and there was another lady (in a back row in the same box) who
improved her position by sticking a large pin into the ladies
before her.
The gentlemen about me were remarkably anxious to see what was on
the table; and one Englishman seemed to have embarked the whole
energy of his nature in the determination to discover whether there
was any mustard. 'By Jupiter there's vinegar!' I heard him say to
his friend, after he had stood on tiptoe an immense time, and had
been crushed and beaten on all sides. 'And there's oil! I saw
them distinctly, in cruets! Can any gentleman, in front there, see
mustard on the table? Sir, will you oblige me! DO you see a
Mustard-Pot?'
The apostles and Judas appearing on the platform, after much
expectation, were marshalled, in line, in front of the table, with
Peter at the top; and a good long stare was taken at them by the
company, while twelve of them took a long smell at their nosegays,
and Judas - moving his lips very obtrusively - engaged in inward
prayer. Then, the Pope, clad in a scarlet robe, and wearing on his
head a skull-cap of white satin, appeared in the midst of a crowd
of Cardinals and other dignitaries, and took in his hand a little
golden ewer, from which he poured a little water over one of
Peter's hands, while one attendant held a golden basin; a second, a
fine cloth; a third, Peter's nosegay, which was taken from him
during the operation. This his Holiness performed, with
considerable expedition, on every man in the line (Judas, I
observed, to be particularly overcome by his condescension); and
then the whole Thirteen sat down to dinner. Grace said by the
Pope. Peter in the chair.
There was white wine, and red wine: and the dinner looked very
good. The courses appeared in portions, one for each apostle: and
these being presented to the Pope, by Cardinals upon their knees,
were by him handed to the Thirteen. The manner in which Judas grew
more white-livered over his victuals, and languished, with his head
on one side, as if he had no appetite, defies all description.
Peter was a good, sound, old man, and went in, as the saying is,
'to win;' eating everything that was given him (he got the best:
being first in the row) and saying nothing to anybody. The dishes
appeared to be chiefly composed of fish and vegetables. The Pope
helped the Thirteen to wine also; and, during the whole dinner,
somebody read something aloud, out of a large book - the Bible, I
presume - which nobody could hear, and to which nobody paid the
least attention. The Cardinals, and other attendants, smiled to
each other, from time to time, as if the thing were a great farce;
and if they thought so, there is little doubt they were perfectly
right. His Holiness did what he had to do, as a sensible man gets
through a troublesome ceremony, and seemed very glad when it was
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all over.
The Pilgrims' Suppers: where lords and ladies waited on the
Pilgrims, in token of humility, and dried their feet when they had
been well washed by deputy: were very attractive. But, of all the
many spectacles of dangerous reliance on outward observances, in
themselves mere empty forms, none struck me half so much as the
Scala Santa, or Holy Staircase, which I saw several times, but to
the greatest advantage, or disadvantage, on Good Friday.
This holy staircase is composed of eight-and-twenty steps, said to
have belonged to Pontius Pilate's house and to be the identical
stair on which Our Saviour trod, in coming down from the judgmentseat.
Pilgrims ascend it, only on their knees. It is steep; and,
at the summit, is a chapel, reported to be full of relics; into
which they peep through some iron bars, and then come down again,
by one of two side staircases, which are not sacred, and may be
walked on.
On Good Friday, there were, on a moderate computation, a hundred
people, slowly shuffling up these stairs, on their knees, at one
time; while others, who were going up, or had come down - and a few
who had done both, and were going up again for the second time -
stood loitering in the porch below, where an old gentleman in a
sort of watch-box, rattled a tin canister, with a slit in the top,
incessantly, to remind them that he took the money. The majority
were country-people, male and female. There were four or five
Jesuit priests, however, and some half-dozen well-dressed women. A
whole school of boys, twenty at least, were about half-way up -
evidently enjoying it very much. They were all wedged together,
pretty closely; but the rest of the company gave the boys as wide a
berth as possible, in consequence of their betraying some
recklessness in the management of their boots.
I never, in my life, saw anything at once so ridiculous, and so
unpleasant, as this sight - ridiculous in the absurd incidents
inseparable from it; and unpleasant in its senseless and unmeaning
degradation. There are two steps to begin with, and then a rather
broad landing. The more rigid climbers went along this landing on
their knees, as well as up the stairs; and the figures they cut, in
their shuffling progress over the level surface, no description can
paint. Then, to see them watch their opportunity from the porch,
and cut in where there was a place next the wall! And to see one
man with an umbrella (brought on purpose, for it was a fine day)
hoisting himself, unlawfully, from stair to stair! And to observe
a demure lady of fifty-five or so, looking back, every now and
then, to assure herself that her legs were properly disposed!
