Pictures From Italy

by Dickens, Chales

  Visage Beaming.

  General Expression Extremely agreeable.

  CHAPTER I - GOING THROUGH FRANCE

  ON a fine Sunday morning in the Midsummer time and weather of

  eighteen hundred and forty-four, it was, my good friend, when -

  don't be alarmed; not when two travellers might have been observed

  slowly making their way over that picturesque and broken ground by

  which the first chapter of a Middle Aged novel is usually attained

  - but when an English travelling-carriage of considerable

  proportions, fresh from the shady halls of the Pantechnicon near

  Belgrave Square, London, was observed (by a very small French

  soldier; for I saw him look at it) to issue from the gate of the

  Hotel Meurice in the Rue Rivoli at Paris.

  I am no more bound to explain why the English family travelling by

  this carriage, inside and out, should be starting for Italy on a

  Sunday morning, of all good days in the week, than I am to assign a

  Page 6

  Dickens, Charles - Pictures From Italy

  reason for all the little men in France being soldiers, and all the

  big men postilions; which is the invariable rule. But, they had

  some sort of reason for what they did, I have no doubt; and their

  reason for being there at all, was, as you know, that they were

  going to live in fair Genoa for a year; and that the head of the

  family purposed, in that space of time, to stroll about, wherever

  his restless humour carried him.

  And it would have been small comfort to me to have explained to the

  population of Paris generally, that I was that Head and Chief; and

  not the radiant embodiment of good humour who sat beside me in the

  person of a French Courier - best of servants and most beaming of

  men! Truth to say, he looked a great deal more patriarchal than I,

  who, in the shadow of his portly presence, dwindled down to no

  account at all.

  There was, of course, very little in the aspect of Paris - as we

  rattled near the dismal Morgue and over the Pont Neuf - to reproach

  us for our Sunday travelling. The wine-shops (every second house)

  were driving a roaring trade; awnings were spreading, and chairs

  and tables arranging, outside the cafes, preparatory to the eating

  of ices, and drinking of cool liquids, later in the day; shoeblacks

  were busy on the bridges; shops were open; carts and waggons

  clattered to and fro; the narrow, up-hill, funnel-like streets

  across the River, were so many dense perspectives of crowd and

  bustle, parti-coloured night-caps, tobacco-pipes, blouses, large

  boots, and shaggy heads of hair; nothing at that hour denoted a day

  of rest, unless it were the appearance, here and there, of a family

  pleasure-party, crammed into a bulky old lumbering cab; or of some

  contemplative holiday-maker in the freest and easiest dishabille,

  leaning out of a low garret window, watching the drying of his

  newly polished shoes on the little parapet outside (if a

  gentleman), or the airing of her stockings in the sun (if a lady),

  with calm anticipation.

  Once clear of the never-to-be-forgotten-or-forgiven pavement which

  surrounds Paris, the first three days of travelling towards

  Marseilles are quiet and monotonous enough. To Sens. To Avallon.

  To Chalons. A sketch of one day's proceedings is a sketch of all

  three; and here it is.

  We have four horses, and one postilion, who has a very long whip,

  and drives his team, something like the Courier of Saint

  Petersburgh in the circle at Astley's or Franconi's: only he sits

  his own horse instead of standing on him. The immense jack-boots

  worn by these postilions, are sometimes a century or two old; and

  are so ludicrously disproportionate to the wearer's foot, that the

  spur, which is put where his own heel comes, is generally halfway

  up the leg of the boots. The man often comes out of the stableyard,

  with his whip in his hand and his shoes on, and brings out,

  in both hands, one boot at a time, which he plants on the ground by

  the side of his horse, with great gravity, until everything is

  ready. When it is - and oh Heaven! the noise they make about it! -

  he gets into the boots, shoes and all, or is hoisted into them by a

  couple of friends; adjusts the rope harness, embossed by the

  labours of innumerable pigeons in the stables; makes all the horses

  kick and plunge; cracks his whip like a madman; shouts 'En route -

  Hi!' and away we go. He is sure to have a contest with his horse

  before we have gone very far; and then he calls him a Thief, and a

  Brigand, and a Pig, and what not; and beats him about the head as

  if he were made of wood.

  There is little more than one variety in the appearance of the

  country, for the first two days. From a dreary plain, to an

  Page 7

  Dickens, Charles - Pictures From Italy

  interminable avenue, and from an interminable avenue to a dreary

  plain again. Plenty of vines there are in the open fields, but of

  a short low kind, and not trained in festoons, but about straight

  sticks. Beggars innumerable there are, everywhere; but an

  extraordinarily scanty population, and fewer children than I ever

  encountered. I don't believe we saw a hundred children between

  Paris and Chalons. Queer old towns, draw-bridged and walled: with

  odd little towers at the angles, like grotesque faces, as if the

  wall had put a mask on, and were staring down into the moat; other

  strange little towers, in gardens and fields, and down lanes, and

  in farm-yards: all alone, and always round, with a peaked roof,

  and never used for any purpose at all; ruinous buildings of all

  sorts; sometimes an hotel de ville, sometimes a guard-house,

  sometimes a dwelling-house, sometimes a chateau with a rank garden,

  prolific in dandelion, and watched over by extinguisher-topped

  turrets, and blink-eyed little casements; are the standard objects,

  repeated over and over again. Sometimes we pass a village inn,

  with a crumbling wall belonging to it, and a perfect town of outhouses;

