JanuaryⒺexplanatory note. 1904.

This villa is situated three or four miles from Florence, and has several names. Some call it the Villa Reale di QuartoⒺexplanatory note, some call it the Villa Principessa, some call it the Villa Granduchessa;Ⓐapparatus note this multiplicity of names was an inconvenience to me for the first two or three weeks, for as I had heard the place called by only one name, when letters came for the servants directed to the care of one or the other of the other names, I supposed a mistake had been made and remailed them. It has been explained to me that there is reason for these several names. Its name Quarto it gets from the district which it is in, itⒶapparatus note being in the four-mileⒶapparatus note radius from the centre of Florence. It is called Reale because the King of WürtembergⒶapparatus note Ⓔexplanatory note occupied it at one time;Ⓐapparatus note Principessa and Granduchessa because a Russian daughter ofⒶapparatus note the imperialⒶapparatus note houseⒺexplanatory note occupied it at another. There is a history of the house somewhere, and some timeⒶapparatus note or other I shall get it and see if there are any details in it which could be of useⒶapparatus note in this chapter. I should like to see that book, for as an evolutionist I should like to know the beginning of this dwelling and the several stages of its evolution. Baedeker says it was built by Cosimo I, by [    ], architectⒶapparatus note Ⓔexplanatory note. I have learned this within the past three minutes, and it wrecks my development scheme. I was surmising that the house began in a small and humble way, and was the production of a poorⒶapparatus note farmer whose idea of home and comfort it was; thatⒶapparatus note following him a generation or two later [begin page 231] came a successor of better rank and larger means who built an addition; that successor after successor added more bricks and more bulk as time dragged on, each in his turn leaving a detail behind him of paint or wall-paper to distinguish his reign from the others; that finally in the last century came the three that precede me,Ⓐapparatus note and added their specialties. The King of WürtembergⒶapparatus note broke out room enough in the centre of the building—Ⓐapparatus noteabout a hundred feet from each end of it,—Ⓐapparatus noteto put in the great staircase, a cheapⒶapparatus note and showy affair,Ⓐapparatus note almost the only wooden thing in the whole edifice,Ⓐapparatus note and as comfortable and sane and satisfactory as it is out of character with the rest of the asylum. The Russian Princess,Ⓐapparatus note who came with native superstitions about cold weather,Ⓐapparatus note added the hot-airⒶapparatus note furnaces in the cellar and the vast greenⒶapparatus note majolica stove in the great hall where the King’s staircase is—Ⓐapparatus notea stove which I thought might possibly be a church—a nurseryⒶapparatus note church for children, so imposing is it for size and so richly adorned with basso relievos of an ultra pious sort.Ⓐapparatus note It is loaded and fired from a secret place behind the partition against which it is backed. LastⒶapparatus note of all came Satan also, the Countess MassigliaⒺexplanatory note, present owner of the house, an American product, and male in everything but sex.Ⓐapparatus note She added a cheap and stingy arrangement of electric bells, inadequate acetylene-gasⒶapparatus note plant, obsolete water closetsⒶapparatus note, perhaps a dozen pieces of machine-madeⒶapparatus note boarding-houseⒶapparatus note furniture, and some fire-auctionⒶapparatus note carpets which blasphemeⒶapparatus note the standards of color and artⒶapparatus note all day long, and never quiet down until the darkness comes and pacifies them.

However, if the house was built for Cosimo four hundred years ago and with an architect on deck, I suppose I must dismiss those notions about the gradual growth of the house in bulk. Cosimo would want a large house, he would want to build it himself so that he could have it just the way he wanted it. I think he had his will. In the architectureⒶapparatus note of this barrack there has been no development. There was no architectureⒶapparatus note in the first place and none has been added, except the King’s meretricious staircase, the Princess’sⒶapparatus note ecclesiastical stove, and the Countess’sⒶapparatus note obsolete water closetsⒶapparatus note. I am speaking of art-architecture;Ⓐapparatus note there is none.

There is no more architecture of that breedⒶapparatus note discoverable in this long stretch of ugly and ornamentless three-storiedⒶapparatus note house-front than there is about a rope walkⒶapparatus note or a bowling alley. The shape and proportions of the house suggest those things, it being two hundredⒶapparatus note feet long by sixty wide. There is no art-architectureⒶapparatus note inside the house, there is none outside.

We arrive now at practicalⒶapparatus note architecture—theⒶapparatus note useful, the indispensable, which plans the inside of a house and by wisely placing and distributing the rooms, or by stupidlyⒶapparatus note and ineffectually distributing them, makes the house a convenientⒶapparatus note and comfortable and satisfactory abiding place or the reverse. The inside of the house is evidence that Cosimo’s architect was not in his right mind. And it seems to me that it is not fair and not kind in Baedeker to keep on exposing his name and his crime down to this late date. I am nobler than Baedeker, and more humane, and I suppress it. I don’t remember what it was, anyway.Ⓐapparatus note

I shall go into the details of this house, not because I imagine it differs much from any other old-timeⒶapparatus note palace or new-timeⒶapparatus note palace on the continent of EuropeⒶapparatus note, but because every one of its crazy details interests me, and therefore may be expected to interest others of the human race, particularly women. When they readⒶapparatus note novels they usually skip the weather, but I have noticed that they read with avidity all that a writer says about the furnishings, decorations, conveniences, and general style of a home.

The interior of this barrack is so chopped up and systemless that one cannot deal in exact numbers when trying to put its choppings-upⒶapparatus note into statistics.

In the basement or cellar there are as follows:

Stalls and boxes for many horses—right under the principal bed-chamber. The horses noisily dance to the solicitations of the multitudinous flies all night.Ⓐapparatus note

Feed-stores.

Carriage-house.

Acetylene-gas plant.

A vast kitchen. Put out of use years ago.Ⓐapparatus note

Another kitchen.

Coal-rooms.

Coke-rooms.

Peat-rooms.

Wood-rooms.

ThreeⒶapparatus note furnaces.

Wine-rooms.Ⓐapparatus note

Various store-rooms for all sorts of domestic supplies.

