. This causes delay. But it entertains the people along the road. They came out and stood around with their hands in their pockets and discussed the matter with one another. I was told they said that a forty-ton landau was not the thing for horses like those--what they needed was a wheelbarrow.
I will insert in this place some notes made in October concerning the villa:
This is a two-story house. It is not an old house--from an Italian standpoint, I mean. No doubt there has always been a nice dwelling on this eligible91 spot since a thousand years B.C., but this present one is said to be only two hundred years old. Outside, it is a plain square building like a box, and is painted a light yellow and has green window shutters92. It stands in a commanding position on an artificial terrace of liberal dimensions which is walled around with strong masonry93. From the walls the vineyards and olive orchards94 of the estate slant95 away toward the valley; the garden about the house is stocked with flowers and a convention of lemon bushes in great crockery tubs; there are several tall trees--stately stone pines--also fig11 trees and trees of breeds not familiar to me; roses overflow96 the retaining walls and the battered97 and mossy stone urns98 on the gateposts in pink and yellow cataracts99, exactly as they do on the drop curtains of theaters; there are gravel100 walks shut in by tall laurel hedges. A back corner of the terrace is occupied by a dense101 grove77 of old ilex trees. There is a stone table in there, with stone benches around it. No shaft102 of sunlight can penetrate103 that grove. It is always deep twilight104 in there, even when all outside is flooded with the intense sun glare common to this region. The carriage road leads from the inner gate eight hundred feet to the public road, through the vineyard, and there one may take the horse car for the city, and will find it a swifter and handier convenience than a sixty-ton landau. On the east (or maybe it is the south) front of the house is the Viviani coat of arms in plaster, and near it a sun dial which keeps very good time.
The house is a very fortress105 for strength. The main walls--of brick covered with plaster--are about three feet thick; the partitions of the rooms, also of brick, are nearly the same thickness. The ceilings of the rooms on the ground floor are more than twenty feet high; those of the upper floors are also higher than necessary. I have several times tried to count the rooms in the house, but the irregularities baffle me. There seem to be twenty-eight.
The ceilings are frescoed, the walls are papered. All the floors are of red brick covered with a coating or polished and shining cement which is as hard as stone and looks like it; for the surfaces have been painted in patterns, first in solid colors and then snowed over with varicolored freckles106 of paint to imitate granite107 and other stones. Sometimes the body of the floor is an imitation of gray granite with a huge star or other ornamental108 pattern of imitation fancy marbles in the center; with a two-foot band of imitation red granite all around the room, whose outer edge is bordered with a six-inch stripe of imitation lapis-lazuli; sometimes the body of the floor is red granite, then the gray is used as a bordering stripe. There are plenty of windows, and worlds of sun and light; these floors are slick and shiny and full of reflections, for each is a mirror in its way, softly imaging all objects after the subdued109 fashion of forest lakes.
There is a tiny family chapel on the main floor, with benches for ten or twelve persons, and over the little altar is an ancient oil painting which seems to me to be as beautiful and as rich in tone as any of those old-master performances down yonder in the galleries of the Pitti and the Uffizi. Botticelli, for instance; I wish I had time to make a few remarks about Botticelli--whose real name was probably Smith.
The curious feature of the house is the salon110. This is a spacious and lofty vacuum which occupies the center of the house; all the rest of the house is built around it; it extends up through both stories and its roof projects some feet above the rest of the building. That vacuum is very impressive. The sense of its vastness strikes you the moment you step into it and cast your eyes around it and aloft. I tried many names for it: the Skating Rink, the Mammoth111 Cave, the Great Sahara, and so on, but none exactly answered. There are five divans distributed along its walls; they make little or no show, though their aggregate112 length is fifty-seven feet. A piano in it is a lost object. We have tried to reduce the sense of desert space and emptiness with tables and things, but they have a defeated look and do not do any good. Whatever stands or moves under that soaring painted vault113 is belittled114.
