Santa Croce with No Baedeker

It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a

bright bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean

though they are not; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins

and blue amorini sport in a forest of yellow violins and

bassoons. It was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows,

pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into

sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches

opposite, and close below, the Arno, gurgling against the

embankment of the road.

Over the river men were at work with spades and sieves on the

sandy foreshore, and on the river was a boat, also diligently

employed for some mysterious end. An electric tram came rushing underneath the window. No one was inside it, except one tourist;

but its platforms were overflowing with Italians, who preferred

to stand. Children tried to hang on behind, and the conductor,

with no malice, spat in their faces to make them let go. Then

soldiers appeared--good-looking, undersized men--wearing each a

knapsack covered with mangy fur, and a great-coat which had been

cut for some larger soldier. Beside them walked officers, looking

foolish and fierce, and before them went little boys, turning

somersaults in time with the band. The tramcar became entangled

in their ranks, and moved on painfully, like a caterpillar in a

swarm of ants. One of the little boys fell down, and some white

bullocks came out of an archway. Indeed, if it had not been for

the good advice of an old man who was selling button-hooks, the

road might never have got clear.

Over such trivialities as these many a valuable hour may slip

away, and the traveller who has gone to Italy to study the

tactile values of Giotto, or the corruption of the Papacy, may

return remembering nothing but the blue sky and the men and women

who live under it. So it was as well that Miss Bartlett should

tap and come in, and having commented on Lucy's leaving the door

unlocked, and on her leaning out of the window before she was

fully dressed, should urge her to hasten herself, or the best of

the day would be gone. By the time Lucy was ready her cousin had

done her breakfast, and was listening to the clever lady among

the crumbs.

A conversation then ensued, on not unfamiliar lines. Miss

Bartlett was, after all, a wee bit tired, and thought they had

better spend the morning settling in; unless Lucy would at all

like to go out? Lucy would rather like to go out, as it was her

first day in Florence, but, of course, she could go alone. Miss

Bartlett could not allow this. Of course she would accompany Lucy

everywhere. Oh, certainly not; Lucy would stop with her cousin.

Oh, no! that would never do. Oh, yes!

At this point the clever lady broke in.

"If it is Mrs. Grundy who is troubling you, I do assure you that

you can neglect the good person. Being English, Miss Honeychurch

will be perfectly safe. Italians understand. A dear friend of

mine, Contessa Baroncelli, has two daughters, and when she cannot

send a maid to school with them, she lets them go in sailor-hats

instead. Every one takes them for English, you see, especially if

their hair is strained tightly behind."

Miss Bartlett was unconvinced by the safety of Contessa

Baroncelli's daughters. She was determined to take Lucy herself,

her head not being so very bad. The clever lady then said that

she was going to spend a long morning in Santa Croce, and if Lucy

would come too, she would be delighted "I will take you by a dear dirty back way, Miss Honeychurch, and

if you bring me luck, we shall have an adventure."

Lucy said that this was most kind, and at once opened the

Baedeker, to see where Santa Croce was.

"Tut, tut! Miss Lucy! I hope we shall soon emancipate you from

Baedeker. He does but touch the surface of things. As to the true

Italy--he does not even dream of it. The true Italy is only to be

found by patient observation."

This sounded very interesting, and Lucy hurried over her

breakfast, and started with her new friend in high spirits. Italy

was coming at last. The Cockney Signora and her works had

vanished like a bad dream.

Miss Lavish--for that was the clever lady's name--turned to the

right along the sunny Lung' Arno. How delightfully warm! But a

wind down the side streets cut like a knife, didn't it? Ponte

alle Grazie--particularly interesting, mentioned by Dante. San

Miniato--beautiful as well as interesting; the crucifix that

kissed a murderer--Miss Honeychurch would remember the story. The

men on the river were fishing. (Untrue; but then, so is most

information.) Then Miss Lavish darted under the archway of the

white bullocks, and she stopped, and she cried: "A smell! a true Florentine smell! Every city, let me teach you,

has its own smell."

"Is it a very nice smell?" said Lucy, who had inherited from her

mother a distaste to dirt.

"One doesn't come to Italy for niceness," was the retort; "one

comes for life. Buon giorno! Buon giorno!" bowing right and

left. "Look at that adorable wine-cart! How the driver stares at

us, dear, simple soul!"