Lot of vacant and unclassified rooms.

Labyrinth of corridors and passages, affording the stranger an absolute certainty of getting lost.

A vast cesspool! It is cleaned out every thirty years.Ⓐapparatus note

Couple of dark stairways leading up to the ground floor.

AboutⒶapparatus note twentyⒶapparatus note divisions as I count them.

This cellar seems to be of the full dimension of the house’s foundations—say two hundredⒶapparatus note feet by sixtyⒶapparatus note.

The ground floor,Ⓐapparatus note where I am dictating—is cut up into twenty-three rooms, halls, corridors, and so forth. The next floor above contains eighteenⒶapparatus note divisions of the like sort, one of which is the billiard room and another the great drawing-room.

The top story consists of twentyⒶapparatus note bedroomsⒶapparatus note and a furnace. Large rooms they necessarily are, for they are arranged ten on a side, and they occupy that whole space of two hundredⒶapparatus note feet long by sixtyⒶapparatus note wide, except that there is a liberal passage or hallwayⒶapparatus note between them. There are good fireplacesⒶapparatus note up there, and they would make charming bed-chambersⒶapparatus note if handsomely and comfortably furnished and decorated. But there would need to be a lift—Ⓐapparatus notenot a EuropeanⒶapparatus note lift, with its mere stand-up space, and its imperceptible movement, but a roomy and swift American one.

TheseⒶapparatus note rooms are reached now by the same process by which they were reached in Cosimo’s time—by leg power. TheirⒶapparatus note brick floors are bare and unpainted, their walls are bare, and painted the favorite European color,Ⓐapparatus note which is now and always has been an odious stomach-turning yellow. It is said that theseⒶapparatus note rooms were intended for servants only and that they were meant to accommodate two or threeⒶapparatus note servants apiece. It seems certain that they have not been occupied by any but servants in the last fifty or a hundredⒶapparatus note years, otherwise they would exhibit some remains of decoration.

If then theyⒶapparatus note have always been for the use of servants only, where did Cosimo and his family [begin page 233] sleep? Where did the King of WürtembergⒶapparatus note bestow his dear ones? For below that floor there are not any more than three good bed-chambersⒶapparatus note and five devilish ones. WithⒶapparatus note eightyⒶapparatus note cut-ups in the house and with but four persons in my family,Ⓐapparatus note this large fact is provable:Ⓐapparatus note that we can’t invite a friend to come and stay a few days with us,Ⓐapparatus note because there is not a bedroomⒶapparatus note unoccupied by ourselves that we could offer him without apologies. In fact we have no friend whom we love so little and respect so moderately as to be willing to stuff him into one of those vacant cells.

Yes—Ⓐapparatus note whereⒶapparatus note did the vanished aristocracy sleep? I mean the real aristocracy, not the American CountessⒶapparatus note, for she required no room to speak of. When we arrived her husband was far away in the Orient serving his country in a diplomatic capacity, the Countess’sⒶapparatus note mother had gone home to America and the Countess was keeping solitary and unvisited stateⒶapparatus note in this big mansion with her head servant,Ⓐapparatus note the steward of the estate,Ⓐapparatus note as society and protector.Ⓐapparatus note To go on with my details:Ⓐapparatus note this little room where I am dictating these informations on this 8th day of January 1904, is on the eastⒶapparatus note side of the house. It is level with the ground and one may step from its nine- or ten-foot-highⒶapparatus note vast door into the terrace garden,Ⓐapparatus note which is a great square level space surrounded by an ornamental iron railing with vases of flowers distributed here and there along its top. It is a pretty terrace with abundant green grass, with handsome trees, with a great fountain in the middle, and with roses of various tints nodding in the balmy air, and flashing back the rays of the JanuaryⒶapparatus note sun. Beyond the railing to the eastward stretches the private park, and through its trees curves the road to the far-offⒶapparatus note iron gate on the public road, where there is neither porter nor porter’s lodge nor any wayⒶapparatus note to communicate with the mansion.Ⓐapparatus note Yet from time immemorial the Italian villa has been a fortress hermetically sealed up in high walls of masonry and with entrance guarded by locked iron gates. The gates of Italy have always been locked at nightfallⒶapparatus note and kept locked the night through. No Italian trusted his contadiniⒺexplanatory note neighbors in the old times, and his successor does not trust them now. There are bells and porters for the convenience of outsidersⒶapparatus note desiring to get in at other villas, but it is not the case with this one, and apparently never has been. Surely it must have happened now and then that these Kings and nobilities got caught out after the gates were locked. Then how did they get in? We shall never know. The question cannot be answered. It must take its place with the other unsolved mystery of where the aristocracyⒶapparatus note slept during those centuries when they occupied this fortress.

To return to that glass door. OutsideⒶapparatus note it are exceedinglyⒶapparatus note heavy and coarse VenetianⒶapparatus note shutters, aⒶapparatus note fairly good defence against a catapult.