Over the six doors are huge plaster medallions which are supported by great naked and handsome plaster boys, and in these medallions are plaster portraits in high relief of some grave and beautiful men in stately official costumes of a long-past day--Florentine senators and judges, ancient dwellers115 here and owners of this estate. The date of one of them is 1305--middle-aged, then, and a judge--he could have known, as a youth, the very creators of Italian art; he could have walked and talked with Dante, and probably did. The date of another is 1343--he could have known Boccaccio and spent his afternoons yonder in Fiesole gazing down on plague-reeking Florence and listening to that man's improper116 tales, and he probably did. The date of another is 1463--he could have met Columbus, and he knew the Magnificent Lorenzo, of course. These are all Cerretanis--or Cerretani-Twains, as I may say, for I have adopted myself into their family on account of its antiquity117, my origin having been heretofore too recent to suit me.
But I am forgetting to state what it is about that Rink that is so curious--which is, that it is not really vast, but only seems so. It is an odd deception118, and unaccountable; but a deception it is. Measured by the eye it is sixty feet square and sixty high; but I have been applying the tape line, and find it to be but forty feet square and forty high. These are the correct figures; and what is interestingly strange is that the place continues to look as big now as it did before I measured it.
This is a good house, but it cost very little and is simplicity119 itself, and pretty primitive120 in most of its features. The water is pumped to the ground floor from a well by hand labor121, and then carried upstairs by hand. There is no drainage; the cesspools are right under the windows. This is the case with everybody's villa.
The doors in this house are like the doors of the majority of the houses and hotels of Italy--plain, thin, unpaneled boards painted white. This makes the flimsiest and most unattractive door known to history. The knob is not a knob, but a thing like the handle of a gimlet--you can get hold of it only with your thumb and forefinger122. Still, even that is less foolish than our American door knob, which is always getting loose and turning futilely123 round and round in your hand, accomplishing nothing.
The windows are all of the rational continental124 breed; they open apart, like doors; and when they are bolted for the night they don't rattle125 and a person can go to sleep.
There are cunning little fireplaces in the bedrooms and sitting rooms, and lately a big, aggressive-looking German stove has been set up on the south frontier of the Great Sahara.
The stairs are made of granite blocks, the hallways of the second floor are of red brick. It is a safe house. Earthquakes cannot shake it down, fire cannot burn it. There is absolutely nothing burnable but the furniture, the curtains, and the doors. There is not much furniture; it is merely summer furniture--or summer bareness, if you like. When a candle set fire to the curtains in a room over my head the other night where samples of the family slept, I was wakened out of my sleep by shouts and screams, and was greatly terrified until an answer from the window told me what the matter was--that the window curtains and hangings were on fire. In America I should have been more frightened than ever, then, but this was not the case here. I advised the samples to let the fire alone and go to bed; which they did, and by the time they got to sleep there was nothing of the attacked fabrics126 left. We boast a good deal in America of our fire departments, the most efficient and wonderful in the world, but they have something better than that to boast of in Europe--a rational system of building which makes human life safe from fire and renders fire departments needless. We boast of a thing which we ought to be ashamed to require.
This villa has a roomy look, a spacious look; and when the sunshine is pouring in and lighting127 up the bright colors of the shiny floors and walls and ceilings there is a large and friendly suggestion of welcome about the aspects, but I do not know that I have ever seen a continental dwelling which quite met the American standard of a home in all the details. There is a trick about an American house that is like the deep-lying untranslatable idioms of a foreign language--a trick uncatchable by the stranger, a trick incommunicable and indescribable; and that elusive128 trick, that intangible something, whatever it is, is just the something that gives the home look and the home feeling to an American house and makes it the most satisfying refuge yet invented by men--and women, mainly women. The American house is opulent in soft and varied129 colors that please and rest the eye, and in surfaces that are smooth and pleasant to the touch, in forms that are shapely and graceful, in objects without number which compel interest and cover nakedness; and the night has even a higher charm than the day, there, for the artificial lights do really give light instead of merely trying and failing; and under their veiled and tinted130 glow all the snug131 coziness and comfort and charm of the place is at best and loveliest. But when night shuts down on the continental home there is no gas or electricity to fight it, but only dreary132 lamps of exaggerated ugliness and of incomparable poverty in the matter of effectiveness.
