My Friend the Chauffeur
It was the father of the man who showed us the model, and owned the
shop, who had made the miniature _duomo_. His name was Giacomo
Mattarelli, and he was an extraordinary genius, worthy of a tomb in the
Cathedral to the worship of whose beauty he devoted twenty years of his
life and sacrificed those which remained.
The story of his self-appointed task struck me as being as marvellous as
the task's result, which stood there in the dim room, perfect in
proportion and delicately wrought as ivory carved by Chinese experts. I
don't know what the others thought, but the tale as told by the artist's
son was for me full of pathos and beautiful sentiment.
The man had been a cabinet-maker by trade, but he had money and could
gratify his craving for art. The glory of the Milan Cathedral, seen
once, became an obsession for him, and he went again and again. At last
the idea grew in his mind to express his homage in a perfect copy of the
great church which, as he said, "held his heart." There was no train
between Milan and Lecco in his day (1840), and he used to walk all those
miles to make drawings of the Cathedral. At first he meant to do the
work in iron, but iron was too heavy; then he began casting plates in
copper, but they were hollow behind, and he could not get the effect he
wanted, so after several wasted months he began again with olive wood.
Often he would work all night; and no trouble was too much for his
inexhaustible patience. Each statue, each gargoyle was copied, first in
a drawing, then with the carving tools, and no hand but that of the
artist ever touched the work. At the end of twenty-two years it was
completed; not a detail missing inside or out; and then when all was
done the modeller went blind.
Now his son had lighted up the model for us to see, and I was almost
aghast at the thought of the incredible labour it had meant--literally a
labour of love, for the artist had given his eyes and his best years to
his adoration of the beautiful. And the whole thing seemed the more of a
marvel when I remembered how Mr. Barrymore had called Milan Cathedral
the most highly ornamented building in the world. Nowhere else, he said,
existed a church so smothered with carving. Every point, every niche has
its statue. There, in the model, one could find each one. Through
magnifying glasses the little carved faces (hardly larger, some of them,
than a pin's head) looked at one with the same expression as the
original, and not a mistake had been made in a fold of drapery. Each
sculptured capital, each column, each decorative altar of the interior
had been carved with loving fidelity. All that, in the vast Cathedral
had taken centuries and many generations of men to plan and finish, this
one infinitely patient man had copied in miniature in twenty-two years.
It would have been worth visiting the town to see the model alone, even
if we had turned miles out of our path.
To go from there to Desenzano by way of Bergamo and Brescia was to go
from lake to lake--Lecco to Garda; and the road was beautiful. Castles
and ancient monasteries had throned themselves on hills to look down on
little villages cringing at their august feet. Along the horizon
stretched a serrated line of pure white mountains, sharply chiselled in
marble, while a thick carpet of wild flowers, blue and gold, had been
cut apart to let our road pass through. It was a biscuit-coloured road,
smooth as uncut velvet, and fringed on either side with a white spray of
heavenly-fragrant acacia, like our locust-trees at home. Rustic fences
and low hedges defining rich green meadows, were inter-laced with wild
roses, pink and white, and plaited with pale gold honeysuckle, a magnet
for armies of flitting butterflies. Every big farmhouse, every tiny
cottage was curtained with wistaria and heavy-headed roses. Wagons
passed us laden with new-mown hay and crimson sorrel; and we had one odd
adventure, which might have been dangerous, but was only poetic.
A horse drawing some kind of vehicle, piled high with fragrant clover,
took it into his head just as were side by side, that it was his duty to
punish his mechanical rival for existing. Calculating his distance
nicely, he gave a bound, flung the cart against our car, and upset half
his load of clover on our heads. What he did afterwards we had no means
of knowing, for we were temporarily extinguished.
It was the strangest sensation I ever had, being suddenly overwhelmed by
a soft, yet heavy wave of something that was like a ton of perfumed
feathers.
Instantly the car stopped, for Mr. Barrymore, buried as he was, didn't
forget to put on the brakes. Then I felt that he was excavating me, and
almost before I knew what had swallowed me up I was emerging from green
and pink billows of clover, laughing, gasping, half-dazed, but wholly
delighted. "You're not drowned?" he asked quickly.
"No, I can swim," I answered, and set myself promptly to help him and
Sir Ralph rescue Beechy and Aunt Kathryn, which was rather like looking
for needles in a haystack.