These,Ⓐapparatus note like the leaves of the glass door,Ⓐapparatus note swing open in the French fashion, and I will remark in passing that to my mind the French window is as rational and convenient as the English-American window is the reverse of this. Inside the glass door (three or fourⒶapparatus note inches inside of it) are solid doorsⒶapparatus note made of boards, good and strong and ugly. The shutters, the glass door and theseⒶapparatus note wooden-doorⒶapparatus note defencesⒶapparatus note against intrusion of light and thieves are all armed with strong and heavy bolts which are shot up and down by the turning of a handle. The house-wallsⒶapparatus note being very thick,Ⓐapparatus note these doors and shutters and things do not crowd each other, there is plenty of space between them, andⒶapparatus note there is room for more in case we should get to feeling afraid. This shuttered glass door, this convenient exit to the terrace and garden,Ⓐapparatus note is not the only one on this side of the house from which one can as handily step upon the terrace. There is a procession of them [begin page 234] stretching along,Ⓐapparatus note door after door, along the eastⒶapparatus note or rear front of the house, from its southernⒶapparatus note end to its northernⒶapparatus note end—eleven in the procession. Beginning at the southⒶapparatus note end they afford exit from a parlor; a large bedroom, (mine);Ⓐapparatus note this little twelve by twentyⒶapparatus note reception room where I am now at work; andⒶapparatus note a ten by twelveⒶapparatus note ditto, whichⒶapparatus note is in effect the beginning of a corridor fortyⒶapparatus note feetⒶapparatus note long by twelveⒶapparatus note wide with three sets of triple glass doorsⒶapparatus note for exit to the terrace. The corridorⒶapparatus note empties into a dining room,Ⓐapparatus note and the dining room into twoⒶapparatus note large rooms beyond, all with glass-doorⒶapparatus note exits to the terrace. When the doors which connect these sevenⒶapparatus note rooms and the corridor are thrown open the two-hundred-footⒶapparatus note stretch of variegated carpeting with its warring and shouting and blaspheming tumult of color makes a fine and almost contenting recedingⒶapparatus note and diminishing perspectiveⒶapparatus note, and one realizes that if some sane person could have the privilege and the opportunity of burning the existing carpets and instituting harmonies of color in their place the reformed perspective would be very beautiful. Above each of the elevenⒶapparatus note glass doors is a duplicate on the next floor. Ten feet by six,Ⓐapparatus note of glass. And above each of these on the topmostⒶapparatus note floor is a smaller window—thirty-threeⒶapparatus note good openings for light on this easternⒶapparatus note front, the same on the western front, and nine of ampler size on each end of the house. Fifty-sixⒶapparatus note of these eighty-fourⒶapparatus note windows contain double enough glassⒶapparatus note to equip the average window of an American dwelling, yet the house is by no means correspondingly light. I do not know why, perhaps it is because of the dismal upholstering of the walls.

VillaⒶapparatus note di Quarto is a palaceⒶapparatus note; Cosimo built it for that, his architect intended it for that, it has always been regarded as a palace, and an old resident of Florence told me the other day that it was a good average sample of the Italian palace of the great nobility, and thatⒶapparatus note its grotesqueness and barbarities, incongruities and destitution of conveniences are to be found in the rest. I am able to believe this because I have seen some of the others.

I think there is not a room in this huge confusionⒶapparatus note of rooms and halls and corridors and cells and waste spaces which does not contain some memento of each of its illustrious occupants, or at least two or three of them.

We will examine the parlor at the head of that long perspective which I have been describing. The arched ceiling is beautiful both in shape and decoration. It is finely and elaborately frescoed. The ceiling is a memento of Cosimo. The doors are draped with heavy pale blue silk, faintlyⒶapparatus note figured, that is the KingⒶapparatus note of Würtemberg’sⒶapparatus note relic. TheⒶapparatus note gleaming white brass-banded porcelain pagoda which contains an open fireplaceⒶapparatus note for wood is a relic of the Russian Princess and a remembrancer of her native experiences of cold weather. The light gray wall-paperⒶapparatus note figured with gold flowers is anybody’s—Ⓐapparatus notewe care not to guess its pedigreeⒶapparatus note. TheⒶapparatus note rest of the room is manifestly a result of the Countess Massiglia’sⒶapparatus note occupation. Its shouting inharmonies and disorders manifestly had their origin in her chaoticⒶapparatus note mind. The floor is covered with a felt-like filling of strenuous red, one can almost see Pharaoh’s host floundering in it. There are four rugs scattered about like islands, violent rugs whose colors swear at each other and at the Red SeaⒶapparatus note. There is a sofa upholstered in a coarse material, a frenzyⒶapparatus note of green and blue and blood,Ⓐapparatus note a cheap and undeceptive imitation of Florentine embroidery. ThereⒶapparatus note is a sofa and two chairsⒶapparatus note upholstered in pale green silk,Ⓐapparatus note figured, the wood is of three different breeds of American walnut, flimsy, cheap, machine-made. ThereⒶapparatus note is a French-walnutⒶapparatus note sofa upholstered in figured silkⒶapparatus note of a fiendish crushed-strawberryⒶapparatus note tint of a faded aspect, andⒶapparatus note there is an arm-chairⒶapparatus note which is a mate to it. ThereⒶapparatus note is a plain and naked black [begin page 235] walnut table without a cover to modify its nudity;Ⓐapparatus note under it is a large round ottoman covered with the palest of pale green silk, a sort of glorified mushroom which curses with all its might at the Red SeaⒶapparatus note and the furious rugs and the crushed-strawberryⒶapparatus note relics. Against the wall stands a tall glass-frontedⒶapparatus note bookcase, machine-made—Ⓐapparatus notethe material, American butternut. It stands near enough to the King of Würtemberg’sⒶapparatus note heavy silken door-draperyⒶapparatus note to powerfully accent its cheapness and ugliness by contrast. Upon the wallsⒶapparatus note hang threeⒶapparatus note good water-colorsⒶapparatus note, six or eightⒶapparatus note very bad ones, a pious-lookingⒶapparatus note portrait of the CountessⒶapparatus note in bridal veil and low neck, and a number of photographs of members of her tribe. One of them is a picture of the Count, who has a manly and intelligent face and looks like a gentleman. What possessed him to become proprietor of the Countess he probably could not explain at this late day himself.Ⓐapparatus note

The whole literature of this vast house is contained in that fire-auctionⒶapparatus note American bookcase. There are four shelves. The topⒶapparatus note one is made up of indiscriminate literature of good quality; theⒶapparatus note next shelf is made up of cloth-coveredⒶapparatus note books devoted to Christian Science and spiritualism—Ⓐapparatus note fortyⒶapparatus note thin books; theⒶapparatus note two remaining shelves contain fifty-fourⒶapparatus note bound volumes of BlackwoodⒺexplanatory note, in date running backward from about 1870.Ⓐapparatus note This bookcase and its contents were probably imported from America by the Countess’s mother, who tore herself away some months ago and returned to Philadelphia. One cannot attribute the Blackwoods to the Countess, they contain nothing that could interest her. It is most unlikely that the religious shelf could enlist her sympathies, her moral constitution being made up of envy, hate, malice and treachery. She is easily the most fiendish character I have ever encountered in any walk of life.Ⓐapparatus note

