COLOSSEUM AND CATACOMBS.
It wuz jest as beautiful in Rome—magnificent palaces, cathedrals, picters, statutes, tapestry, mosaics, articles of virtue of all kinds, and immense gateways leadin’ into new seens of beauty, fountains, monuments, tombs, parks, wells, etc., etc., etc.
My head-dress almost rises up on my head now as I contemplate the seens. But specially the Colosseum almost lifts up the ribbins on it—now, when I meditate on’t.
Why, when the Loontown Opera House wuz finished, we Jonesvillians hung our heads considerable before the Loontowners, they wuz so hauty over it. Two hundred could set down in it all to one time.
It danted us. We envied ’em. But what would them proud Loontowners think of a theatre that would seat eighty thousand, and probble twenty or thirty thousand more could have squoze in while they wuz a-performin’.
One hundred thousand all assembled, mebby to look down on the dretful sight of seein’ men kill each other. That wuz the thought that riz up my head-dress, and almost busted my bask waist. To think that men and wimmen could meet for amusement, and witness sech agony and sufferin’, and probble laugh at it. Why, in one of their meetin’s, twelve hundred men wuz killed, wimmen lookin’ on, too, jest as well as men, and probble snickerin’ over it.
I would be ashamed of myself if I wuz in their places—heartless creeters! If I’d been there at the time nobody could kep’ me from givin’ ’em a piece of my mind. But I wuz eighteen hundred years too young; they kep’ right at it.
Al Faizi wuz dretful interested in this place. He writ down lots in that book of hisen. He see sights here he never see in his own land—religion or no religion.
Christians throwed round to let lions and tigers devour ’em! The idee! He looked curous as a dog while he talked with me about it.
Martin wuz kinder calculatin’ on how many grain elevators the stun would build if they wuz landed in Chicago.
And Josiah and the children were wanderin’ round, and he acted tired and fagged out. He wuz, as usual, hungry. He sed prowlin’ round amongst them stun heaps gin him a appetite. And I spoze it did. But, then, I’ve known settin’ still to whet up his appetite, and barn chores, and everything.
But we prowled round here for some time, and there is one big, vivid memory that I brung away from Rome; it stands up in my foretop some as in Naples Mount Vesuvius stands, with the Bay of Naples a-layin’ placid and fair at its treacherous old feet.
The treasures of the Vatican (which makes my brain reel and my feet kinder ache to this day when I think of ’em), the biggest palace in the world, so I spoze. And then St. Peter’s Church, more’n five times as big as the big Catholic Cathedral in New York—two hundred and twelve thousand feet; we can’t hardly understand it, it is so big.
But Martin kep’ us there more’n half an hour; for, as he sed, he wanted to git a thorough idee of it, so that he wouldn’t have to come agin. Sez he:
“I travel as I do everything else; I do it laboriously and thoroughly.”
Wall, mebby he did, but I carried away from St. Peter’s and the Vatican, which is jest by the side on’t, a sort of a dizzy, achin’ memory of pillows and picters and statutes and illimitable space, and picters and carvin’s and statutes, and statutes and carvin’s and picters—a few of which stands out prominent—the Laocoon, the Apollo Belvidere (he wuz as handsome as Thomas Jefferson, and that is sayin’ all I can say), and the Annunciation, and the Transfiguration by Raphael, and great picters by Da Vinci and Murillo. Picters, statutes, mosaics, carvin’s, chapels, altars, picters, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., and I might go on so all day, but I won’t.
Why, the treasures of art in the Vatican is the finest collection in the world, and when you realize how big the world is—take it from Jonesville to Chicago, and so by New York to Ingy, and back agin by the North Pole to Loontown and Zoar, you can git a faint idee on’t.
There is everything in it besides the glorious picters and statutes made by the greatest artists and sculpters that ever lived. There are ancient coins and household utensils of every age, tapestry, mosaics, jewels, embroideries, carvin’s, etc., etc.
Why, imagine what treasures of art could be put into these ten thousand rooms by onlimited wealth and power through hundreds of years, and then see if you expect anybody is a-goin’ to describe ’em; specially if they are hurried on by a Martin, and goaded on the right and the left by the hungry groanin’s of a Josiah, and the endless questions of a child of eight.
Al Faizi got considerable good out on’t, I guess.
He writ down a lot, I see, in that delicate, small handwritin’ of hisen—I d’no but it is shorthand.
Alice, I spoze, see on every side a face, jest as young eyes will, when young hearts are full of love and hope.
Wall, Martin sed he must see the catacombs, and I felt, too, that I must go, although I knew it wuz resky. I felt that with his ardent temperament and his eager search after ontried paths, I more’n mistrusted that I should lose Josiah Allen for good in them catacombs. But I ventered, after layin’ stringent rules onto that small, but ambitious man.
Sez I, “Don’t you lose sight of me through the day, Josiah Allen!”
