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Page 81
CHAPTER XXI.
It was the middle of the afternoon, and momma, having spent the morning
among the tombs of the Scaligeri, was lying down. The Scaligeri somehow
had got on her nerves; there were so many of them, and the panoply of
their individual bones was so imposing.
"Daughter," she had said to me on the way back to the hotel, "if you
point out another thing to me I'll slap you." In that frame of mind it
was always best to let momma lie down. The Senator had letters to write;
I think he wanted to communicate his Venetian steamship idea to a man in
Minneapolis. Dicky had already been round to the Hotel di Londres--we
were at the Colomba--and had found nothing, so when he asked me to come
out for a walk I prepared to be steeped in despondency. An unsuccessful
love affair is a severe test of friendship; but I went.
It was as I expected. Having secured a spectator to wreak his gloom
upon, Mr. Dod proceeded to make the most of the opportunity. He put his
hat on recklessly, and thrust his hands into his pa--his trouser
pockets. We were in a strange town, but he fastened his eyes moodily
upon the pavement, as if nothing else were worth considering. As we
strolled into the Piazza Bra, I saw him gradually and furtively turn up
his coat-collar, at which I felt obliged to protest.
"Look here, Dicky," I said, "unrequited affection is, doubtless, very
trying, but you're too much of an advertisement. The Veronese are
beginning to stare at you; their sorcerers will presently follow you
about with their patent philters. Reform your personal appearance, or
here, at the foot of this statue of Victor Emmanuel, I leave you to your
fate."
Dicky reformed it, but with an air of patience under persecution which I
found hard to bear. "I don't know your authority for calling it
unrequited," he said, with dignity.
"All right--undelivered," I replied. "That is a noble statue--you can't
contradict the guide-book. By Borghi."
"Victor Emmanuel, is it? Then it isn't Garibaldi. You don't have to
travel much in Italy to know it's got to be either one or the other.
What they _like_ is to have both," said Mr. Dod, with unnecessary
bitterness. "I'd enjoy something fresh in statues myself." Then, with an
imperfectly-concealed alertness, "There seems to be something going on
over there," he added.
We could see nothing but an arched door in a high, curving wall, and a
stream of people trickling in. "Probably only one of their eternal Latin
church services," continued Dicky. "It's about the only form of public
entertainment you can depend on in this country. But we might as well
have a look in." He went on to say, as we crossed the dusty road, that
my unsympathetic attitude was enough to drive anybody to the Church of
Rome, even in the middle of the afternoon.
But we perceived at once that it was not the Church of Rome, or any
other church. There was more than one arched entrance, and a man in
each, to whom people paid a lira apiece for admission, and when we
followed them in we found our feet still upon the ground, and ourselves
among a forest of solid buttresses and props. The number XV. was cut
deep over the door we came in by, and the props had the air of centuries
of patience. A wave of sound seemed to sweep round in a circle inside
and spend itself about us, of faint multitudinous clappings. Conviction
descended upon us suddenly, and as we stumbled after the others we
shared one classic moment of anticipation, hurrying and curious in 1895
as the Romans hurried and were curious in 110, a little late for the
show in the Arena. They were all there before us, they had taken the
best places, and sat, as we emerged in our astonishment, tier above tier
to the row where the wall stopped and the sky began, intent,
enthusiastic. The wall threw a new moon of shadow on the west, and there
the sun struck down sharply and made splendid the dyes in the women's
clothes, and turned the Italian soldiers' buttons into flaming jewels.
And again, as we stared, the applause went round and up, from the yellow
sand below to the blue sky above, and when we looked bewildered down
into the Arena for the victorious gladiator, and saw a tumbling clown
with a painted face instead, the illusion was only half destroyed. We
climbed and struggled for better places, treading, I fear, in our
absorption on a great many Veronese toes. Dicky said when we got them
that you had to remember that the seats were Roman in order to
appreciate them, they were such very cold stone, and they sloped from
back to front, for the purpose, as we found out afterward from the
guide-book, of letting off the rain water. We were glad to understand
it, but Dicky declared that no explanation would induce him to take a
season ticket for the Arena, it was too destitute of modern
improvements. It was something, though, to sit there watching, with the
ranged multitude, a show in a Roman Amphitheatre--one could imagine
things, lictors and �diles, senators and centurions. It only required
the substitution of togas and girdled robes for trousers and petticoats,
and a purple awning for the emperor, and a brass-plated body-guard with
long spears and hairy arms and legs, and a few details like that. If one
half closed one's eyes it was hardly necessary to imagine. I was half
closing my eyes, and wondering whether they had Vestal Virgins at this
particular amphitheatre, and trying to remember whether they would turn
their thumbs up or down when they wished the clown to be destroyed, when
Dicky grew suddenly pale and sprang to his feet.
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