The room just described must be dignified with that imposing title, library,Ⓐapparatus note on account of the presence in it of that butternutⒶapparatus note bookcase and its indigent contents. It does duty, now,Ⓐapparatus note as a private parlor for Mrs. Clemens during those brief and widely separated occasions when she is permitted to leave for an hour the bed to which she has been so long condemned. We are in the extreme south end of the house, if there is any such thing as a south end to a house, where orientation cannot be determined by me, because I am incompetent in all cases where an object does not point directly north or south. This one slants across between, and is therefore a confusion to me.Ⓐapparatus note This little private parlor is in one of the two corners of what I callⒶapparatus note the southⒶapparatus note end of the house. The sun rises in such a way that all the morning it is pouring its light in through the thirty-threeⒶapparatus note glass doors or windows which pierce the side of the house which looks upon the terrace and garden, as already described;Ⓐapparatus note the rest of the day the light floods this southⒶapparatus note end of the house, as I call it;Ⓐapparatus note at noon the sun is directly above Florence yonder in theⒶapparatus note distance in the plain—Ⓐapparatus notedirectly above those architectural features which have been so familiar to the world in pictures for some centuries:Ⓐapparatus note the Duomo, the Campanile, the Tomb of the Medici and the beautiful tower of the Palazzo Vecchio; above Florence, but not very high aboveⒶapparatus note it, for it never climbs quite half way to the zenith in these winter days; in this position it begins to reveal the secrets of the delicious blue mountains that circle around into the westⒶapparatus note, for its light discovers, uncovers, and exposes a white snow-stormⒶapparatus note of villas and cities that you cannot train yourself to have confidence in, they appear and disappear so mysteriously and so as if they might be not villas and cities at all but the ghosts of perished ones of the remote and dim Etruscan times; and late in the afternoon the sun sinksⒶapparatus note down behind those mountains somewhere, at no particular time and at no particular place,Ⓐapparatus note so far as I can see.

This “library,” or boudoir, orⒶapparatus note private parlor opens into Mrs. Clemens’sⒶapparatus note bedroomⒶapparatus note, and it andⒶapparatus note the bedroomⒶapparatus note together stretch all the way across the southⒶapparatus note end of the houseⒶapparatus note. The bedroomⒶapparatus note gets the sun before noon,Ⓐapparatus note and is prodigally drenched and deluged with it the rest of the day. One of its windows is particularly well calculated to let in a liberal supply of sunshine,Ⓐapparatus note for it contains twelveⒶapparatus note great panes, each of them more than twoⒶapparatus note feet square. The bedroom is thirty-oneⒶapparatus note feet long by twenty-fourⒶapparatus note wide, and there has been a time when it and the “library”Ⓐapparatus note had no partition between,Ⓐapparatus note but occupied the whole breadthⒶapparatus note of the southⒶapparatus note end of the house in an unbroken stretch. It must have been a ball-roomⒶapparatus note or banqueting room at that time. I suggest this merely because perhaps not even Cosimo would need so much bedroom, whereas it would do very well indeed as a banquetingⒶapparatus note room because of its proximity to the cooking arrangements,Ⓐapparatus note which were not more than two or three hundred yards away,Ⓐapparatus note downⒶapparatus note cellar, a very eligible condition of things indeed in the old times. Monarchs cannot have the conveniences which we plebeiansⒶapparatus note are privileged to luxuriate in—they can’t,Ⓐapparatus note even to-day. If I were invited to spend a week in Windsor Castle it would gladden me and make me feel proud; but if there was any hint about regular boarders I should let on that I didn’t hear. As a palace Windsor Castle is great; great for show, spaciousness, display, grandeur, and all that;Ⓐapparatus note but the bedrooms are small, uninviting and inconvenient, and the arrangements for delivering food from the kitchen to the table are so clumsy, and wasteⒶapparatus note so much time that a meal there probably suggests recent cold storage. This is only conjecture; I did not eat there. In Windsor Castle the courses are brought upⒶapparatus note by dumb waiter from the profound depth where the vast kitchen is, they are then transferred by rail on a narrow little tramway to the territory where the dinner is to have place. This trolley was stillⒶapparatus note being worked by hand when I was there four years ago;Ⓐapparatus note still it was without doubt a great advance upon Windsor Castle transportation of any age before Queen Victoria’s. It is startling to reflect that whatⒶapparatus note we call conveniences in a dwelling-houseⒶapparatus note, and which we regard as necessities, were born so recently that hardly one of them existed in the world when Queen Victoria was born. The valuable part—to myⒶapparatus note thinking the valuable part—Ⓐapparatus noteof what we call civilization had no existence when she emerged upon the planet.Ⓐapparatus note She sat in her chair in that venerable fortress andⒶapparatus note saw it grow from its mustard seed to theⒶapparatus note stupendousⒶapparatus note tree which it had become before she died. She saw the whole of the new creation, she saw everything that was made, and without her witness was not anything made that was madeⒺexplanatory note. A very creditable creation indeed, takingⒶapparatus note all things into account; sinceⒶapparatus note man, quite unassisted, did it all out of his own head. I jump to this conclusion because I think that if ProvidenceⒶapparatus note had been minded to help him, it would have occurred to Providence to do this some hundred thousand centuries earlier. We are accustomed to seeing the hand of ProvidenceⒶapparatus note in everything. Accustomed because if we missed it,Ⓐapparatus note or thought we missed it,Ⓐapparatus note we had discretion enough not to let on. We are a tactful race. We have been prompt to give Providence the credit of this fine and showy new civilization and we have been quite intemperateⒶapparatus note in our praises of this great benefaction; we have not been able to keep still over this splendid five-minuteⒶapparatus note attention, we can only keep still about the agesⒶapparatus note of neglect which preceded it and which it makes so conspicuous. When Providence washes one of his worms into the sea in a tempest, then starves him and freezes him on a plank for thirty-fourⒶapparatus note days, and finally wrecks him again on an uninhabited island, where he lives on shrimps and grasshoppers and other shell-fishⒶapparatus note for threeⒶapparatus note months, and is at last rescued by some old whisky-soaked profane and blasphemous [begin page 237] infidel of a tramp captain, and carried home gratis to his friends, the worm forgets that it was Providence that washed him overboard, and only remembers that Providence rescued him. He finds no fault, he has no sarcasms for Providence’s crude and slow and labored ingenuities of inventionⒶapparatus note in the matter of life-savingⒶapparatus note, he sees nothing in these delays and ineffectivenesses but food for admiration, to him they seem a marvel, a miracle;Ⓐapparatus note and the longer they take andⒶapparatus note the more ineffective they are, the greater the miracle; meantime he never allows himself to break out in any good hearty unhandicapped thanks for the tough old shipmaster who really saved him, he damns him with faint praise as “the instrument,” his rescuer “under Providence.”Ⓐapparatus note Ⓐapparatus note