Sept. 29, '92.--I seem able to forget everything except that I have had my head shaved. No matter how closely I shut myself away from draughts133 it seems to be always breezy up there. But the main difficulty is the flies. They like it up there better than anywhere else; on account of the view, I suppose. It seems to me that I have never seen any flies before that were shod like these. These appear to have talons134. Wherever they put their foot down they grab. They walk over my head all the time and cause me infinite torture. It is their park, their club, their summer resort. They have garden parties there, and conventions, and all sorts of dissipation. And they fear nothing. All flies are daring, but these are more daring than those of other nationalities. These cannot be scared away by any device. They are more diligent135, too, than the other kinds; they come before daylight and stay till after dark. But there are compensations, not a trouble. There are very few of them, they are not noisy, and not much interested in their calling. A single unkind word will send them away; if said in English, which impresses them because they do not understand it, they come no more that night. We often see them weep when they are spoken to harshly. I have got some of the eggs to take home. If this breed can be raised in our climate they will be a great advantage. There seem to be no fleas136 here. This is the first time we have struck this kind of an interregnum in fifteen months. Everywhere else the supply exceeds the demand.
Oct. 1.--Finding that the coachman was taking his meals in the kitchen, I reorganized the contract to include his board, at thirty francs a month. That is what it would cost him up above us in the village, and I think I can feed him for two hundred, and save thirty out of it. Saving thirty is better than not saving anything.
That passage from the diary reminds me that I did an injudicious thing along about that time which bore fruit later. As I was to give the coachman, Vittorio, a monthly pourboire, of course I wanted to know the amount. So I asked the coachman's padrone (master), instead of asking somebody else--anybody else. He said thirty francs a month would be about right. I was afterward137 informed that this was an overcharge, but that it was customary, there being no customary charges except overcharges. However, at the end of that month the coachman demanded an extra pourboire of fifteen francs. When I asked why, he said his padrone had taken his other pourboire away from him. The padrone denied this in Vittorio's presence, and Vittorio seemed to retract138. The padrone said he did, and he certainly had that aspect, but I had to take the padrone's word for it as interpreter of the coachman's Italian. When the padrone was gone the coachman resumed the charge, and as we liked him--and also believed him--we made his aggregate pourboire forty-five francs a month after that, and never doubted that the padrone took two-thirds of it. We were told by citizens that it was customary for the padrone to seize a considerable share of his dependent's pourboire, and also the custom for the padrone to deny it. That padrone is an accommodating man and a most capable and agreeable talker, speaking English like an archangel, and making it next to impossible for a body to be dissatisfied with him; yet his seventy-ton landau has kept us supplied with lame139 horses for nine months, whereas we were entitled to a light carriage suited to hill-climbing, and fastidious people would have made him furnish it.
The Cerretani family, of old and high distinction in the great days of the Republic, lived on this place during many centuries. Along in October we began to notice a pungent140 and suspicious odor which we were not acquainted with and which gave us some little apprehension141, but I laid it on the dog, and explained to the family that that kind of a dog always smelled that way when he was up to windward of the subject, but privately142 I knew it was not the dog at all. I believed it was our adopted ancestors, the Cerretanis. I believed they were preserved under the house somewhere and that it would be a good scheme to get them out and air them. But I was mistaken. I made a secret search and had to acquit143 the ancestors. It turned out that the odor was a harmless one. It came from the wine crop, which was stored in a part of the cellars to which we had no access. This discovery gave our imaginations a rest and it turned a disagreeable smell into a pleasant one. But not until we had so long and lavishly144 flooded the house with odious145 disinfectants that the dog left and the family had to camp in the yard most of the time. It took two months to disinfect the disinfectants and persuade our wealth of atrocious stenches to emigrate. When they were finally all gone and the wine fragrance146 resumed business at the old stand, we welcomed it with effusion and have had no fault to find with it since.
