A Voyage of Consolation Part 12

CHAPTER VIII.

Poppa said as we steamed out of Paris that night that the Presidency itself would not induce him to reside there, and I think he meant it. I don't know whether the omnibus _numeros_ and the _correspondances_ where you change, or the men sitting staring on the side walks drinking things for hours at a time, or getting no vegetables to speak of with his joint, annoyed him most, but he was very decided in his views. Momma and I were not quite so certain; we had a guilty sense of ingrat.i.tude when we thought of the creations in the van; but the cobblestones bia.s.sed momma a good deal, who hoped she should get some sleep in Italy. I had breakfasted that morning in the most amusing way with d.i.c.ky Dod at a _cafe_ in the Champs Elysees--poppa and momma had an engagement with Mr.

and Mrs. Malt and couldn't come--and in the leniency of the recollection I said something favourable about the Arc de Triomphe at sunset; but I gathered from the Senator's remarks that, while the sunset was fine enough, he didn't see the propriety in using it that way as a background for Napoleon Bonaparte, so to speak.

"Result is," said the Senator, "the intelligent foreigner's got pretty nearly to go out of the town to see a sunset without having to think about Aboukir and Alexandria. But that's Paris all over. There isn't a street, or a public building, or a statue, or a fountain, or a thing that doesn't shout at you, 'Look at me! Think about me! Your admiration or your life!' Those Frenchmen don't mind it because it only repeats what they're always saying themselves, but if you're a foreigner it gets on your nerves. That city is too uniformly fine to be of much use to me--it keeps me all the time wondering why I'm not in one eternal good humour to match. There's good old London now--always looks, I should think, just as you feel. Looks like history, too, and change, and contrast, and the different varieties of the human lot."

"I see what you mean, poppa," I said. "There's too much equality in Paris, isn't there--to be interesting," but the Senator was too deeply engaged in getting out momma's smelling salts to corroborate this interpretation.

It is a very long way to Genoa if you don't stop at Aix-les-Bains or anywhere--twenty-four hours--but Mont Cenis occurs in the night, which is suitable in a tunnel. There came a chill through the darkness that struck to one's very marrow, and we all rose with one accord and groped about for more rugs. When broad daylight came it was Savoy, and we realised what we had been through. The Senator was inclined to deplore missing the realisation of the Mont Cenis, and it was only when momma said it was a pity he hadn't taken a train that would have brought us through in the daytime and enabled him to examine it, that he ceased to express regret. My parents are often vehicles of philosophy for each other.

Besides, in the course of the morning the Senator acknowledged that he got more tunnels than he had any idea he had paid for. They came with a precipitancy that interfered immensely with any connected idea of the scenery, though momma, in my interest, did her best to form one. "Note, my love," she said, as we began to penetrate the frontier country, "that majestic blue summit on the horizon to the left"--obliteration, and another tunnel! "_Don't_ miss that jagged line of snows just beyond the back of poppa's head, dear one. Quick! they are melting away!"--but the next tunnel was quicker. "Put down that the dazzling purity of these lovely peaks must be realised, for it cannot be"--darkness, and the blight of another tunnel. It was very hard on momma's imagination, and she finally accepted the Senator's warning that it would be thrown completely out of gear if she went on, and abandoned the attempt to form complete sentences between tunnels. It was much simpler to exclaim "Splendid!" or "Glorious!" which one could generally do without being interrupted.

We were not prepared to enjoy anything when we arrived at Genoa, but there was Christopher Columbus in bronze, just outside the station in a little place by himself, and we felt bound to give him our attention before we went any further. He was patting America on the head, both of them life size, and carrying on that historical argument with his sailors in bas-relief below; and he looked a very fine character. As poppa said, he was just the man you would pick out to discover America.

The Senator also remarked that you could see from the position of the statue, right there in full view of the travelling public, that the Genoese thought a lot of Columbus; relied upon him, in fact, as their biggest attraction. Momma examined him from the carriage. She said it was most gratifying to see him there in his own home, so to speak; but her enthusiasm did not induce her to get out. Momma's patriotism has always to be considered in connection with the state of her nerves.

The state of all our nerves was healed in a quarter of an hour. The Senator showed his coupons somewhat truculently, but they were received as things of price with disarming bows and real gladness. We were led through rambling pa.s.sages into lofty white chambers, with marble floors and iron bedsteads, full of simplicity and cleanliness, where we removed all recollections of Paris without being obliged to consider a stuffy carpet or satin-covered furniture. Italy, in the persons of the _portier_ and the chambermaid, laid hold of us with intelligible smiles, and we were charmed. Inside, the place was full of long free lines and cool polished surfaces, and pleasant curves. Outside, a thick-fronded palm swayed in the evening wind against a climbing hill of many-tinted, many-windowed houses, in all the soft colours we knew of before. When the _portier_ addressed momma as "Signora" her cup of bliss ran over, and she made up her mind that she felt able, after all, to go down to dinner.

Remembering their sentiments, we bowed as slightly as possible when we saw the Miss Binghams across the table, and the Senator threw that into his voice, as he inquired how they liked _la belle Italie_ so far, and whether they had had any trouble with their trunks coming in, which might have given them to understand that his politeness was very perfunctory. If they perceived it, they allowed it to influence them the other way, however. They asked, almost as cordially as if we were middle-cla.s.s English people, whether we had actually survived that trip to Versailles, and forbore to comment when we said we had enjoyed it, beyond saying that if there was one enviable thing it was the American capacity for pleasure. Yet one could see quite plainly that the vacuum caused by the absence of the American capacity for pleasure was filled in their case by something very superior to it.

"This city new to you?" asked the Senator as the meal progressed.