To get to thatⒶapparatus note corner room with its bookcase freighted with twenty dollars’ worth of ancient Blackwood and modern spiritualistic literature, I have passed through—undescribed—aⒶapparatus note 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Ⓐapparatus note into the next room—Ⓐapparatus noteKings, nobles, serfs and all; but this American Countess,Ⓐapparatus note the present owner,Ⓐapparatus note cut off twenty feet of the room and reattached ten feet of it to the room as a bath-room,Ⓐapparatus note and devoted the rest to a hallway. This bedroom is lighted by one of those tall glass doors,Ⓐapparatus note already described,Ⓐapparatus note which gives upon the terrace. It is divided across the middle by some polished white pillars as big as my body,Ⓐapparatus note with Doric capitals, supporting a small arch at each end and a long one in the middle; this is indeed grandeur, and is quite imposing. The fireplace is of a good size, is of white marble, and the carvings upon it are of the dainty and graceful sort proper to its age,Ⓐapparatus note 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,Ⓐapparatus note when they are not swearing at the rest of the room’s belongings. The front half of the room is aglare with a paper loud of pattern,Ⓐapparatus note atrocious in color, and cheap beyond the dreams of avarice. The rear half is painted from floor to ceiling a dull,Ⓐapparatus note dead and repulsive 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 superannuatedⒶapparatus note nightmare of a carpetⒶapparatus note whose figures are vast and riotous, and whose indignant reds and blacks and yellows quarrel day and night and refuse to be reconciled. There is a door opening into the bath-roomⒶapparatus note, 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 strictly follow the law of European dwellings,Ⓐapparatus note whether built for the prince or for the pauper. That is to say they are rude, thin,Ⓐapparatus note cheap planks, flimsy;Ⓐapparatus note the sort of door which in the South the negro attaches to his chicken coop. These doors, like all such doors on the Continent,Ⓐapparatus note have a gimlet handle in place of a door-knob. It wrenches from the socket 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 rebound. 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 breaks down all his religious reserves, no matter who he may be.

The bedroomⒶapparatus note has a door on each side of the front end,Ⓐapparatus note 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Ⓐapparatus note is bookcased.Ⓐapparatus note Furniture: a salmon-coloredⒶapparatus note silk sofa, a salmon-coloredⒶapparatus note [begin page 238] silk chair, a pair of ordinary wooden chairs,Ⓐapparatus note and a stuffed chair whose upholsteryⒶapparatus note is of a species unknown to me but devilish; in the corner,Ⓐapparatus note an ordinary thin-legged kitchen table;Ⓐapparatus note against one wall a wardrobe and a dressing bureau;Ⓐapparatus note on the opposite side a rickety chest of drawers made of white pine painted black, and ornamented with imitation brass handles; brassⒶapparatus note double bedstead. One will concede that this room is not over-embarrassedⒶapparatus note with furniture. The two clapboard doors already spoken of are mercifully concealed by parti-colored hangings of unknown country and origin; the three other doors already mentioned are hooded with long curtains that descend 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 hybrid silk with cotton for its chief ingredient. The color is a solid yellow,Ⓐapparatus note and deeper than the yellow of the rearward half of the walls;Ⓐapparatus note and now here is a curious thing:Ⓐapparatus note 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,Ⓐapparatus note but they do not exhaust the matter, there is still another one in the room. This is a lofty and sumptuous canopy over the brass bedstead,Ⓐapparatus note and is made of brilliant and shinyⒶapparatus note and shouting lemon-coloredⒶapparatus note 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 majestic white pillars and the dainty old marble fireplaceⒶapparatus note; all the rest of the room’s belongings are profoundly plebeian, they are exiles, they are sorrowful outcastsⒶapparatus note from their rightful home,Ⓐapparatus note which is the poor houseⒶapparatus note.

On the wall of the front end, in large frames, hang photographs of the pair who are responsible for the Countess’s presence in this world. It would be in better taste if they looked less gratified about it.Ⓐapparatus note 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Ⓐapparatus note over a distant prospect of city and plain and mountain.

The discords of this room, in colors, in humble poverty and showy and self-complacent pretentiousness,Ⓐapparatus note are repeated everywhere one goes in the huge house.Ⓐapparatus note

I am weary of particulars. OneⒶapparatus note may travelⒶapparatus note two hundred feet down either side of the house, through an aimless jumble of useless little reception rooms and showy corridors, finding nothing sane or homelike till he reaches the dining room at the end.