Oct. 6.--I find myself at a disadvantage here. Four persons in the house speak Italian and nothing else, one person speaks German and nothing else, the rest of the talk is in the French, English, and profane147 languages. I am equipped with but the merest smattering in these tongues, if I except one or two. Angelo speaks French--a French which he could get a patent on, because he invented it himself; a French which no one can understand, a French which resembles no other confusion of sounds heard since Babel, a French which curdles148 the milk. He prefers it to his native Italian. He loves to talk it; loves to listen to himself; to him it is music; he will not let it alone. The family would like to get their little Italian savings149 into circulation, but he will not give change. It makes no difference what language he is addressed in, his reply is in French, his peculiar150 French, his grating, uncanny French, which sounds like shoveling anthracite down a coal chute. I know a few Italian words and several phrases, and along at first I used to keep them bright and fresh by whetting151 them on Angelo; but he partly couldn't understand them and partly didn't want to, so I have been obliged to withdraw them from the market for the present. But this is only temporary. I am practicing, I am preparing. Some day I shall be ready for him, and not in ineffectual French, but in his native tongue. I will seethe152 this kid in its mother's milk.
Oct. 27.--The first month is finished. We are wonted, now. It is agreed that life at a Florentine villa is an ideal existence. The weather is divine, the outside aspects lovely, the days and the nights tranquil153 and reposeful154, the seclusion155 from the world and its worries as satisfactory as a dream. There is no housekeeping to do, no plans to make, no marketing156 to superintend--all these things do themselves, apparently157. One is vaguely158 aware that somebody is attending to them, just as one is aware that the world is being turned over and the constellations159 worked and the sun shoved around according to the schedule, but that is all; one does not feel personally concerned, or in any way responsible. Yet there is no head, no chief executive; each servant minds his or her own department, requiring no supervision160 and having none. They hand in elaborately itemized bills once a week; then the machinery161 goes silently on again, just as before. There is no noise, or fussing, or quarreling, or confusion--upstairs. I don't know what goes on below. Late in the afternoons friends come out from the city and drink tea in the open air, and tell what is happening in the world; and when the great sun sinks down upon Florence and the daily miracle begins, they hold their breaths and look. It is not a time for talk.
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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4
imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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5
carvings
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| n.雕刻( carving的名词复数 )；雕刻术；雕刻品；雕刻物 | |
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6
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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7
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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8
avarice
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| n.贪婪；贪心 | |
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9
repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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10
superannuated
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| adj.老朽的，退休的；v.因落后于时代而废除，勒令退学 | |
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11
fig
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| n.无花果(树) | |
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12
riotous
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| adj.骚乱的；狂欢的 | |
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13
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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14
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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15
dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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16
pauper
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| n.贫民，被救济者，穷人 | |
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17
planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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18
wrenches
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| n.一拧( wrench的名词复数 )；（身体关节的）扭伤；扳手；（尤指离别的）悲痛v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的第三人称单数 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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19
socket
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| n.窝，穴，孔，插座，插口 | |
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20
rebound
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| v.弹回；n.弹回，跳回 | |
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21
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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22
ornamented
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| adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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23
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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24
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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25
hooded
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| adj.戴头巾的；有罩盖的；颈部因肋骨运动而膨胀的 | |
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26
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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27
hybrid
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| n.(动，植）杂种，混合物 | |
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28
sumptuous
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| adj.豪华的，奢侈的，华丽的 | |
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29
canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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30
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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31
plebeian
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| adj.粗俗的；平民的；n.平民；庶民 | |
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32
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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33
discords
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| 不和（discord的复数形式） | |
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34
humble
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|
| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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35
pretentiousness
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| n.矫饰；炫耀；自负；狂妄 | |
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36
jumble
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| vt.使混乱，混杂；n.混乱；杂乱的一堆 | |
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37
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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38
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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39
disarray
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| n.混乱，紊乱，凌乱 | |
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40
frescoed
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| 壁画( fresco的名词复数 )； 温壁画技法，湿壁画 | |
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41
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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42
divans
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| n.（可作床用的）矮沙发( divan的名词复数 )；（波斯或其他东方诗人的）诗集 | |
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43
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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44
rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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45
spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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46
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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47
villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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48
widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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49
lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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50
smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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51
prostration
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| n. 平伏, 跪倒, 疲劳 | |
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52
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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53
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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54
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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55
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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56
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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57
meager
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| adj.缺乏的，不足的，瘦的 | |
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58
scattering
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| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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59
somber
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| adj.昏暗的，阴天的，阴森的，忧郁的 | |
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60
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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61
hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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62
ailing
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| v.生病 | |
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63
comely
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| adj.漂亮的，合宜的 | |
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64
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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65
apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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66
ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67
garnished
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| v.给（上餐桌的食物）加装饰( garnish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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68
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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69
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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70
enchanting
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| a.讨人喜欢的 | |
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71
credulous
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|
| adj.轻信的，易信的 | |
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72
cherubs
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| 小天使，胖娃娃( cherub的名词复数 ) | |
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73
aristocrats