“How can I see you in the dark?” sez he.
“Foller my voice!” sez I.
“That’s an easy job,” sez he; “I could foller that for years and years, and not lose a minute.”
I d’no what he meant; he wuz excited and kinder wanderin’ in his mind, I believe.
“THE GUIDES WENT AHEAD WITH FLARIN’ LIGHTS.”
Wall, when we descended into the bowels of the earth, I felt queer, queer as a dog. The guides went ahead, with flarin’ lights held up to guide us, and as we proceeded onwards through what seemed to be milds and milds of underground rooms and halls and windin’ ways, the thought come, and I couldn’t keep it out of my mind—
“What if the light should blow out, as I’ve seen so many lights do in my day, and we should be doomed to forever more wander here, and die at last fur from Jonesville, and the light of day. But as I whispered to Josiah—
“We shall die together at least, which will be a comfort.”
He, too, felt the pathos and danger of the seen, and sez he—
“Hurry up, or the guide will be out of sight!” and he added almost tenderly, “You’re too fat, Samantha, to take many sech trips.”
And I sez, “Wall, I don’t expect to travel habitually under the ground.”
And we had some words. It madded me considerable to be twitted of my heft both on top of the ground and in the bowels of the earth, till I recollected where I wuz and what had once gone on here; then a deep or took holt on me, and I sez to myself—
“What must the Christians have felt who fled here for safety from persecution and death! What did the saints and martyrs think on as they jined in their hymns of praise and victory? A few pounds of flesh, more or less, what would they have thought on’t, or the teasin’ words of their pardners? No, lions and tigers and the headsman’s axe wuz what wuz before their eyes, and, what wuz worse, before the eyes of ’em they loved best.”
Endless rooms, so it seemed to me, we went through, narrer passages and chambers, arched overhead, and the walls lined, some on ’em with dead bodies. Mummies, tombs, picters, windin’ ways, Josiah, Martin, torches—them wuz the idees that come back to me as I think on’t now.
Wall, Josiah wuz dretful impressed with the Holy Staircase, up which the members of the meetin’-house went on their knees, a-sayin’ their prayers as they went, and it wuz a impressive sight to look way up the stairs and see the bretheren and sistern a-creepin’ up and a-fingerin’ their strings of beads and a-prayin’ to the Virgin Mary or some other saint or ’postle, mebby.
And here I had another trial with my dear, but too ardent and impressible pardner. He looked on in deep thought for anon or a little longer, and then he sez—
“Samantha, wouldn’t it be uneek for you and me to climb up the steps of the Jonesville meetin’-house a-sayin’ over some hymn, or one of the Sams? And you could take your mother’s gold string of beads, and I could buy a string of glass ones for two or three cents, or I could make a string with a little of Ury’s help—whittle ’em out of wood. And how impressive it would be! how it would attract attention to us! how foreign it would look, and show plain how travelled and cultivated we wuz! You know, folks that come home from Europe always bring lots of strange ways with ’em and airs; and this would be one of the most uneekest and impressive that wuz ever brung into Jonesville or America.”
Sez I, “Gin up that idee to once, Josiah Allen, for I will never jine in with it in the world. The idee!” sez I, “that you and me, with our age and our rumatiz, should go a-creepin’ up on our knees into the meetin’-house. Why, to say nothin’ of spilein’ our clothes, our knee-pans wouldn’t be good for nothin’ after one venter.” Sez I, “The pans would be perfectly useless forever afterwards, and,” sez I, “what good would it do? The aid we invoke hain’t bought with beads. The God we worship hain’t reached by creepin’ up a pair of stairs; He is right with us to the foot of the stairs or anywhere. Give up the idee immegiately and to once.”
He acted real fraxious, but I drawed his attention off, and mebby he’ll forgit it.
The beauty of Naples has been sed and sung in so many different words and tunes that it don’t need the pen or voice of a Samantha, specially as I hain’t much of a singer, nor wuzn’t even in my young days, so I will be content with singin’ to myself at times a rapt sort of a soul song, as I look back on the enchantin’ beauty of the Bay of Naples.
Beautiful for situation indeed is Naples! clusterin’ round the clear, blue waters, that sweep round in a sort of a crescent.
The city occupies the centre—the inside on’t, little villages and tree-embowered castles and villas a-linin’ the shores on each side, and on the off side, addin’ the one touch of mystery that gives a vivid but dark charm to the picter, rises Mount Vesuvius, a-standin’ there all the time as if protestin’ aginst the poor wisdom of the ages.
Who knows what’s a-goin’ on in her insides? Who knows what she’s mad about? Who knows what makes her act so puggicky, and every now and then bust out into blood-red indignation, that carries death and ruin all round her? Queer, hain’t it?