So Miss Lavish proceeded through the streets of the city of

Florence, short, fidgety, and playful as a kitten, though without

a kitten's grace. It was a treat for the girl to be with any one

so clever and so cheerful; and a blue military cloak, such as an

Italian officer wears, only increased the sense of festivity.

"Buon giorno! Take the word of an old woman, Miss Lucy: you will

never repent of a little civility to your inferiors. That is the

true democracy. Though I am a real Radical as well. There, now

you're shocked."

"Indeed, I'm not!" exclaimed Lucy. "We are Radicals, too, out and

out. My father always voted for Mr. Gladstone, until he was so

dreadful about Ireland."

"I see, I see. And now you have gone over to the enemy."

"Oh, please--! If my father was alive, I am sure he would vote

Radical again now that Ireland is all right. And as it is, the

glass over our front door was broken last election, and Freddy is

sure it was the Tories; but mother says nonsense, a tramp."

"Shameful! A manufacturing district, I suppose?"

"No--in the Surrey hills. About five miles from Dorking, looking

over the Weald."

Miss Lavish seemed interested, and slackened her trot.

"What a delightful part; I know it so well. It is full of the

very nicest people. Do you know Sir Harry Otway--a Radical if

ever there was?"

"Very well indeed."

"And old Mrs. Butterworth the philanthropist?" "Why, she rents a

field of us! How funny!"

Miss Lavish looked at the narrow ribbon of sky, and murmured:

"Oh, you have property in Surrey?"

"Hardly any," said Lucy, fearful of being thought a snob. "Only

thirty acres--just the garden, all downhill, and some fields."

Miss Lavish was not disgusted, and said it was just the size of

her aunt's Suffolk estate. Italy receded. They tried to remember

the last name of Lady Louisa some one, who had taken a house near

Summer Street the other year, but she had not liked it, which was

odd of her. And just as Miss Lavish had got the name, she broke

off and exclaimed:

"Bless us! Bless us and save us! We've lost the way."

Certainly they had seemed a long time in reaching Santa Croce,

the tower of which had been plainly visible from the landing

window. But Miss Lavish had said so much about knowing her

Florence by heart, that Lucy had followed her with no misgivings.

"Lost! lost! My dear Miss Lucy, during our political diatribes we

have taken a wrong turning. How those horrid Conservatives would

jeer at us! What are we to do? Two lone females in an unknown

town. Now, this is what I call an adventure. Lucy, who wanted to see Santa Croce, suggested, as a possible

solution, that they should ask the way there.

"Oh, but that is the word of a craven! And no, you are not, not,

NOT to look at your Baedeker. Give it to me; I shan't let you

carry it. We will simply drift."

Accordingly they drifted through a series of those grey-brown

streets, neither commodious nor picturesque, in which the eastern

quarter of the city abounds. Lucy soon lost interest in the

discontent of Lady Louisa, and became discontented herself. For

one ravishing moment Italy appeared. She stood in the Square of

the Annunziata and saw in the living terra-cotta those divine

babies whom no cheap reproduction can ever stale. There they

stood, with their shining limbs bursting from the garments of

charity, and their strong white arms extended against circlets of

heaven. Lucy thought she had never seen anything more beautiful;

but Miss Lavish, with a shriek of dismay, dragged her forward,

declaring that they were out of their path now by at least a

mile.

The hour was approaching at which the continental breakfast

begins, or rather ceases, to tell, and the ladies bought some hot

chestnut paste out of a little shop, because it looked so

typical. It tasted partly of the paper in which it was wrapped, partly of hair oil, partly of the great unknown. But it gave them

strength to drift into another Piazza, large and dusty, on the

farther side of which rose a black-and-white facade of surpassing

ugliness. Miss Lavish spoke to it dramatically. It was Santa

Croce. The adventure was over.

"Stop a minute; let those two people go on, or I shall have to

speak to them. I do detest conventional intercourse. Nasty! they

are going into the church, too. Oh, the Britisher abroad!"

"We sat opposite them at dinner last night. They have given us

their rooms. They were so very kind."

"Look at their figures!" laughed Miss Lavish. "They walk through

my Italy like a pair of cows. It's very naughty of me, but I

would like to set an examination paper at Dover, and turn back

every tourist who couldn't pass it."