  and painted over the gateway, 'Stabling for Sixty Horses;'

  as indeed there might be stabling for sixty score, were there any

  horses to be stabled there, or anybody resting there, or anything

  stirring about the place but a dangling bush, indicative of the

  wine inside: which flutters idly in the wind, in lazy keeping with

  everything else, and certainly is never in a green old age, though

  always so old as to be dropping to pieces. And all day long,

  strange little narrow waggons, in strings of six or eight, bringing

  cheese from Switzerland, and frequently in charge, the whole line,

  of one man, or even boy - and he very often asleep in the foremost

  cart - come jingling past: the horses drowsily ringing the bells

  upon their harness, and looking as if they thought (no doubt they

  do) their great blue woolly furniture, of immense weight and

  thickness, with a pair of grotesque horns growing out of the

  collar, very much too warm for the Midsummer weather.

  Then, there is the Diligence, twice or thrice a-day; with the dusty

&n
bsp; outsides in blue frocks, like butchers; and the insides in white

  nightcaps; and its cabriolet head on the roof, nodding and shaking,

  like an idiot's head; and its Young-France passengers staring out

  of window, with beards down to their waists, and blue spectacles

  awfully shading their warlike eyes, and very big sticks clenched in

  their National grasp. Also the Malle Poste, with only a couple of

  passengers, tearing along at a real good dare-devil pace, and out

  of sight in no time. Steady old Cures come jolting past, now and

  then, in such ramshackle, rusty, musty, clattering coaches as no

  Englishman would believe in; and bony women dawdle about in

  solitary places, holding cows by ropes while they feed, or digging

  and hoeing or doing field-work of a more laborious kind, or

  representing real shepherdesses with their flocks - to obtain an

  adequate idea of which pursuit and its followers, in any country,

  it is only necessary to take any pastoral poem, or picture, and

  imagine to yourself whatever is most exquisitely and widely unlike

  the descriptions therein contained.

  You have been travelling along, stupidly enough, as you generally

  do in the last stage of the day; and the ninety-six bells upon the

  horses - twenty-four apiece - have been ringing sleepily in your

  ears for half an hour or so; and it has become a very jog-trot,

  monotonous, tiresome sort of business; and you have been thinking

  deeply about the dinner you will have at the next stage; when, down

  at the end of the long avenue of trees through which you are

  travelling, the first indication of a town appears, in the shape of

  some straggling cottages: and the carriage begins to rattle and

  roll over a horribly uneven pavement. As if the equipage were a

  great firework, and the mere sight of a smoking cottage chimney had

  Page 8

  Dickens, Charles - Pictures From Italy

  lighted it, instantly it begins to crack and splutter, as if the

  very devil were in it. Crack, crack, crack, crack. Crack-crackcrack.

  Crick-crack. Crick-crack. Helo! Hola! Vite! Voleur!

  Brigand! Hi hi hi! En r-r-r-r-r-route! Whip, wheels, driver,

  stones, beggars, children, crack, crack, crack; helo! hola! charite

  pour l'amour de Dieu! crick-crack-crick-crack; crick, crick, crick;

  bump, jolt, crack, bump, crick-crack; round the corner, up the

  narrow street, down the paved hill on the other side; in the

  gutter; bump, bump; jolt, jog, crick, crick, crick; crack, crack,

  crack; into the shop-windows on the left-hand side of the street,

  preliminary to a sweeping turn into the wooden archway on the

  right; rumble, rumble, rumble; clatter, clatter, clatter; crick,

  crick, crick; and here we are in the yard of the Hotel de l'Ecu

  d'Or; used up, gone out, smoking, spent, exhausted; but sometimes

  making a false start unexpectedly, with nothing coming of it - like

  a firework to the last!

  The landlady of the Hotel de l'Ecu d'Or is here; and the landlord

  of the Hotel de l'Ecu d'Or is here; and the femme de chambre of the

  Hotel de l'Ecu d'Or is here; and a gentleman in a glazed cap, with

  a red beard like a bosom friend, who is staying at the Hotel de

  l'Ecu d'Or, is here; and Monsieur le Cure is walking up and down in

  a corner of the yard by himself, with a shovel hat upon his head,

  and a black gown on his back, and a book in one hand, and an

  umbrella in the other; and everybody, except Monsieur le Cure, is

  open-mouthed and open-eyed, for the opening of the carriage-door.

