of two rooms in a moderately good situation in London. All the necessities of life are here, and beyond and above them is a perpetual feast to the eye.
In ten minutes on foot, and in half an hour by the longest road in a carriage, one reaches Florence, and is thus within easy reach of the galleries, theatres, and of any social gaieties one may covet. Letters, newspapers, &c., are brought every morning by the man who goes early into Florence to buy the provisions for the day. Figs, grapes, apples and pears grow beneath your window, and milk and vegetables are brought by the contadino belonging to the land. The air is pure and fresh, and perfectly dry. Space, a beautiful view, and no contemptible amount of conveniences and comforts, make it possible to construct a very pleasant home in these villas. One gets very near to the life of the middle-class Italians by living thus under the same roof, though not absolutely with them.
My “padrone” is a thorough gentleman in manner and appearance. He understands French and English, and is educated up to the mark which was considered becoming in Italy thirty years ago. A small independence, the meagre proceeds of his profession, and the dower of his wife invested in this villa, compose his whole fortune. Few Italians are absolutely destitute, though still fewer are what we should call rich. The paternal fortune is divided between the children, and the sons always add to their share by marrying a girl with some fortune. Early marriages are the fashion, and, without any forcing of inclination on either side, a prudent match is the general rule.
My landlady is inferior to her husband in manners and appearance. She must have married very young, in fact the moment she was out of her convent, and her mind on all subjects of ordinary information is infantine. But she is sharp as a needle as to all matters of profit or gain. It is curious to see a woman whose status is certainly that of a lady, haggling for a few shillings, and striving to take advantage of her tenants in the most infinitesimal affairs, and, more curious still, to see how perfectly good-humoured she is when she finds herself baffled. It is she who undertakes all the disagreeable offices which appertain to letting a house. Her husband monopolises all the agreeable part. He takes the money and does all the smiles and civility. Keeping back crockery, which is marked in a voluminous inventory, as given; doling it out at last cracked, and expecting to receive it whole when her tenants leave; a stringent refusal of carpets, and an endeavour to make an increased rent the condition of yielding them,—such are all tasks which devolve on her. Sometimes she gains her point, sometimes she does not; but, on the whole, I think she is more civil when beaten. She rather respects you for not being taken in.
There is nothing surprising in this, as regards the usual principles of an ordinary lodging-house keeper; but this is a lady of good family and position, and the wife of a man who might enter any society as an equal, so distinguished are his manners, so gentlemanly is his appearance. But this phase of her character is shown only to those whom she considers her legitimate prey, i.e., her tenants. At home she is kind, good-humoured, patient. Her servants are treated justly, in some things indulgently. Their wages are of the lowest, but their freedom of manner and paucity of work are, in their opinion, full compensation. Several dependants are hanging about the villa, whom she feeds and tries to serve. She is capable of any benevolence which does not require her to put her hand, then and there, into her purse. Indirect expense she does not care for; but the fact of parting with a franc, or losing an opportunity of saving one, is gall and wormwood to her.
The simplicity of this woman’s manners, her life spent among her peasants and her servants, working as one of them, and dressing usually much as they dress, would astonish a barrister’s wife in England, inferior to her probably, both in birth and fortune. With the Signora there is not the slightest effort at making an appearance. It is only on those days when she goes to mass in Florence, or when she dines with some of her own family, that there is a perceptible effort to appear well dressed. Then her toilette is sans reproche. She goes in her own carriage, and represents her position very fairly. But this occurs but seldom, save only on high days and festivals.
Her husband reads the newspaper to her, but, except a general confused hatred of “tedeschi,” she knows nothing about politics; though if any positive fact is placed before her and her judgment is required on it, she is shrewd enough. Her husband is very polite to her, but it strikes me as the politeness of one who consults rather his own dignity in being polite to another, than the claims of that other. But they are perfectly good friends, and not a trace exists in this entirely domestic family of that light regard of the conjugal tie which we are taught in England to consider to be the fashion in Italy.
Extreme parsimony in the exigencies of everyday life, a total absence of ostentation, and a primitive simplicity, are the home characteristics of Tuscans of the middle class. Their quaint humour, their aptness for satire, and the quickness of their perceptions, have prevented in their case the degeneracy which bad government produces elsewhere. Besides these qualities, they have never lost their commercial spirit. Money and material prosperity have always been highly valued by them, and in this disposition there is a strong salt which keeps alive a nation’s spirit. Side by side with their splendid achievements this spirit was manifest, and it has long outlived them.
As I sit at my window, I look down on the city which played such a distinguished part in the middle ages,—the city which possessed Dante, Galileo, Machiavelli, as citizens, and which comprises within its walls, miracles of art which have never been surpassed, and scarcely equalled. Those glories are past, yet there is no air of ruin or effete grandeur about it. That smoke which issues from its very centre, evoked by the shrill whistle which announces to me at short intervals the arrival of the train, is a proof that a healthy activity is going on there, and that, glorious as has been the past, there is a busy, prosperous, and as glorious a future awaiting Florence.