"What would you ask us?"

Miss Lavish laid her hand pleasantly on Lucy's arm, as if to

suggest that she, at all events, would get full marks. In this

exalted mood they reached the steps of the great church, and were

about to enter it when Miss Lavish stopped, squeaked, flung up

her arms, and cried:

"There goes my local-colour box! I must have a word with him!"

And in a moment she was away over the Piazza, her military cloak

flapping in the wind; nor did she slacken speed till she caught

up an old man with white whiskers, and nipped him playfully upon

the arm.

Lucy waited for nearly ten minutes. Then she began to get tired.

The beggars worried her, the dust blew in her eyes, and she

remembered that a young girl ought not to loiter in public

places. She descended slowly into the Piazza with the intention

of rejoining Miss Lavish, who was really almost too original. But

at that moment Miss Lavish and her local-colour box moved also,

and disappeared down a side street, both gesticulating largely.

Tears of indignation came to Lucy's eyes partly because Miss

Lavish had jilted her, partly because she had taken her Baedeker.

How could she find her way home? How could she find her way about

in Santa Croce? Her first morning was ruined, and she might never

be in Florence again. A few minutes ago she had been all high

spirits, talking as a woman of culture, and half persuading

herself that she was full of originality. Now she entered the

church depressed and humiliated, not even able to remember

whether it was built by the Franciscans or the Dominicans.

Of course, it must be a wonderful building. But how like a barn!

And how very cold! Of course, it contained frescoes by Giotto, in

the presence of whose tactile values she was capable of feeling

what was proper. But who was to tell her which they were? She

walked about disdainfully, unwilling to be enthusiastic over

monuments of uncertain authorship or date. There was no one even

to tell her which, of all the sepulchral slabs that paved the

nave and transepts, was the one that was really beautiful, the

one that had been most praised by Mr. Ruskin.

Then the pernicious charm of Italy worked on her, and, instead of

acquiring information, she began to be happy. She puzzled out the

Italian notices--the notices that forbade people to introduce

dogs into the church--the notice that prayed people, in the

interest of health and out of respect to the sacred edifice in

which they found themselves, not to spit. She watched the

tourists; their noses were as red as their Baedekers, so cold was

Santa Croce. She beheld the horrible fate that overtook three

Papists--two he-babies and a she-baby--who began their career by

sousing each other with the Holy Water, and then proceeded to the

Machiavelli memorial, dripping but hallowed. Advancing towards it

very slowly and from immense distances, they touched the stone

with their fingers, with their handkerchiefs, with their heads,

and then retreated. What could this mean? They did it again and

again. Then Lucy realized that they had mistaken Machiavelli for

some saint, hoping to acquire virtue. Punishment followed

quickly. The smallest he-baby stumbled over one of the sepulchral

slabs so much admired by Mr. Ruskin, and entangled his feet in

the features of a recumbent bishop. Protestant as she was, Lucy darted forward. She was too late. He fell heavily upon the

prelate's upturned toes.

"Hateful bishop!" exclaimed the voice of old Mr. Emerson, who had

darted forward also. "Hard in life, hard in death. Go out into

the sunshine, little boy, and kiss your hand to the sun, for that

is where you ought to be. Intolerable bishop!"

The child screamed frantically at these words, and at these

dreadful people who picked him up, dusted him, rubbed his

bruises, and told him not to be superstitious.

"Look at him!" said Mr. Emerson to Lucy. "Here's a mess: a baby

hurt, cold, and frightened! But what else can you expect from a

church?"

The child's legs had become as melting wax. Each time that old

Mr. Emerson and Lucy set it erect it collapsed with a roar.

Fortunately an Italian lady, who ought to have been saying her

prayers, came to the rescue. By some mysterious virtue, which

mothers alone possess, she stiffened the little boy's back-bone

and imparted strength to his knees. He stood. Still gibbering

with agitation, he walked away.

"You are a clever woman," said Mr. Emerson. "You have done more than all the relics in the world. I am not of your creed, but I

do believe in those who make their fellow-creatures happy. There

is no scheme of the universe--"

He paused for a phrase.

"Niente," said the Italian lady, and returned to her prayers.

"I'm not sure she understands English," suggested Lucy.