"In a _sense_, yes," replied Miss Nancy Bingham.

"We've never _studied_ it before," said Miss Cora.

"I suppose it has a fascination all its own," remarked momma.

"Oh, rather!" exclaimed Miss Nancy Bingham, and I reflected that when she was in England she must have seen a great deal of school-boy society. I decided at once, noting its effect upon the lips of a middle-aged maiden lady, that momma must not be allowed to pick up the expression.

"It's simply full of a.s.sociations of old families--the Dorias, the Pallavicinis, the Durazzos," remarked Miss Cora. "Do you gloat on the medieval?"

"We're perfectly prepared to," said the Senator. "I believe we've got both Murray and Baedeker for this place. Now do you commit your facts to memory before going to bed the night previous, or do you learn them up as you go along?"

"Oh," said Miss Nancy Bingham, "we are of the opinion that one should always visit these places with a mind prepared. Though I myself have no objection to carrying a guide-book, provided it is covered with brown paper."

"Then you acquire it all beforehand," commented the Senator. "That, I must say, is commendable of you. And it's certainly the only business-like way of proceeding. The amount of time a person loses fooling over Baedeker on the spot----"

"One of us does," acknowledged Miss Nancy. "We take it in turns. And I must say it is generally my sister." And she turned to Miss Cora, who blushed and said, "How can you, Nancy!"

"And you use her, for that particular public building or historic scene, as a sort of portable, self-acting reference library," remarked poppa. "That's an idea that commends itself to me, daughter, in connection with you."

I was about to reply in terms of deprecation, when a confusion of sound drifted in from the street, of arriving cabs and expostulating voices.

The Miss Binghams looked at each other in consternation and said with one accord, "It _was_ the _Fulda_!"

"Was it?" inquired poppa. "Do you refer to the German Lloyd steams.h.i.+p of that name?"

"We do," said Miss Nancy. "About an hour ago we were sure we saw her steaming into the harbour."

"She comes from New York, I suppose," momma remarked.

"She does indeed," said Miss Nancy, "and she's been lying at the docks unloading Americans ever since she arrived. And here they are. Cora, have you finished?"

Cora said she had, and without further parley the ladies rose and rustled away. Their invading fellow-countrymen gratefully took their places, and the Senator sent a glance of scorn after them strong enough to make them turn round. After dinner, we saw a collection of cabin trunks and valises standing in the entrance hall labelled BINGHAM, and knew that Miss Nancy and Miss Cora were again in flight before the Nemesis of the American Eagle. I will not repeat poppa's sentiments.

On the hotel doorstep next morning waited Alessandro Bebbini. He waited for us--an hour and a half, because momma had some re-packing to do and we were going on next day. n.o.body had asked him to wait, but he had a carriage ready and the look of having been ordered three months previously. He presented his card to the Senator, who glanced at him and said, "Do I _look_ as if I wanted a shave?"

Alessandro Bebbini smiled--an olive flash of pity and amus.e.m.e.nt. "I make not the shava, Signore," he said, "I am the courier--for your kind dispositione I am here."

"You should _never_ judge foreigners by their appearance, Alexander,"

rebuked momma.

"Well, Mr. Bebbini," said the Senator, "I guess I've got to apologise to you. You see they told me inside there that I should probably find a--a tonsorial artist out here on the steps"--poppa never minds telling a story to save people's feelings. "But you haven't convinced me," he continued, "that I've got any use for a courier."

"You wish see Genoa--is it not?"

"Well, yes," replied the Senator, "it is."

"Then with me you come alonga. I will translate you the city--shoppia, palla.s.s--w'at you like. Also I am not dear man neither. In the season yes. Then I am very dear. But now is n.o.body."

"What does your time cost to buy?" demanded poppa.

"Very cheap price. Two francs one hour. Ten francs one day. But if with you I travel, make arrangimento, you und'stan', look for traina--'otel, _biglietto, bagaglia_--then I am so little you laugh. Two 'undred franc the month!" and Alessandro indicated with every muscle of his body the amazement he expected us to feel.

The Senator turned to the ladies of his family. "Now that I think of it," he said, "travels in Italy are never written without a courier.

People wouldn't believe they were authentic. And Bramley said if you really wanted to enjoy yourself it was folly not to engage one."

"I suppose there's more _choice_ in the season," said momma, glancing disapprovingly at Alessandro's swarthy collar. "And I confess I should have expected them to be garbed more picturesquely."

"Look at his language," I remarked. "You can't have everything."

The Senator said that was so. "I believe you can come along, Mr.

Bebbini," he said; "we're strangers here and we'll get you to help us to enjoy ourselves for a month on the terms you name. You can begin right away."

Alessandro bowed and waved us to the carriage. It was only the ordinary commercial bow of Italy, but I could see that it made a difference to momma. He saw us seated and was climbing on the box when poppa interfered. "There's no use trying to work it that way," he said; "we can't ask you to twist your head off every time you emit a piece of information. Besides, there's no sense in your riding on the box when there's an extra seat. You won't crowd us any, Mr. Bebbini, and I guess we can refrain from discussing family matters for _one_ hour."

So we started, with Mr. Bebbini at short range.

"I think," said he, "you lika first off the 'ouse of Cristoforo Colombo."

"I don't see how you knew," said poppa, "but you are perfectly correct.

Cristoforo was one of the most distinguished Americans on the roll of history, and we, also, are Americans. At once, at once to the habitation of Cristoforo."

Alessandro leaned forward impressively.

"Who informa you Cristoforo Colombo was Americano? Better you don't believe these other guide--ignoranta fella. Cristoforo was Genoa man, born here, you und'stan'? Italiano. Only live in America a lill'

w'ile--to discover, you und'stan'?"