Kitabı oku: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 368, June 1846», sayfa 18
Birbone III
Basseggio
"Unde habeas quærit nemo, sed oportet habere."
"Fidarsi e bene, ma non fidarsi e meglio." —Italian Proverb.
Near a fountain in one of the main streets of the west end of Rome, in which a recumbent figure bends over his ever-gushing urn; his body half hid from sight, and slowly dissolving in the water, under protection of a dimly lit shrine of a gaily painted Madonna; a tarnished brass plate with the word B – engraved thereon, is inserted into the panels of a dingy-looking door, out of which a long piece of dirty string dangles through a hole. If you touch the electric cord, the shock is instantly transmitted to the other end, and the importunate tinkling of a well-hung bell is responded to by a clicking of the latch, when an invisible arm pulls back the door, and your entrance is secured into a passage encumbered with broken busts and bas-reliefs, tier above tier, and a series of marble tablets, with Dis manibus inscriptions, let into the wall on either side. If, now, you pick your way amid the many stumbling-blocks that beset it, till you have reached the stair, (a narrow stair and dark, and encumbered like the passage, with numerous relics of antiquity,) a female voice, loudly shrilling from above, demands your business – "Chi c'e?" – you answer of course "Amico," and are bid to mount accordingly. Arrived at the summit of the stair, that same voice, the high-pitched key of which startled you from below, sounds less disagreeable, now that you are close beside the fair proprietress of it, who at once greets you affably, begs you to be seated, has seated herself beside you, and, premising that her "marito" will appear anon, has begun to ask you a hundred questions, some of which you are relieved from answering by the actual advent of Signor B – , who makes his politest bow, while Madame introduces you as an old acquaintance. You see at a glance this part of Signor B – 's history, that he has bought a young and pretty wife out of many years' traffic in antiquities. Whatever else he may at any other time have purchased, was with intention to dispose of afterwards, a suitable opportunity offering. But this pretty wife he keeps like an inedited coin, or fancies that he keeps to himself entirely. Few antiquaries have shown more enterprise than B – . Possessed of little, very little money in his youth, he did not, like many other Roman youths of this day, squander it away in cigars, and was under twenty when he undertook his first commercial expedition. He went into Egypt, could not buy the Pyramids, they were too large for his portmanteau; then into Greece; then to Sicily. He sailed to Syracuse, landed at Naxos, sacked Taormina and Catania; came back and sold his curiosities well; went abroad again, and again returned like an industrious bee laden with spoils. Enriched at length by these numerous journeys, he was able to purchase a vineyard, and to plant it. His next step was to build a villa upon it, and to marry an ancient dame, who, dying shortly, left him at liberty to marry again. The lady whom he now calls his own being at the time poor, his treasures soon won her heart, while his house flattered her ambition, and so they made a match of it; and she now accompanies him in most of his antiquarian prowling excursions during the summer; and the ménage, on the whole, for an Italian ménage, goes on well enough.
One day – (this was when, by much frequentation of the premises, we had become intimate with its inmates) – one day we had just been ringing an Etruscan vase, and liked the sound thereof; and examining the painting, we liked that too; and therefore, agreeing as to price, completed the purchase, and were sitting between old husband and young wife, round a brazier mounted on an ancient tripod, with a handful of gems, loculis quæ custoditur eburnis, talking carelessly, and taking our impressions of them, and of the stones, as we talked. It was a fête day, and, now we came to notice it, Madame B – was en grande toilette, and had been hearing Padre S – preach, as she informed us, at St Carlo's in the Corso. When she heard we had not been there, she sighed for our sakes – "Our friend should have heard Padre S – to-day, is it not so?" to her husband, who assented to this good opinion of the Padre: "It was such a good sermon! all about doing as you would be done by – no loophole for a self-deceiver to escape by. I only wish A – had been there to hear it." "Bagatello!" said Signor B – , stirring the brazier, "Do you think he would not have cheated Lord V – just the same in this head of Medusa, which he palmed off upon him for an antique, knowing it was a Calandrelli? Good sermons are thrown away upon some people." "Well," sighed the lady, looking up to the ceiling, and then taking a second dose of it – "well, at least we may apply it to ourselves." "Not a bit of it. We never apply any thing to ourselves. Do you think, for