Irma in Italy Part 19

"Some special guest must be coming," said Irma, "but the lawn is good enough for me. Let us go toward those chairs under the trees." For a minute or two they watched the gay scene at the long table.

"It is evidently a family affair," said Marion. "Every one seems to know every one else. Those men are not bad looking, for Italians," he concluded.

"Many of the ladies are beautiful," responded Irma, "and what lovely gowns! I suppose they are in the height of fas.h.i.+on, but I should think they'd hate to trail them over the ground."

Presently a most attractive lady, whom Irma had especially noticed, approached them.

"Will you have your tea now?" she asked in English, with the slightest accent that showed it was not her native language.

"I will have it sent you at once," she continued, "and some cakes."

Without waiting for a reply, in a moment she had returned to the table, from which a young girl soon came bringing a tray with cups of tea and a plate of tiny cakes.

"Yes, she is expected at once," the young girl replied to some question of Marion's that Irma had not heard.

"The Queen, the Queen Margherita," cried Irma. "You are expecting to see the Queen."

"You are a good guesser," retorted Marion. "For when I read that Margherita had promised to attend this fete I thought it would be fun for you to come. I know your friend Gertrude has been anxious to have you see her, and there may not be another chance unless you should make up your mind to ask an audience."

"Hardly," replied Irma smiling, "and I do hope she will come."

Before the two had finished their tea, the groups at the large table moved forward, forming a semicircle near the marquee. The other strangers, who like themselves were at little tables under the trees, rose and moved toward the crowd. In a few minutes a little group came up the avenue from the gate. Irma's whole attention was fastened on the gracious lady in the centre, who leaned a trifle on her parasol handle, as she bowed to those who greeted her on each side.

"I should know her anywhere," cried Irma; "her face is as sweet as in the photographs I have seen. Look, they are kissing her hand."

Margherita paused a moment, as if to take in the whole scene before her.

Irma noticed that although she was scarcely above middle height, in her soft black gown and wide black hat she had an air of grace and elegance that would have distinguished her, even among those who did not know that she was the widow of King Humberto.

"How pleased Gertrude will be that I have seen her!" she exclaimed, as Queen Margherita entered the marquee, attended by a number of those who had been in attendance upon the tables, "and it is all owing to you,"

she added, turning to thank Marion for his thoughtfulness. "As King Victor Emanuel and Queen Elena have gone to their country place, we are not likely to see any other royalties in Italy. But _now_ I can write home that I have seen Queen Margherita."

A little later, as Irma and Marion pa.s.sed the marquee on their way to the carriage, they paused to glance within, where Margherita sat, talking with much animation, the centre of a circle of ladies.

"Well, young people," said Uncle Jim at dinner that evening, "you have had a giddy day, with rag fairs and fetes and things of that kind.

To-morrow we return to hard, earnest sightseeing, the Borgia apartments at the Vatican and the Vatican Library. Your aunt wishes you to go while her cold lasts, so she has a reasonable excuse for not travelling the several miles necessary to see these things."

"Fortunately I am strong," said Marion, "and Irma seems equal to any amount of walking."

"I'm not sure," Irma protested, "that I wish to see more in the Vatican.

I enjoyed the sculptures the other day, and the paintings in Raphael's Stanze. Perhaps I am wrong, but I would almost like to leave Rome without seeing the rest of the Pope's palace. Just now I recall clearly all the frescoes: the School of Athens and the Borgo, and Parna.s.sus and the others, and then the Ascension in the gallery, with that wonderful yellowish light. I am contented to remember nothing else of the Vatican."

"Oh, that will never do, the largest palace in the world, with a thousand different apartments, covering thirteen and a half acres, and you wish to remember it by a few frescoes and one large painting!"

"The greatest frescoes in the world. I've heard you say that yourself."

"Oh, yes, but the treasures of the Vatican are all great, and you must have a chance to judge between what you've seen of Raphael and what you will see of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. Those popes of the Middle Ages were wise in their day, especially after Nicholas V, in 1450, who decided to make the Vatican the most imposing palace in the world by bringing under one roof all the papal offices. Since then the building has been constantly enlarged and improved. But now only a small part is occupied by the Papal Court. Certain days and hours most of the Vatican treasures are shown to visitors. If you could spend all your time there for a week, you would not have seen half."

Next day Uncle Jim decided not to go with the young people to the Vatican, and so again Marion was Irma's guide.