In her chastened mood she no longer despised the Emersons. She

was determined to be gracious to them, beautiful rather than

delicate, and, if possible, to erase Miss Bartlett's civility by

some gracious reference to the pleasant rooms.

"That woman understands everything," was Mr. Emerson's reply.

"But what are you doing here? Are you doing the church? Are you

through with the church?"

"No," cried Lucy, remembering her grievance. "I came here with

Miss Lavish, who was to explain everything; and just by the door

--it is too bad!--she simply ran away, and after waiting quite a

time, I had to come in by myself."

"Why shouldn't you?" said Mr. Emerson.

"Yes, why shouldn't you come by yourself?" said the son,

addressing the young lady for the first time.

"But Miss Lavish has even taken away Baedeker."

"Baedeker?" said Mr. Emerson. "I'm glad it's THAT you minded.

It's worth minding, the loss of a Baedeker. THAT'S worth

minding."

Lucy was puzzled. She was again conscious of some new idea, and

was not sure whither it would lead her.

"If you've no Baedeker," said the son, "you'd better join us."

Was this where the idea would lead? She took refuge in her

dignity.

"Thank you very much, but I could not think of that. I hope you

do not suppose that I came to join on to you. I really came to

help with the child, and to thank you for so kindly giving us

your rooms last night. I hope that you have not been put to any

great inconvenience."

"My dear," said the old man gently, "I think that you are

repeating what you have heard older people say. You are

pretending to be touchy; but you are not really. Stop being so

tiresome, and tell me instead what part of the church you want to

see. To take you to it will be a real pleasure."

Now, this was abominably impertinent, and she ought to have been

furious. But it is sometimes as difficult to lose one's temper as

it is difficult at other times to keep it. Lucy could not get

cross. Mr. Emerson was an old man, and surely a girl might humour

him. On the other hand, his son was a young man, and she felt

that a girl ought to be offended with him, or at all events be

offended before him. It was at him that she gazed before

replying.

"I am not touchy, I hope. It is the Giottos that I want to see,

if you will kindly tell me which they are."

The son nodded. With a look of sombre satisfaction, he led the

way to the Peruzzi Chapel. There was a hint of the teacher about

him. She felt like a child in school who had answered a question

rightly.

The chapel was already filled with an earnest congregation, and

out of them rose the voice of a lecturer, directing them how to

worship Giotto, not by tactful valuations, but by the standards

of the spirit.

"Remember," he was saying, "the facts about this church of Santa

Croce; how it was built by faith in the full fervour of

medievalism, before any taint of the Renaissance had appeared.

Observe how Giotto in these frescoes--now, unhappily, ruined by

restoration--is untroubled by the snares of anatomy and

perspective. Could anything be more majestic, more pathetic,

beautiful, true? How little, we feel, avails knowledge and

technical cleverness against a man who truly feels!"

"No!" exclaimed Mr. Emerson, in much too loud a voice for church.

"Remember nothing of the sort! Built by faith indeed! That simply

means the workmen weren't paid properly. And as for the frescoes,

I see no truth in them. Look at that fat man in blue! He must

weigh as much as I do, and he is shooting into the sky like an

air balloon."

He was referring to the fresco of the "Ascension of St. John."

Inside, the lecturer's voice faltered, as well it might. The

audience shifted uneasily, and so did Lucy. She was sure that she

ought not to be with these men; but they had cast a spell over

her. They were so serious and so strange that she could not

remember how to behave.

"Now, did this happen, or didn't it? Yes or no?"

George replied:

"It happened like this, if it happened at all. I would rather go

up to heaven by myself than be pushed by cherubs; and if I got

there I should like my friends to lean out of it, just as they do

here."

"You will never go up," said his father. "You and I, dear boy,

will lie at peace in the earth that bore us, and our names will

disappear as surely as our work survives."

"Some of the people can only see the empty grave, not the saint,

whoever he is, going up. It did happen like that, if it happened

at all."

"Pardon me," said a frigid voice. "The chapel is somewhat small

for two parties. We will incommode you no longer."

The lecturer was a clergyman, and his audience must be also his

flock, for they held prayer-books as well as guide-books in their

hands. They filed out of the chapel in silence. Amongst them were

the two little old ladies of the Pension Bertolini--Miss Teresa

and Miss Catherine Alan.