instance, when I married you, I sought to mate me with a lark, or a nightingale —risponde." She had no difficulty in doing so. "And was I not a lark till my poor sister died —poverella– eighteen months ago?" "Si, Signora! but since that time you treat me with coldness; are always looking up to the sky; and always telling me your soul is with her soul in Paradise. No Paradise for me! What think you, sir?" "We always sided with those who were suffering from the loss of friends." "Bene, bene, for three months or so – 'twas all very well, natural. But beyond this? Besides, though it were ever so sincere – what was the use of it?" "Oh! of no use, of course," said we. "I shall never give over mourning for her, I promise you that," said the lady, much moved. The husband shrugged his shoulders; said, "That all women were more or less foolish;" and asked us if we were married? Before we had time to answer, in came Padre S – , whose sermon had made such impression on B – and his wife. We now sit all around the brazier; both wife and husband being, for some time, loud in their praises, which were somewhat extravagant! "It was a divine sermon – St Paul could not have preached a better" – when the good man hopes it may, by God's blessing, do good, politely acknowledges the compliment implied in our regrets that we had not been of the auditory, and then rises to look round, Signor B – doing the honours, at the curiosities of the shop; at the sight of several objects of virtù, he expresses, somewhat naïvely, great pleasure – would like to have seen more, but has another sermon to deliver in St Jacomo – the bell is ringing! – he must say idio at once. As he makes his exit, (Madame kisses his hand first,) two other visitors present themselves; the one a young Roman, who comes to console her; the other a young English nobleman, who comes to buy in haste, and will have to repent at leisure afterwards. In five minutes, Madame seems to have entirely forgotten her sister; B – his wife! The one is receiving comfort in compliment; the other, in cash! Hush! Surely we heard Lord A – ask if that vamped old vase, which will fall some day to pieces, was antique; and B – assert that it was! Why, the paint is scarcely dry on its sides! Lord A – 's unlucky eye lights upon a bust, which, when he gets it over to England, he may match at the stone-mason's in the New Road, and at half-price —two words, three syllables, and the purchase is made "Chi?" Whose bust is it? "Cicero's," of course! "Quanto," what's the price of it? "Twenty Napoleons!" You old rogue B – ! you are safe in sending it to Terny's, packed; for, if it should be seen, you might have to refund the purchase-money. Necdum finitus? Another bust tempts him; he inquires, and finds it is a Jove– a Jove! and is
"Jupiter, hæc nec labra moves, quum mittere vocem
Debueras, vel marmoreus, vel aheneus?
… Quod nullum discrimen habendum est
Effigies inter vestras, statuamque Bathylli?"
And this too, he buys for twenty Napoleons more; and having paid the purchase-money, away goes the possessor of Jupiter, and at the same juncture away goes the Cavaliere – each perfectly satisfied with his visit.
"Molto intelligente, that countryman of yours," said B – , spelling his card. "He seems to take things very much upon trust," said we. "'Tis a pity he don't understand Italian or French better. Otherwise, I might have perhaps suggested better things than those he has actually chosen. But after all," added he, "people don't like being put out of conceit with their own opinions; and think you personally interested, if you offer yours unasked." "I should have been sorry to have taken that vase as antique, as he has done; or to have paid the tenth of the price he has paid you for it." "Oh! don't be afraid; he can afford it – an English gentleman! – and to him it is worth what he paid for it; else, if he did not think so, who forced him to take it?" "I wonder now what Father S – would have said to it;" asked Madame of her husband, looking up to the ceiling, and sighing. "Nothing, 'twas not in his province to pronounce judgment in such a matter." We too wondered, perhaps, what he might have said to Madame, touching her Cavaliere, whose discourse seemed to have told almost as powerfully on her as his sermon at St Carlo's. We wondered, but to ourselves, and making the common-place remark, that it seemed easier to preach than to practise, exchanged smiles with B – and his wife, and withdrew, to think over what we had seen; and to arrive at our own conclusions, touching the general utility of fashionable and popular preaching!
Birbone IV
Herr Ascherson
"Rogare malo, quam emere." – Suidas.
Sly old fox, what pen shall do justice to thy cunning! Grave, venerable, ancient cheat, who showest a Bible, left thee by some pious enthusiast (the old family pew-book, morocco, in silver clasps – well thou lookest to them at least) in return for many dealings with thee, and in requital, so thou sayest, for thine incomparable disinterestedness and honesty!