On the next floor,Ⓐapparatus note over the Blackwood library,Ⓐapparatus note there is a good bedroom well furnished, and with a fine stone balcony and the majestic view,Ⓐapparatus note just mentionedⒺexplanatory note,Ⓐapparatus note enlarged and improved. Thence northwardⒶapparatus note two hundred feet cut up in much the same disarray as is that ground floor. But in the midst is a great drawing-roomⒶapparatus note about forty feet square and perhaps as many high,Ⓐapparatus note handsomely and tastefully hung with brocaded silk,Ⓐapparatus note and with a very beautifully frescoed ceiling. But the place has a most angryⒶapparatus note look; for, scattered all about it are divans and sofas and chairs and lofty window-hangingsⒶapparatus note of that same fierce lemon-coloredⒶapparatus note satin heretofore noted as forming the canopy of the brass bedstead down stairs. When one steps suddenly into that great place on a splendid Florentine day it is like entering hellⒶapparatus note 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 spacious,Ⓐapparatus note and from all of them one has a wide and charming view.Ⓐapparatus note Properly furnished they would be pleasant, homelike,Ⓐapparatus note 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 want that stable over which the Countess lives, since it is not pleasant to have the horses stabled under Mrs. Clemens’s bed-chamberⒶapparatus note. Also I should wish the Countess to move out of Italy; out of Europe; out of the planet. I should want her bonded to retire to her place in the next world and inform me which of the two it was, so that I could arrange for my own hereafter.

The friends who secured this house for me while I was still in America were as well acquainted with the Countess’s pestiferous character as was gossipy Florence, but they allowed her to beguile them into the belief that she was going to Paris to live as soon as her expensive house was off her hands.Ⓐapparatus note It was a mistake. She never meant to go. She could not endure life without the daily and hourly society of her handsome chief manservantⒶapparatus note, and she was not rich enough to take him along.

There being nothing in the lease requiring the Countess to go to Paris or to some other heavenⒶapparatus note suited to her style, I soon realized that there was no way of abolishing her; and so after two and a half months of her odorous presence in the neighborhood, her stable dwelling being within the grounds of the estate, I gave 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,Ⓐapparatus note the scholar, who bought the Walter Savage Landor villaⒺexplanatory note fourteen or fifteen years ago, tells me that he examined three hundred villas before he found one that would suit him; yet he was a widower without child or dependentⒶapparatus note, and merely needed a villa for his lone 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,Ⓐapparatus note 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,Ⓐapparatus note being smitten helpless by nervous prostration complicated with an affection of the heart of several years’Ⓐapparatus note standing, and the times since this collapse 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 contrived that there was not comfortable room in them for my family of four persons. As a rule the bed-chambersⒶapparatus note served as commonⒶapparatus note hallways, which means that for centuries Tom,Ⓐapparatus note Dick and Harry 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 possessed almost every one of them. In the case of the four the altitudes were not satisfactory to the doctorsⒶapparatus note; two of them were too high, the other pair too low. These fifteen or twenty villas [begin page 240] 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 dwelling-houseⒶapparatus note. Here it means a meagre and scattering array of cheap and rickety chairs, tables,Ⓐapparatus note sofas etc., upholstered in worn and damaged fragments of sombre and melancholy hue that suggest the grave and compel the desire to retire to it. The average villa is properly a hospital for ailing and superannuated furniture. In its best days this furniture was never good nor comely nor attractive nor comfortable. When that best day was, was too long ago for any one 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Ⓐapparatus note 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Ⓐapparatus note 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 situated in a great and beautiful private park. She was received by a splendid apparition of the footman species who ushered her into a lofty and spacious hall richly garnished with statuary, pictures and other ornaments, fine and costly, and thence down an immensely long corridor which shone with a similar garniture, superbⒶapparatus note and showy to the last degree; and at the end of this enchanting journey she was delivered into the Princess’s bed-chamberⒶapparatus note and received by the Princess,Ⓐapparatus note who was ailing slightly, and in bed. The room was very small, it was without bric-à-bracⒶapparatus note 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 wash-bowl. 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 credulous 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Ⓐapparatus note paintings of chromo degree. A number of these paintings are from the Countess’s hand, and several of them exhibit talent of a moderate sort. One of her works is a portrait, apparently from a photograph, of the Philadelphia man whose intimacies with her enabled her first husband to relieve himself of her society by divorce. This divorced lady was flourishing under her maiden name of Paxton when she was married to the Count in Philadelphia. In America she is a married woman, in Italy she is not.

She has studied artⒶapparatus note. Twenty-five or thirty drawingsⒶapparatus note upholster the walls of a north room of this house—Ⓐapparatus note which must have been her studio. TheseⒶapparatus note nude men and women areⒶapparatus note of the detailed and uncompromising nakedness which isⒶapparatus note the special product of class instruction in the artⒶapparatus note schools. If I read the Countess aright, it cost her a pang not to hang them in the drawing-room.Ⓐapparatus note

High up on the walls of the great entrance hall hang several of those little shinyⒶapparatus note white cherubs [begin page 241] which one associates with the name of Della RobbiaⒺexplanatory note. The walls of this hall are furtherⒶapparatus note decorated, or at least relieved, by the usual great frameless oval oil portraits of long-departedⒶapparatus note aristocrats which one customarily finds thus displayed in all Florentine villas. In the present case the portraits were painted by artists of chromo rank,Ⓐapparatus note with the exception of one. As I have had no teaching in artⒶapparatus note I cannot decide what is a good picture and what isn’t,Ⓐapparatus note 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 forth a most noble, grave,Ⓐapparatus note 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Ⓐapparatus note lest the picture lose for me its finished,Ⓐapparatus note complete,Ⓐapparatus note and satisfying perfectionⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐapparatus note

