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Page 40
"He did, did he?" I rejoined calmly. "That's like the British--isn't
it?"
"It would have made such a complication if I'd kicked him," confessed
Mr. Dod.
The Senator, momma, and Mrs. Portheris stood in the cathedral door.
Isabel and Mr. Mafferton occupied the middle distance. Mr. Mafferton
stooped to add a poppy to a slender handful of wild flowers he held out
to her. Isabel was looking back.
"It will be pleasant inside the Duomo," I said. "Let us go on. I feel
warm. I agree with you that the situation is serious, Dicky. Look at
those poppies! When an Englishman does that you may make up your mind to
the worst. But I don't think anybody need have the slightest respect for
the affections of Mr. Mafferton."
Inside the Duomo it was pleasant, and cool, and there was a dim
religious light that gave one an opportunity for reflection. I was so
much engaged in reflection that I failed to notice the shape of the
Duomo, but I have since learned that it was a basilica, in the form of
a Latin cross, and was simply full of things which should have claimed
my attention. Momma took copious notes from which I see that the Madonna
and Child holy water basin was perfectly sweet, and the episcopal throne
by Uervellesi in 1536 was the finest piece of tarsia work in the world,
and the large bronze hanging lamp by Vincenzo Possento was the object
which assisted Galileo to invent the oscillations of the pendulum. The
Senator was much taken with the inlaid wooden stalls in the choir, the
subjects were so lively. He and his Aunt Caroline nearly came to words
over a monkey regarding its reflection in a looking glass, done with a
realism which Mrs. Portheris considered little short of profane, but
which poppa found quite an excusable filip to devotions which must have
been such an all day business in the sixteenth century. Outside,
however, poppa found it difficult to approve the fa�ade. To throw four
galleries over the street door, he said, with no visible means of
getting into them or possible object for sitting there, was about the
most ridiculous waste of building space he had yet observed.
"But then," said Dicky Dod, who kept his disconsolate place by my side,
"they didn't seem to know how to waste enough in those pre-elevator
days. Look at the pictures and the bronzes and the marble columns inside
there--ten times as much as they had any use for. They just heaped it
up."
"That's so, Dicky, my boy," replied poppa; "we could cover more ground
with the money in our century. But you've got to remember that they
hadn't any other way worth mentioning of spending the taxes. Religion,
so to speak, was the boss contractor's only line."
Dicky remarked that it had to be admitted he worked it on the square,
and momma said that no doubt people built as well as they knew how at
that time, but nothing should induce her to add her weight to the top of
the Leaning Tower.
"It is very remarkable and impressive," said momma, "the idea of its
hanging over that way all these centuries, just on the drop and never
dropping, but who knows that it may not come down this very day!"
"My dear niece, if I may call you so," remarked Mrs. Portheris urbanely,
"it was thus that the builders designed this great monument to stand; in
its inclination lies the triumph of their art."
"I can't say I agree with you there, Aunt Caroline," said poppa; "that
tower was never meant to stand crooked. It's a very serious defect, and
if it happened nowadays, it would justify any Municipal Board in
repudiating the contract. Even those fellows, you see, were too sick to
go on with it, in every case. Begun by Bonanus 1174. Bonanus saw what
was going to happen and gave it up at the third storey. Then Benenato
had _his_ show, got it up to four, and quit, 1203. The next architect
was--let me see--William of Innsbruck. He put on a couple more, and by
that time it began to look dangerous. But nothing happened from 1260 to
1350, and it struck Tomaso Pisano that nothing would happen. He risked
it anyhow, ran up another storey, put the roof on, and came in for the
credit of the whole miracle. I expect Tomaso is at the bottom of that
idea of yours, Aunt Caroline. He would naturally give the reporters that
view."
Mrs. Portheris listened with a tolerance as badly put on as any garment
she was wearing. "I do not usually make assertions," she said when poppa
had finished, "without being convinced of the facts," and I became aware
for the first time that her upper lip wore a slight moustache.
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