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| n.贵族( aristocrat的名词复数 ) | |
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74
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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75
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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76
negotiations
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| 协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过 | |
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77
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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78
groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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79
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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80
turrets
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| （六角）转台( turret的名词复数 )； （战舰和坦克等上的）转动炮塔； （摄影机等上的）镜头转台； （旧时攻城用的）塔车 | |
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81
mellow
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|
| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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82
rusty
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|
| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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83
dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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84
chapel
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|
| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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85
panorama
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|
| n.全景，全景画，全景摄影，全景照片[装置] | |
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86
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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87
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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88
courteous
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|
| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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89
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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90
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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91
eligible
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| adj.有条件被选中的；(尤指婚姻等)合适(意)的 | |
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92
shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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93
masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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94
orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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95
slant
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| v.倾斜，倾向性地编写或报道；n.斜面，倾向 | |
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96
overflow
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| v.(使)外溢，(使)溢出；溢出，流出，漫出 | |
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97
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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98
urns
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| n.壶( urn的名词复数 )；瓮；缸；骨灰瓮 | |
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99
cataracts
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| n.大瀑布( cataract的名词复数 )；白内障 | |
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100
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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101
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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102
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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103
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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104
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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105
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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106
freckles
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| n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
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107
granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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108
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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109
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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110
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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111
mammoth
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| n.长毛象；adj.长毛象似的，巨大的 | |
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112
aggregate
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| adj.总计的，集合的；n.总数；v.合计；集合 | |
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113
vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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114
belittled
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| 使显得微小，轻视，贬低( belittle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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115
dwellers
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| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
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116
improper
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| adj.不适当的，不合适的，不正确的，不合礼仪的 | |
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117
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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118
deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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119
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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120
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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121
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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122
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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123
futilely
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| futile（无用的）的变形； 干 | |
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124
continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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125
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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126
fabrics
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| 织物( fabric的名词复数 )； 布； 构造； （建筑物的）结构（如墙、地面、屋顶）：质地 | |
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127
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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128
elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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129
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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130
tinted
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| adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词 | |
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131
snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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132
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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133
draughts
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| n. <英>国际跳棋 | |
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134
talons
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| n.（尤指猛禽的）爪( talon的名词复数 )；（如爪般的）手指；爪状物；锁簧尖状突出部 | |
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135
diligent
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| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
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136
fleas
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| n.跳蚤( flea的名词复数 )；爱财如命；没好气地（拒绝某人的要求） | |
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137
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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138
retract
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| vt.缩回，撤回收回，取消 | |
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139
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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140
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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141
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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142
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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143
acquit
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| vt.宣判无罪；(oneself)使(自己)表现出 | |
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144
lavishly
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| adv.慷慨地，大方地 | |
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145
odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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146
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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147
profane
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| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
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148
curdles
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| v.（使）凝结( curdle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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149
savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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150
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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151
whetting
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| v.（在石头上）磨（刀、斧等）( whet的现在分词 )；引起，刺激（食欲、欲望、兴趣等） | |
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152
seethe
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| vi.拥挤，云集；发怒，激动，骚动 | |
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153
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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154
reposeful
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| adj.平稳的，沉着的 | |
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155
seclusion
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| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
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156
marketing
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| n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西 | |
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157
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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158
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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159
constellations
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| n.星座( constellation的名词复数 )；一群杰出人物；一系列（相关的想法、事物）；一群（相关的人） | |
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160
supervision
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| n.监督，管理 | |
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161
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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