The Countess is two or three years past forty, and by the generous supply of portraits and photographs of her distributed over the house one perceives that she has once been comely and at intervals pretty. She now paints her face and dyes her hair, and in other ways tries to preserve the tradition of those lost days; but she carries that within her which defeats the dearest efforts of art and spoils their attempts to keep her exterior aspects in satisfactory shape. That interior something is her spirit, her disposition. She is excitable, malicious, malignant, vengeful, unforgiving, selfish, stingy, avaricious, coarse, vulgar, profane, obscene, a furious blusterer on the outside and at heart a coward. Her lips are as familiar with lies, deceptions, swindles and treacheries as are her nostrils with breath. She has not a single friend in Florence, she is not received in any house. I think she is the best hated person I have ever known, and the most liberally despised. She is an oppressor by nature, and a taker of mean advantages. She is hated by every peasant and every person on the estate and in the neighborhood of it, with the single exception of her paramour, the steward. She told me that when she bought the estate the first thing she did was to drive from it every peasant family but one. She did not make this as a confession, the whole tone of it was that of a boast, and nowhereⒶapparatus note in it was there any accent of pity. She knew that those people and their fathers had held those small homes for generations, and had by authority of the kindly customs of the country regarded them as being secure to them so long as their conduct should remain good. She knew that to turn them out upon the world was to them a terrible calamity; that it was almost the equivalent to sweeping Islanders into the sea. She knew that these people were bound to their homes by their heart-strings. One of the peasants whom she evicted lived six weeks and died with nothing the matter with him. That is, nothing the matter with him that a physician’s drugs could reach, nothing that is named in the medical man’s books, nothing for which his science has provided either diagnosis or remedy. The man’s friends had no doubts as to the nature of his malady. They said his heart was where anybody’s heart would be—in his home; and that when that was taken from him his heart went with it, and thereby his life was spoiled, and noⒶapparatus note longer livable with profit. The Countess boasted to me that nothing American is still left in her, and that she is wholly Italian now. She plainly regarded this as a humiliation for America, and she as plainly believed she was gracing Italy with a compliment of a high and precious order. America still stands. Italy may survive the benefaction of the Countess’s approval, we cannot tell.

There is something pathetically comical about this forlorn exile’s dream and its failure. She imagined that a title was all that was needed to frank her into the heavenⒶapparatus note of the privileged orders of Europe, whereas she finds she is not even able to penetrate the outer fringe of it. She [begin page 242] overlooked an all important detail—money. If she had had that her destitution of character would not have counted. Lacking that, her soiled name, her execrable nature, and her residence in a stable with her manservant and the other cattle, all count against her. She brought no money, and had none to bring. If she had a credit of ten millions at the bank not many doors would be closed against her; being lean of purse, none is open to her. She has assailed, she has furiously assailed ladies in the street for not returning her visits and for pretending to be out when she called. This is regarded as not good form. Hers is a curious situation. It is good to be a real noble, it is good to be a real American, it is a calamity to be neither the one thing nor the other, a politico-social bastard on both counts.

The trivial maliciousness that this soured outcast can invent! My agent here, a solicitor, paid twenty-five hundred francs—the rent of the first quarter—before we sailed from America, and this secured possession for the first day of November. On that date he tried to put our servants in the house, and the Countess drove him and them away, and he stood it like a little man! She said no one would be allowed to enter until the inventory had been made out and signed. She put that detail off a week, and this gave her an opportunity to rob the house. She removed from it all the furniture she could stow and use in her apartment of twelve rooms over the stable and cattle stalls. We arrived on the 7th, stayed in town two days, to rest my invalid wife from the racking railway journey from Genoa; the Countess’s head servant and the solicitor reported the house in good order, and we made the long drive on the 9th and entered into occupation, to find that no fires had been lighted in the furnaces or elsewhere and that the place was in condition for no office but the preservation of products requiring cold storage.

Jean and our old KatyⒶapparatus note Ⓔexplanatory note had preceded us by half an hour to make sure that everything was in right shape. They found the Countess on hand and lording it over the house which had been taken and paid for; no bed had been prepared for the invalid, the Countess refused to give up the keys to the bedding closets, and said she would not allow a bed to be made for any one until the inventory should have been gone over and signed. She wouldn’t tell where in the vast building our trunks were concealed; otherwise bedding could have been taken from these. When we arrived we soon found out where our trunks were and we set the servants to work to prepare a bed. We selected for Mrs. Clemens the sacred room with the silken tapestry; the Countess forbade the presence in that room of any sick person and appealed to the lease and to my lawyer,Ⓐapparatus note who was present, in support of this prohibition. She was correct in her position. The lease showed that this reptile with the filthy soul had protected her house and her body against physical contamination by inserting in the lease a clause prohibiting the lessee from introducing into that particular bedroom any person suffering from an illness of any kind whether contagious or otherwise, and whether the illness might be “large or small” to use the words of the translation of the lease; and to these rigors she had added a clause breaking the lease in case I should bring a contagious disease into the house. All these sillinesses my salaried ass had conceded.

During the fifteen months that Mrs. Clemens had been a helpless invalid she had constantly received the gentle courtesies and kindly attentions which human beings of whatsoever rank or nationality always and everywhere accord to helplessness. ThisⒶapparatus note American Countess was the first of the race to deny these graces and to inflict physical pain and damage instead.

Considering the known character of the woman the lease was notⒶapparatus note a curiosity, for it left [begin page 243] many loopholes for the gratification of her whims and caprices and malices, but left no holes for our escape or defenceⒶapparatus note. Her rights were set forth in detail in writing, in every instance, whereas some of our most important ones had no protection other than her oral promises. These promises were ignored and repudiated from the start, and quite frankly. By oral promise we could occupy as much of the stable as we pleased, but the written lease confined us to the stable under Mrs. Clemens’s room. By oral agreement she was to leave the estate as soon as we moved in—a most important detail, and by all means should have been in writing, for no one acquainted with the Countess would endure the stench of her presence within a mile of his dwelling if it could be helped. By oral promise we were to have command of the reservoir which furnished water to the house—which was another exceedingly important detail; but as it was not in writing she was able to keep that command herself and she continues to keep it, and now and then to use it against our convenience and our health. The lease gave us not a single privilege outside the building except exit and entrance through the grounds; we were not consulted as to what hours the great gates should be open, it pleased her to close them for the night at six o’clock wherefore we were not only prisoners from that time until the next morning, but we were disastrously unaware of it because she gave us no notice. I say disastrously for the reason that upon one occasion our expensive Florentine specialist,Ⓐapparatus note ProfessorⒶapparatus note Grocco, with his assistant physician arrived at the outer gate four hundred yards from the villa at six o’clock in the evening and found the gate locked. There being no bell there was no way to give us notice. The assistant, Dr. Nesti, went scouting and found a gate open which led into the podere; through this they drove unimpeded to the villa. The pretext for closing the great gates out at the main road and those contiguous to our house was to protect the podere from thieves, whereas that podereⒺexplanatory note gate was often left open all night.

