CHAPTER II
THE DOVE-COT
The old town of Sorrento is situated on an elevated plateau, whichstretches into the sunny waters of the Mediterranean, guarded on allsides by a barrier of mountains which defend it from bleak winds andserve to it the purpose of walls to a garden. Here, groves of orangesand lemons, with their almost fabulous coincidence of fruitage withflowers, fill the air with perfume, which blends with that of roses andjessamines; and the fields are so starred and enameled with flowersthat they might have served as the type for those Elysian realms sungby ancient poets. The fervid air is fanned by continual sea-breezes,which give a delightful elasticity to the otherwise languid climate.Under all these cherishing influences, the human being develops awealth and luxuriance of physical beauty unknown in less favoredregions. In the region about Sorrento one may be said to have found theland where beauty is the rule and not the exception. The singularitythere is not to see handsome points of physical proportion, but ratherto see those who are without them. Scarce a man, woman, or child youmeet who has not some personal advantage to be commended, while evenstriking beauty is common. Also, under these kindly skies, a nativecourtesy and gentleness of manner make themselves felt. It would seemas if humanity, rocked in this flowery cradle, and soothed by so manydaily caresses and appliances of nursing Nature, grew up with all thatis kindliest on the outward,--not repressed and beat in, as under theinclement atmosphere and stormy skies of the North.
The town of Sorrento itself overhangs the sea, skirting along rockyshores, which, hollowed here and there into picturesque grottoes, andfledged with a wild plumage of brilliant flowers and trailing vines,descend in steep precipices to the water. Along the shelly beach, atthe bottom, one can wander to look out on the loveliest prospect in theworld. Vesuvius rises with its two peaks softly clouded in blue andpurple mists, which blend with its ascending vapors,--Naples and theadjoining villages at its base gleaming in the distance like a fringeof pearls on a regal mantle. Nearer by, the picturesque rocky shores ofthe island of Capri seem to pulsate through the dreamy, shifting miststhat veil its sides; and the sea shimmers and glitters like the neckof a peacock with an iridescent mingling of colors: the whole air is aglorifying medium, rich in prismatic hues of enchantment.
The town on three sides is severed from the main land by a gorge twohundred feet in depth and forty or fifty in breadth, crossed by abridge resting on double arches, the construction of which dates backto the time of the ancient Romans. This bridge affords a favoritelounging-place for the inhabitants, and at evening a motley assemblagemay be seen lolling over its moss-grown sides,--men with theirpicturesque knit caps of scarlet or brown falling gracefully on oneshoulder, and women with their shining black hair and the enormouspearl ear-rings which are the pride and heirlooms of every family. Thepresent traveler at Sorrento may remember standing on this bridge andlooking down the gloomy depths of the gorge, to where a fair villa,with its groves of orange-trees and gardens, overhangs the tremendousdepths below.
Hundreds of years since, where this villa now stands was the simpledwelling of the two women whose history we have begun to tell you.There you might have seen a small stone cottage with a two-archedarcade in front, gleaming brilliantly white out of the dusky foliageof an orange-orchard. The dwelling was wedged like a bird-box betweentwo fragments of rock, and behind it the land rose rocky, high, andsteep, so as to form a natural wall. A small ledge or terrace ofcultivated land here hung in air,--below it, a precipice of two hundredfeet down into the Gorge of Sorrento. A couple of dozen orange-trees,straight and tall, with healthy, shining bark, here shot up from thefine black volcanic soil, and made with their foliage a twilight shadowon the ground, so deep that no vegetation, save a fine velvet moss,could dispute their claim to its entire nutritious offices. Thesetrees were the sole wealth of the women and the sole ornament of thegarden; but, as they stood there, not only laden with golden fruit,but fragrant with pearly blossoms, they made the little rocky platformseem a perfect Garden of the Hesperides. The stone cottage, as we havesaid, had an open, whitewashed arcade in front, from which one couldlook down into the gloomy depths of the gorge, as into some mysteriousunderworld. Strange and weird it seemed, with its fathomless shadowsand its wild grottoes, over which hung, silently waving, long pendantsof ivy, while dusky gray aloes uplifted their horned heads from greatrock-rifts, like elfin spirits struggling upward out of the shade. Norwas wanting the usual gentle poetry of flowers; for white iris leanedits fairy pavilion over the black void like a pale-cheeked princessfrom the window of some dark enchanted castle, and scarlet geranium andgolden broom and crimson gladiolus waved and glowed in the shiftingbeams of the sunlight. Also there