There were such odd differences in the speed of different people,
too. Some got on as if they were doing a match against time;
others stopped to say a prayer on every step. This man touched
every stair with his forehead, and kissed it; that man scratched
his head all the way. The boys got on brilliantly, and were up and
down again before the old lady had accomplished her half-dozen
stairs. But most of the penitents came down, very sprightly and
fresh, as having done a real good substantial deed which it would
take a good deal of sin to counterbalance; and the old gentleman in
the watch-box was down upon them with his canister while they were
in this humour, I promise you.
As if such a progress were not in its nature inevitably droll
enough, there lay, on the top of the stairs, a wooden figure on a
crucifix, resting on a sort of great iron saucer: so rickety and
unsteady, that whenever an enthusiastic person kissed the figure,
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with more than usual devotion, or threw a coin into the saucer,
with more than common readiness (for it served in this respect as a
second or supplementary canister), it gave a great leap and rattle,
and nearly shook the attendant lamp out: horribly frightening the
people further down, and throwing the guilty party into unspeak
able
embarrassment.
On Easter Sunday, as well as on the preceding Thursday, the Pope
bestows his benediction on the people, from the balcony in front of
St. Peter's. This Easter Sunday was a day so bright and blue: so
cloudless, balmy, wonderfully bright: that all the previous bad
weather vanished from the recollection in a moment. I had seen the
Thursday's Benediction dropping damply on some hundreds of
umbrellas, but there was not a sparkle then, in all the hundred
fountains of Rome - such fountains as they are! - and on this
Sunday morning they were running diamonds. The miles of miserable
streets through which we drove (compelled to a certain course by
the Pope's dragoons: the Roman police on such occasions) were so
full of colour, that nothing in them was capable of wearing a faded
aspect. The common people came out in their gayest dresses; the
richer people in their smartest vehicles; Cardinals rattled to the
church of the Poor Fishermen in their state carriages; shabby
magnificence flaunted its thread-bare liveries and tarnished cocked
hats, in the sun; and every coach in Rome was put in requisition
for the Great Piazza of St. Peter's.
One hundred and fifty thousand people were there at least! Yet
there was ample room. How many carriages were there, I don't know;
yet there was room for them too, and to spare. The great steps of
the church were densely crowded. There were many of the Contadini,
from Albano (who delight in red), in that part of the square, and
the mingling of bright colours in the crowd was beautiful. Below
the steps the troops were ranged. In the magnificent proportions
of the place they looked like a bed of flowers. Sulky Romans,
lively peasants from the neighbouring country, groups of pilgrims
from distant parts of Italy, sight-seeing foreigners of all
nations, made a murmur in the clear air, like so many insects; and
high above them all, plashing and bubbling, and making rainbow
colours in the light, the two delicious fountains welled and
tumbled bountifully.
A kind of bright carpet was hung over the front of the balcony; and
the sides of the great window were bedecked with crimson drapery.
An awning was stretched, too, over the top, to screen the old man
from the hot rays of the sun. As noon approached, all eyes were
turned up to this window. In due time, the chair was seen
approaching to the front, with the gigantic fans of peacock's
feathers, close behind. The doll within it (for the balcony is
very high) then rose up, and stretched out its tiny arms, while all
the male spectators in the square uncovered, and some, but not by
any means the greater part, kneeled down. The guns upon the
ramparts of the Castle of St. Angelo proclaimed, next moment, that
the benediction was given; drums beat; trumpets sounded; arms
clashed; and the great mass below, suddenly breaking into smaller
heaps, and scattering here and there in rills, was stirred like
parti-coloured sand.
What a bright noon it was, as we rode away! The Tiber was no
longer yellow, but blue. There was a blush on the old bridges,
that made them fresh and hale again. The Pantheon, with its
majestic front, all seamed and furrowed like an old face, had
summer light upon its battered walls. Every squalid and desolate
hut in the Eternal City (bear witness every grim old palace, to the
filth and misery of the plebeian neighbour that elbows it, as
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certain as Time has laid its grip on its patrician head!) was fresh
and new with some ray of the sun. The very prison in the crowded
street, a whirl of carriages and people, had some stray sense of
the day, dropping through its chinks and crevices: and dismal
prisoners who could not wind their faces round the barricading of
the blocked-up windows, stretched out their hands, and clinging to
the rusty bars, turned THEM towards the overflowing street: as if
it were a cheerful fire, and could be shared in, that way.