The Countess invented various other ways to inconvenience us, and I supposed that the motive was merely and solely malice, but it turns out that that was not the whole of it. She was trying to force us to throw pecuniary advantages in the way of her temporary husband, her chief manservant. She had expected that we would buy all supplies through him and thus extend to him the same opportunities to rob us which he was enjoying in robbing her. She was curiously communicative in this matter. She told me I had made a mistake in not buying the winter’s fuel through that man; and in not buying the winter supply of wine and oil through him; and in not furnishing a cart and horse to our cook wherewith to drive into Florence daily for the perishable foods for the table; and in not getting him to have our washing done for us; and in not making it worth his while to be friendly with us as regards the water; since he could shut it off whenever he pleased, and could also waste it and make it necessary for us to buy water outside and have it hauled to us—a thing which he did once for a week or two.

The lease forbade me to add an improvement or a convenience anywhere about the house without first getting her consent in writing. Our physicians were three or four miles away in Florence; several times Mrs. Clemens had desperate need of them, and each time it cost us more than an hour and a half of precious time to send in and get them. A telephone was necessary, and I asked the Countess to allow me to put one in. She said I might, but that she must be sent for when the telephone people should arrive to put in the instrument, so that she might determine for herself whereabouts in the house she would allow it to be located. It did not occur [begin page 244] to me to ask her to put the permission in writing, for I was not yet able to realize that I was not dealing with a human being but with a reptile. Through Mr. Cecchi,Ⓐapparatus note the manager of the bank,Ⓐapparatus note the contract was at once made with the Telephone Company; there were twenty-seven orders ahead of me, but by courtesy of the Company and in consideration of the desperate need I had of the telephone, I was placed at the head of the list; my instrument was promptly put in, and in the last days of January it began its work in perfect order. It maintained this perfect order an hour and then died. During a whole month thereafter Mr. Cecchi did his best to find out what the trouble was. The Company furnished all sorts of excuses except rational ones, and still the telephone remained dumb. Close upon the end of January I heard from a trustworthy source that the Countess had said to a friend of hers, the only one she has in Italy apparently, that if I had put the telephone matter into the hands of her paramour there would never have been any trouble about it. I went to town and Mr. Cecchi telephoned the Company and asked them to state once for all when they proposed to blow the breath of life into my telephone. They answered that the Countess was threatening them with a suit for eighteen francs damage which they had caused by erecting a telephone pole in her podere, the actual damage being, if anything, not above five francs. Also that they had just received an order from the Countess, accompanied by a threat from her lawyer, requiring them to take my telephone out on or before the fourthⒶapparatus note day of February at noon. I asked Mr. Cecchi to say to the Company that if I found myself unable to communicate with my house by telephone before sunset I should bring suit for twenty-five thousand francs damages for failure to fulfill their contract with me. Communication with my house was perfected within the hour, and has never since been interrupted. The Countess’s excuse for forbidding a telephone whose special and particular office was to speedily call physicians to save a neighbor’s threatened life, was that I had no permission from her in writing and had not notified her to come and say where the instrument might be placed. I was losing my belief in hellⒶapparatus note until I got acquainted with the Countess Massiglia.

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Ⓐapparatus note, overlooking Florence and the great valley. It was secured for us and put in comfortable order by a good friend,Ⓐapparatus note Mrs. Ross,Ⓐapparatus note whose stately castle was a twelve minutes’ walk awayⒺexplanatory note. She still lives there, and hasⒶapparatus note been a help to us more than once since we got into the fangs of the titled animal who owns the Villa di Quarto. The year spent in the Villa VivianiⒺexplanatory note was something of a contrast to the five months which we have now spent in this ducal barrack. Among my old manuscripts and random 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Ⓔexplanatory note in the spring of ’92 on our way to Germany, the diseased world’s bath-house, we began negotiationsⒶapparatus note 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Ⓐapparatus note perfect. It wasⒶapparatus note three miles from Florence, on the side of a hill. The flowery terrace on which it stoodⒶapparatus note looked down upon sloping olive groves and vineyards; [begin page 245] to the right, beyond some hill-spurs, was Fiesole, perched upon its steep terraces; in the immediate foreground wasⒶapparatus note the imposing mass of the Ross castle, its walls and turrets rich with the mellow weather-stains of forgotten centuries; in the distant plain layⒶapparatus note Florence, pink and gray and brown, with the rustyⒶapparatus note huge dome of the cathedral dominating its centreⒶapparatus note like a captive balloon, and flanked on the right by the smaller bulb of the Medici chapel and on the left by the airy tower of the Palazzo Vecchio; allⒶapparatus note around the horizon was a billowy rim of lofty blue hills, snowed white with innumerable villas. After nine months of familiarity with this panorama, 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,Ⓐapparatus note drowned in 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 ecstasy.Ⓐapparatus note

I will insert in this place some notes made in October concerning the villa:Ⓐapparatus note

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,Ⓐapparatus note a monthly pourboire, ofⒶapparatus note 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Ⓐapparatus note francs a month would be about right. I was afterwards 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Ⓐapparatus note francs. When I asked why, he said his padrone had taken his other pourboire away from him. The padrone denied this in Vittorio’sⒶapparatus note presence, and Vittorio seemed to retract. The padrone said he did, and he certainly had that aspect, but IⒶapparatus note 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Ⓐapparatus note 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Ⓐapparatus note a considerable share of hisⒶapparatus note dependents’ 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Ⓐapparatus note landau has kept us supplied with lame 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 pungent and suspicious [begin page 249] odor which we were not acquainted with and which gave us some little apprehension, but I laid it on the dog, and explained to the familyⒶapparatus note that that kind of a dog always smelt that way when he was up to windward of the subject, but privately 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 acquit the ancestors. It turned out that the odor was a harmless one. It cameⒶapparatus note 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 so lavishly flooded the house with odious 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Ⓐapparatus note finally all gone and the wine-fragrance resumed business at the old stand, we welcomed it with effusion and have had no fault to find with it since.