was in this little spot what formsthe charm of Italian gardens always,--the sweet song and prattle ofwaters. A clear mountain-spring burst through the rock on one sideof the little cottage, and fell with a lulling noise into a quaintmoss-grown water-trough, which had been in former times the sarcophagusof some old Roman sepulchre. Its sides were richly sculptured withfigures and leafy scrolls and arabesques, into which the sly-footedlichens with quiet growth had so insinuated themselves as in someplaces almost to obliterate the original design; while, round theplace where the water fell, a veil of ferns and maiden's-hair, studdedwith tremulous silver drops, vibrated to its soothing murmur. Thesuperfluous waters, drained off by a little channel on one side, wereconducted through the rocky parapet of the garden, whence they trickledand tinkled from rock to rock, falling with a continual drip among theswaying ferns and pendent ivy wreaths, till they reached the littlestream at the bottom of the gorge. This parapet or garden-wall wasformed of blocks or fragments of what had once been white marble, theprobable remains of the ancient tomb from which the sarcophagus wastaken. Here and there a marble acanthus-leaf, or the capital of an oldcolumn, or a fragment of sculpture jutted from under the mosses, ferns,and grasses with which prodigal Nature had filled every interstice andcarpeted the whole. These sculptured fragments everywhere in Italy seemto whisper, from the dust, of past life and death, of a cycle of humanexistence forever gone, over whose tomb the life of to-day is built.
"Sit down and rest, my dove," said Dame Elsie to her little charge, asthey entered their little enclosure.
Here she saw for the first time, what she had not noticed in the heatand hurry of her ascent, that the girl was panting and her gentle bosomrising and falling in thick heartbeats, occasioned by the haste withwhich she had drawn her onward.
"Sit down, dearie, and I will get you a bit of supper."
"Yes, grandmother, I will. I must tell my beads once for the soul ofthe handsome gentleman that kissed my forehead to-night."
"How did you know that he was handsome, child?" said the old dame, withsome sharpness in her voice.
"He bade me look on him, grandmother, and I saw it."
"You must put such thoughts away, child," said the old dame.
"Why must I?" said the girl, looking up with an eye as clear andunconscious as that of a three-year-old child.
"If she does not think, why should I tell her?" said Dame Elsie, as sheturned to go into the house, and left the child sitting on the mossyparapet that overlooked the gorge. Thence she could see far off, notonly down the dim, sombre abyss, but out to the blue Mediterraneanbeyond, now calmly lying in swathing-bands of purple, gold, and orange,while the smoky cloud that overhung Vesuvius became silver and rose inthe evening light.
There is always something of elevation and purity that seems to comeover one from being in an elevated region. One feels morally as wellas physically above the world, and from that clearer air able to lookdown on it calmly with disengaged freedom. Our little maiden sat fora few moments gazing, her large brown eyes dilating with a tremulouslustre, as if tears were half of a mind to start in them, and herlips apart with a delicate earnestness, like one who is pursuing somepleasing inner thought. Suddenly rousing herself, she began by breakingthe freshest orange-blossoms from the golden-fruited trees, and,kissing and pressing them to her bosom, s
he proceeded to remove thefaded flowers of the morning from before a little rude shrine in therock, where, in a sculptured niche, was a picture of the Madonna andChild, with a locked glass door in front of it. The picture was a happytranscript of one of the fairest creations of the religious school ofFlorence, done by one of those rustic copyists of whom Italy is full,who appear to possess the instinct of painting, and to whom we owe manyof those sweet faces which sometimes look down on us by the waysidefrom rudest and homeliest shrines.
The poor fellow by whom it had been painted was one to whom yearsbefore Dame Elsie had given food and shelter for many months during alingering illness; and he had painted so much of his dying heart andhopes into it that it had a peculiar and vital vividness in its powerof affecting the feelings. Agnes had been familiar with this picturefrom early infancy. No day of her life had the flowers failed to befreshly placed before it. It had seemed to smile down sympathy on herchildish joys, and to cloud over with her childish sorrows. It wasless a picture to her than a presence; and the whole air of the littleorange-garden seemed to be made sacred by it. When she had arranged herflowers, she kneeled down and began to say prayers for the soul of theyoung gallant.
"Holy Jesus," she said, "he is young, rich, handsome, and a king'sbrother; and for all these things the Fiend may tempt him to forget hisGod and throw away his soul. Holy Mother, give him good counsel!"
"Come, child, to your supper," said Dame Elsie. "I have milked thegoats, and everything is ready."