  The landlord of the Hotel de l'Ecu d'Or, dotes to that extent upon

  the Courier, that he can hardly wait for his coming down from the

  box, but embraces his very legs and boot-heels as he descends. 'My

  Courier! My brave Courier! My friend! My brother!' The landlady

  loves him, the femme de chambre blesses him, the garcon worships

  him. The Courier asks if his letter has been received? It has, it

  has. Are the rooms prepared? They are, they are. The best rooms

  for my noble Courier. The rooms of state for my gallant Courier;

  the whole house is at the service of my best of friends! He keeps

  his hand upon the carriage-door, and asks some other question to

  enhance the expectation. He carries a green leathern purse outside

  his coat, suspended by a belt. The idlers look at it; one touches

  it. It is full of five-franc pieces. Murmurs of admiration are

  heard among the boys. The landlord falls upon the Courier's neck,

  and folds him to his breast. He is so much fatter than he was, he

  says! He looks so rosy and so well!

  The door is opened. Breathless expectation. The lady of the

  family gets out. Ah sweet lady! Beautiful lady! The sister of

  the lady of the family gets out. Great Heaven, Ma'amselle is

  charming! First little boy gets out. Ah, what a beautiful little

  boy! First little girl gets out. Oh, but this is an enchanting

  child! Second little girl gets out. The landlady, yielding to the

  finest impulse of our common nature, catches her up in her arms!

  Second little boy gets out. Oh, the sweet boy! Oh, the tender

  little family! The baby is handed out. Angelic baby! The baby

  has topped everything. All the rapture is expended on the baby!

  Then the two nurses tumble out; and the enthusiasm swelling into

  madness, the whole family are swept up-stairs as on a cloud; while

  the idlers press about the carriage, and look into it, and walk

  round it, and touch it. For it is something to touch a carriage

  that has held so many people. It is a legacy to leave one's

  children.

  The rooms are on the first floor, except the nursery for the night,

  which is a great rambling chamber, with four or five beds in it:

  through a dark passage, up two steps, down four, past a pump,

  across a balcony, and next door to the stable. The other sleeping

  Page 9

  Dickens, Charles - Pictures From Italy

  apartments are large and lofty; each with two small bedsteads,

  tastefully hung, like the windows, with red and white drapery. The

  sitting-room is famous. Dinner is already laid in it for three;

  and the napkins are folded in cocked-hat fashion. The floors are

  of red tile. There are no carpets, and not much furniture to speak

  of; but there is abundance of looking-glass, and there are large

  vases under glass shades, filled with artificial flowers; and there

  are plenty of clocks. The whole party are in motion. The brave

  Courier, in particular, is everywhere: looking after the beds,

  having wine poured down his throat by his dear brother the

  landlord, and picking up green cucumbers - always cucumbers; Heaven

  knows where he gets them - with which he walks about, one in each

  hand, like truncheons.

  Dinner is announced. There is very thin soup; there are very large

  loaves - one apiece; a fish; four dishes afterwards; some poultry

  afterwards; a dessert afterwards; and no lack of wine. There is

  not much in the dishes; but they are very good, and always ready

  instantly. When it is nearly dark, the brave Courier, having eaten

  the two cucumbers, sliced up in the contents
of a pretty large

  decanter of oil, and another of vinegar, emerges from his retreat

  below, and proposes a visit to the Cathedral, whose massive tower

  frowns down upon the court-yard of the inn. Off we go; and very

  solemn and grand it is, in the dim light: so dim at last, that the

  polite, old, lanthorn-jawed Sacristan has a feeble little bit of

  candle in his hand, to grope among the tombs with - and looks among

  the grim columns, very like a lost ghost who is searching for his

  own.

  Underneath the balcony, when we return, the inferior servants of

  the inn are supping in the open air, at a great table; the dish, a

  stew of meat and vegetables, smoking hot, and served in the iron

  cauldron it was boiled in. They have a pitcher of thin wine, and

  are very merry; merrier than the gentleman with the red beard, who

  is playing billiards in the light room on the left of the yard,

  where shadows, with cues in their hands, and cigars in their

  mouths, cross and recross the window, constantly. Still the thin

  Cure walks up and down alone, with his book and umbrella. And

  there he walks, and there the billiard-balls rattle, long after we

  are fast asleep.

  We are astir at six next morning. It is a delightful day, shaming

  yesterday's mud upon the carriage, if anything could shame a

  carriage, in a land where carriages are never cleaned. Everybody

  is brisk; and as we finish breakfast, the horses come jingling into

  the yard from the Post-house. Everything taken out of the carriage

  is put back again. The brave Courier announces that all is ready,

  after walking into every room, and looking all round it, to be

  certain that nothing is left behind. Everybody gets in. Everybody

  connected with the Hotel de l'Ecu d'Or is again enchanted. The

  brave Courier runs into the house for a parcel containing cold

  fowl, sliced ham, bread, and biscuits, for lunch; hands it into the

  coach; and runs back again.

  What has he got in his hand now? More cucumbers? No. A long

  strip of paper. It's the bill.

  The brave Courier has two belts on, this morning: one supporting

  the purse: another, a mighty good sort of leathern bottle, filled

  to the throat with the best light Bordeaux wine in the house. He

  never pays the bill till this bottle is full. Then he disputes it.

  He disputes it now, violently. He is still the landlord's brother,

  but by another father or mother. He is not so nearly related to