Queer, that havin’ in mind jest what she’s done and is liable to do any time agin, that men and wimmen go on, gay and happy, and lean up aginst her old feet, and nestle down in her shadder, and build homes of love there, liable any minute to be swep’ away by her red-hot wrath!
Passin’ strange! jest as singular as it is to think all of us in Jonesville and the world at large will build fair homes of love and content, and anchor ’em to livin’ hearts alone, in the same world where Death is.
But to resoom. My recollections of this city, like so many others, is one vast paneramy, framed in by the blue Mediterranean, and ornamented on top by Vesuvius, of picter galleries, tall palaces, broad avenues, narrer streets, in which we see many seens that in Jonesville is kep’ under cover, and stately castles—sights and sights of castles, and immense ones; seems as if they wuz immenser and more numerous than in any other city I see on my tower, and fountains, and aqueducts, and churches, and colleges, and theatres, and operas, etc., etc., etc. Plenty of chances for bein’ good, and plenty of modes of recreations, the Neapolitans have, and they seem to take advantage on ’em all. But it seemed as if I couldn’t never forgit that tall, warnin’ figger that looms up forever in the background. But, then, agin, mebby I should; I forgit the graveyard in Jonesville lots of times, though I ride by it every Sunday to meetin’.
The guide wanted us to go up Vesuvius. He said she wuz lookin’ very mild and pleasant, and it would be perfectly safe.
But I didn’t like her looks, or that is, I thought I’d ruther admire her at a distance, some as I would a striped tiger right out of the jungle. But Vesuvius did indeed look beautiful, a-risin’ up above the incomparable Bay of Naples. But I felt for all her good looks I didn’t want to tackle her.
I knew what she’d done in the past to ’em that trusted her too much. Pompey won’t forgit her—no, indeed! After eighteen hundred years have gone don’t memories hant the House of Pansa and the hull of that devoted city of what Vesuvius can do when it gits to actin’? Yes, indeed, indeed! No, I didn’t want to venter.
But I did want to visit that city that has lain buried up in the earth for so many years. And Martin sed that most all of his inflooential friends made a practice of goin’ there. So we all sot off one pleasant mornin’—my Josiah in pretty good sperits, for we had had an oncommon good breakfust, and Alice lookin’ sweet as a flower, and Al Faizi a-knowin’ she did, a-realizin’ her sweetness through all his bein’, as I could see from his big, dark, sad eyes, that wuz bent on her all the way, and her heart all filled up with another’s image and drawin’ her radiant looks from that sun of her heart.
O human hearts; O glory and sadness and rapter that fills ’em! How many jest sech gay young sperits, sech souls, full of the glowin’ rapter of love, the divine sadness of love, went out in darkness on that dretful day, a thousand and a half years ago!
I had fearful riz-up emotions before I got to Pompey, jest a-thinkin’ on’t, and so what could they have been when I at last stood in the city on which fell sech a sudden doom.
To see the silent forms struck down, jest as full of life and love and happiness as Alice and Adrian wuz to-day. There wuz a woman clingin’ to a bag of gold—gold couldn’t help her. A young man and young girl clasped in each others’ arms—love couldn’t save ’em. A priest of Isis, who knew all the secrets of the Mystic Religion—his wisdom couldn’t save him, or what he called his wisdom. A giant form full of courage and defiance—strength couldn’t save him, nor courage. A high-born lady covered with jewels—wealth and high station couldn’t save her.
They all had to bear the common fate, as well as the little maid who died runnin’ away from death, and had covered her face with her garments, she wuz so ’fraid. Poor little creeter! what if it had been Babe?
No; the prisoners shet up in jail, riveted to the rock, the dogs, horses, goats, even the poor little dove, that wouldn’t leave her nest, pretty, little affectionate thing!—all, all had to bear the doom that come down upon ’em on that dretful day.
All on ’em a-doin’ their usual work, jest as if the Heavens should open and pour down a avalanche of ashes and bury us up in our home in Jonesville—Josiah a-doin’ his barn chores, and I a-washin’ dishes, and both on us full of life and joy of livin’. Besides Ury and Philury.
Oh, dear me! oh, dear me suz!
Wall, I went through them streets, so many centuries buried and forgot, in a state of mind I can’t describe. It seemed some like goin’ through any city. The streets wuz middlin’ narrer, but the housen stood on each side; good roads wore down by the steps of the multitude. So wuz the fountains that stood on every hand; you could see where the lips of the public had wore ’em away. Palaces, little housen, shops, temples, amphitheatres. One house we went through looked as though it had been built yesterday for some rich American; it wuz over three hundred feet long and over a hundred feet broad, and all ornamented off beautiful with statutes and mosaics and things good enough for a Vanderbilt.
In some things the old inhabitants did better than they do now. They had sidewalks—pretty narrer, but fur better than none—and more facilities for gittin’ water. I wish the Italians used more now—they would feel as well agin for it, jest as Josiah duz when I can git him to use it free.