But, when the night came on, without a cloud to dim the full moon,
what a sight it was to see the Great Square full once more, and the
whole church, from the cross to the ground, lighted with
innumerable lanterns, tracing out the architecture, and winking and
shining all round the colonnade of the piazza! And what a sense of
exultation, joy, delight, it was, when the great bell struck halfpast
seven - on the instant - to behold one bright red mass of
fire, soar gallantly from the top of the cupola to the extremest
summit of the cross, and the moment it leaped into its place,
become the signal of a bursting out of countless lights, as great,
and red, and blazing as itself, from every part of the gigantic
church; so that every cornice, capital, and smallest ornament of
stone, expressed itself in fire: and the black, solid groundwork
of the enormous dome seemed to grow transparent as an egg-shell!
A train of gunpowder, an electric chain - nothing could be fired,
more suddenly and swiftly, than this second illumination; and when
we had got away, and gone upon a distant height, and looked towards
it two hours afterwards, there it still stood, shining and
glittering in the calm night like a jewel! Not a line of its
proportions wanting; not an angle blunted; not an atom of its
radiance lost.
fireworks from the Castle of St. Angelo. We hired a room in an
opposite house, and made our way, to our places, in good time,
through a dense mob of people choking up the square in front, and
all the avenues leading to it; and so loading the bridge by which
the castle is approached, that it seemed ready to sink into the
rapid Tiber below. There are statues on this bridge (execrable
works), and, among them, great vessels full of burning tow were
placed: glaring strangely on the faces of the crowd, and not less
strangely on the stone counterfeits above them.
The show began with a tremendous discharge of cannon; and then, for
twenty minutes or half an hour, the whole castle was one incessant
sheet of fire, and labyrinth of blazing wheels of every colour,
size, and speed: while rockets streamed into the sky, not by ones
or twos, or scores, but hundreds at a time. The concluding burst -
the Girandola - was like the blowing up into the air of the whole
massive castle, without smoke or dust.
In half an hour afterwards, the immense concourse had dispersed;
the moon was looking calmly down upon her wrinkled image in the
river; and half-a-dozen men and boys, with bits of lighted candle
in their hands: moving here and there, in search of anything worth
having, that might have been dropped in the press: had the whole
scene to themselves.
By way of contrast we rode out into old ruined Rome, after all this
firing and booming, to take our leave of the Coliseum. I had seen
it by moonlight before (I could never get through a day without
going back to it), but its tremendous solitude that night is past
all telling. The ghostly pillars in the Forum; the Triumphal
Arches of Old Emperors; those enormous masses of ruins which were
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once their palaces; the grass-grown mounds that mark the graves of
ruined temples; the stones of the Via Sacra, smooth with the tread
of feet in ancient Rome; even these were dimmed, in their
transcendent melancholy, by the dark ghost of its bloody holidays,
erect and grim; haunting the old scene; despoiled by pillaging
Popes and fighting Princes, but not laid; wringing wild hands of
weed, and grass, and bramble; and lamenting to the night in every
gap and broken arch - the shadow of its awful self, immovable!
As we lay down on the grass of the Campagna, next day, on our way
to Florence, hearing the larks sing, we saw that a little wooden
cross had been erected on the spot where the poor Pilgrim Countess
was murdered. So, we piled some loose stones about it, as the
beginning of a mound to her memory, and wondered if we should ever
rest there again, and look back at Rome.
CHAPTER XI - A RAPID DIORAMA
WE are bound for Naples! And we cross the threshold of the Eternal
City at yonder gate, the Gate of San Giovanni Laterano, where the
two last objects that attract the notice of a departing visitor,
and the two first objects that attract the notice of an arriving
one, are a proud church and a decaying ruin - good emblems of Rome.
Our way lies over the Campagna, which looks more solemn on a bright
blue day like this, than beneath a darker sky; the great extent of
ruin being plainer to the eye: and the sunshine through the arches
of the broken aqueducts, showing other broken arches shining
through them in the melancholy distance. When we have traversed
it, and look back from Albano, its dark, undulating surface lies
below us like a stagnant lake, or like a broad, dull Lethe flowing
round the walls of Rome, and separating it from all the world! How
often have the Legions, in triumphant march, gone glittering across
that purple waste, so silent and unpeopled now! How often has the
train of captives looked, with sinking hearts, upon the distant
city, and beheld its population pouring out, to hail the return of
their conqueror! What riot, sensuality and murder, have run mad in