It would be no harder task to unwind a mummy, than to unroll and unriddle thee, old rogue, in thy endless windings and detours! "Have no dealings with A – ," said that timid rogue, the Florentine attorney R – ; "the man is so gigantic a cheat, that he frightens me!" "and cunning to a degree" was D – 's account of him. "He is up to a thing or two," said S – , looking knowing, and putting his finger, like Harpocrates, to his mouth, that it went no further. A brother dealer called him a Hebrew; another (himself as sly as any fox) admitted that he had been overreached by him. His name, whenever mentioned, seldom failed to call forth a smile, or a shrug, in those who had not dealt with him; and a thundering oath against his German blood in those that had. Mr A – was therefore too remarkable a man for us, ourself an incipient collector, not to visit; and so, as soon as we got to Naples, we dispatched a note, and the next day followed it in person; rang at the bell, and were ushered into his sanctum; where we beheld the old necromancer standing at his table, looking out for us. He put down his eyeglass and his old coin; and said in answer to our question, which was in English, "Ya! ya! mein name is A – ." Forgetting at this moment what R – had said of him, and only recollecting that they were acquainted, we began, by way of introducing ourselves to his best things, to say, that we had lately seen his friend R – at Rome – "Dat is not mein friend, dat is mein enemy," said he, displeased at our mentioning the name; and looking at us half suspiciously, half spitefully. "I hav notin to say wit him more," and he took a huge pinch of snuff, and wasted a deal on his snuffy waistcoat and shirt frill. We at once saw our mistake, which indeed, but for our anxiety to get to business, we should not, assuredly, have been guilty of. We had now to make the best of it. "A mistake, Mr. A – , we assure you. Mr. R – might say that, on one occasion, you had been brusque with him; but advised us, notwithstanding, to pay you a visit, regretting that, from some little difference between you, he could not give us the introduction, which, under more favourable circumstances, he would have pressed upon us;" an announcement which completely mollified the old rogue, who, in his heart of hearts, was thinking that a new victim had turned up to him, and one of Rusca's recommending. "It is pleasant to make peace between two honest men," said we; "Rusca and you should not have quarrelled. Ill-natured people take advantage of these disputes, and begin to profess open distrust as to the age and genuineness of whatever you sell." "For dis reason I hate not Mr Rusca; but he has too much strepitusness of voice —il s'emporte trop facilement." "Ah," interpose we in the mediatorial capacity we had assumed, "'tis the character of the Italian to do so." "Ya, dat is true," assented he; and then we went to look at his coins. "We are not blind friends of Rusca's," said we, sitting down to the first tray which he gave us to look at, and seeing, from the character of the coins therein exhibited, that A – had presumed we might be. "We only buy from R – when he is discreet, and does not overcharge; which, entre nous, he is very apt to do." The old man glanced at us approvingly, and trying hard to look honest, said, "Ya, ya; when he can get ein piastre he will not take ein halb– but when I ask a piastre for any tings, (and he was grave again,) it is tantamount as to say, 'dis is de leastest preis to give.'" "All here has a fixed price, has it?" "Ya, ya." "And what may this pretty little figure be worth?" "I shall confess dat is dear; two hundred piastres is de preis – Rusca would have said four hundred to begin mit." We admitted its beauty; but said two hundred spread out upon the table were also beautiful. "De good ting is de dear ting," said he, and we admitted the truth of the proposition, both in the abstract and in its application; took up a specious-looking coin, which he took as abruptly out of our hand – "Nein gewiss nicht," we must not buy that. "Why?" Because some people had not scrupled to tell him (though they knew better) that it was a Rusca. "Rusca!" said we, "and what does that mean?" "In Neapolitan patois," said he, "we call all our specious but doubtful wares Ruscas! But dis," continued he, taking up a companion to it – "dis I baptize in my own name, and offer for a true John A – ." "Ah!" sighed we, but without emphasis, as if it had only just occurred to us "how difficult, now-a-days, not to be deceived;" and we replaced the J – A – in his box accordingly. "Ven all amateurs," said he, (following out his own thought, rather than replying to ours,) "ven all amateurs were connoisseurs likewise, we might say goot-night to dis bissnesse."
In the days of our novitiate, when we used to say, and think we knew (as the phrase is) what would please us, and would buy according to our means, we found (as indeed all purchasers in these matters find) that time, while it brought with it a nicer appreciation in judging works of art, diminished also our opinion of what we had formerly purchased; and, to avoid fresh disappointments, we used to apply to an antiquario to give us his advice pro re nata; – as the reader will see by the following note of Herr A – , which, as it prevented our making one or two foolish purchases, was not without its value, and we preserved it accordingly. It ran verbatim thus —
"Sir, – You may copy my catalogue, but on Montag ber sur I must hav back. The botel is not good in such a manner. The figure is of no great value; it is not antic, and not fair; so is the bust in stone not antic, and not nice; and every thing that is neither antic nor fair I cannot give any worth. Your obedient servant,
"A – .
"Pray you must not tell to any one my estimation of any thing."
Neither did we, excepting to Maga, to whom we tell every thing.