"I am less afraid of the Swiss guards than I was the first day," said Irma, as they pa.s.sed the Pope's soldiers in their brilliant red and yellow uniforms, on their way to the Scala Regia.

"Oh," responded Marion, "they wouldn't dare touch a visitor. Just wait a moment, I've forgotten exactly where we go first."

So they waited, while Marion turned the leaves of his guidebook, and then he felt a hand on his shoulder, and heard in Italian a very positive "Move on." He looked into the frowning face of a Swiss guard, and without further ado he moved rapidly up the broad staircase.

"There," said Irma, when out of hearing of the soldiers. "What did I tell you? They might have done something terrible. You know we are not in Italy now. The Vatican is the Pope's country."

"And the Pope is one of the best-hearted men in the world. Why, actually you are trembling! I suppose they have rules to keep people moving, but they wouldn't dare harm an American."

Irma, however, was disturbed by this incident, and was not sorry a few minutes later to find herself one of several in an anteroom waiting the guide to take them through the library.

"A library!" she exclaimed, when they had entered the vast hall, "but where are the books?"

"In these gla.s.s cases--listen to the guide."

Not until the end of their tour of the great hall did they learn that the library, in the ordinary sense of books and ma.n.u.scripts available for students, was not open to ordinary visitors. The so-called library through which the guide led them was high vaulted, and more than two hundred feet long, with painted ceiling, floors of marble mosaics from ancient temples and baths, and exquisite marble columns also from ancient buildings. In the end they saw some books worth seeing: the oldest Bible in existence, a ma.n.u.script of the fourth century, and an old second century Virgil. Of later times there was a volume of Henry VIII's love letters to Anne Boleyn, and many exquisitely ill.u.s.trated ma.n.u.scripts, among them a Natural History illuminated by Raphael and his pupils.

"I wish he'd cut it short," said Marion, as the guide gave long descriptions of each ma.n.u.script that he pointed out in its case, or in the drawers that he sometimes unlocked.

"I rather enjoy what he says about the ma.n.u.scripts as you translate it for me," responded Irma, "but he need not describe every present given to every pope. Vases are vases, and we know all these things were presents to one pope or another. They are all costly and some are beautiful. But I am getting tired."

It would not have been possible, even had they dared try to hurry the loquacious guide. Before they left the hall Irma almost forgot her fatigue in looking at the ancient paintings, inscriptions, and other relics of early Christians. Again, as at the Lateran, she sighed deeply at the pathos of the little things brought from the Catacombs, combs and small toilet articles, little brooches, and other pieces of simple jewelry.

"You are really tired!" exclaimed Marion, as they pa.s.sed through the gla.s.s door out of the hall. "But in the Sistine Chapel you can sit down."

So it happened that after Irma had looked into a mirror held under the ceiling, on which are painted Michelangelo's frescoes--the sibyls and the prophets, and the well-known Adam and Eve, Irma from a bench along the side looked with more or less interest at the paintings opposite her by Pinturicchio and other masters.

A girl of sixteen, however, is not expected to have the interest of her elders in old masters, as Irma frankly acknowledged.

"Of course I know the Last Judgment of Michelangelo's is a great altarpiece, but I do not care to look at it longer. I'm very glad, though, that you brought me to the Sistine Chapel. When I read about the great church ceremonies in which the Pope takes part, I can imagine the crowd here, and the Pope in the centre and----"

Before Irma had finished speaking, from behind a wooden part.i.tion that screened some men repairing the mosaic pavement, one of the workers stepped out, and with a finger of one hand on his lips, lifted the other on high with one finger significantly extended. When he saw that he had gained Marion's attention, he held up a small object, as if he wished Marion to examine it. Then Marion went forward, and the man put the object in his hand.

"Cheap enough for a franc," said Marion, displaying a small octagon of mosaics, green, red, and white.

"Why it's the same pattern as the pavement there."

"Of course, that's why I bought it," he replied, "as a souvenir of the Sistine Chapel."

"But ought you to take it?" asked Irma. "Had he the right to sell it?"

An expression of anger crossed Marion's face.

"Do you think I would do what is not right? Come," he continued, "we ought to be on our way out."

Then he strode on, keeping far enough ahead of Irma to prevent conversation. "He is certainly like a spoiled child!" she thought, "and I fancied we were getting on so well together."

The drive back to the hotel was rather silent, as well as hot. "In our hottest weather it is never like this," thought poor Irma. She was glad enough to reach the shelter of the cool hotel.