By the time we had all got our breath and wiped the clover out of our
eyes, horse and cart had vanished comet-like into the horizon, leaving a
green trail behind. We bailed out the car and started gaily on once
more, but presently our speed slackened. Without a sigh the automobile
stopped precisely in the middle of the road, and gently, though firmly,
refused to go on again.
When Mr. Barrymore saw that this was more than a passing whim, he called
Sir Ralph to the rescue, Beechy and I jumped out, and the car was pushed
to one side. Then, with all of us standing round, he proceeded to search
for the mischief. Apparently nothing was wrong. The engine was cool;
the pump generously inclined, and fat yellow fireflies flew out of the
sparking-plugs when they were tested. Then Mr. Barrymore remembered the
cause of the Prince's first accident, and looked at the carburetter; but
there was not so much as a speck of dust. For a while he continued to
poke, and prod, and hammer, Sir Ralph offering humorous advice, and
pretending to be sure that, if his housekeeper Felicite were on the
spot, the car would start for her in an instant. The mystery only
thickened, however, and to make matters worse the Prince, who had been
proudly spinning on ahead, came tearing back to see what had happened.
Though he pretended to be sympathetic, he was visibly overjoyed at our
misfortune, which turned the tables upon us for once, and his
suggestions were enough to wreck the valvular system of a motor-car; not
to mention the nervous system of a distracted chauffeur.
"Perhaps the petrol's dead," said Mr. Barrymore, paying no heed to the
Prince's ideas. He opened a new tin and was about to empty its contents
into the reservoir, when he uttered an exclamation. "By Jove! Just look
at that, Miss Destrey!" he said; and I couldn't help feeling flattered
that he should appeal to me on a subject I didn't know anything about.
He was peering at the small round air-hole leading down to the
reservoir, so I peered too, and in spite of my ignorance I saw what he
meant. The hole was entirely stopped up with the body of a pinkish-grey
caterpillar, and Mr. Barrymore explained that the poor car had simply
stopped because it couldn't breathe. No air had been able to reach the
petrol in the reservoir, and therefore no spirit had trickled through to
the carburetter.
We had been delayed for more than half an hour by a mere worm, which had
probably arrived with the clover; but when the automobile could fill her
lungs again she started on at a great pace. We passed a wonderful old
riverside town, that had one of the most remarkable churches we had seen
yet; and by-and-by a fine city, set like a tiara on the forehead of a
distant hill, seemed to spring up, peer at us from its eminence, and
then dip down out of sight among other hills which made a dark
foreground against white mountains.
It was Bergamo; and not once did we see it again until we were almost in
the place, when it deigned to show itself once more--an old, old city on
a height, a newer city extended at its feet in a plain.
"This town is packed full of interesting things," said Mr. Barrymore. "I
stayed here two days once, at a nice old-fashioned hotel with domed,
painted ceilings, marble walls and mahogany mantle-pieces which would
have delighted you. And even then I hadn't half time for the two or
three really fine churches, and the Academy, where there are some
Bellinis, a Palma Vecchio, and a lot of splendid Old Masters. Bergamo
claims Tasso, perhaps you remember, because his father was born here;
and Harlequin, you know, was supposed to be a Bergamese."
"Oughtn't we to stop and see the pictures?" I asked.
"We ought. But one never does stop where one ought to, motoring.
Besides, you'll see the best work of the same artists at Venice and as
we want to reach Desenzano for dinner we had better push on."
We did push on but not far. Unless the main road runs straight into a
town and out of it again it is often difficult to discover the exit from
Italian cities like those through which we passed, and Mr. Barrymore
seemed always reluctant to inquire. When I remarked on this once,
thinking it simpler to ask a question of some one in the street rather
than take a false turn, he answered that automobilists never asked the
way; they found it. "I can't explain," he went on, "but I believe other
men who drive cars share the same peculiarity with me; I never ask help
from a passer-by if I can possibly fish out the way for myself. It isn't
rational of course. Sometimes I could save a detour if I would stop and
ask; but I prefer to plunge on and make a mistake rather than admit that
a mere man on legs can teach me anything I don't know. It seems somehow
to degrade the automobile."
The argument was too subtle for me, not being an automobilist; and on
trying to get out of Bergamo, Mr. Barrymore made one of his little
detours. The road twisted; and instead of finding the one towards
Brescia it happened that we went down a broad way which looked like a
high road, but happened to be only a _cul de sac_ leading to the railway
station. We were annoyed for a minute, but we were to rejoice in the
next.
Seeing his error, Mr. Barrymore had just turned the car and was circling
round, when two men stepped into the middle of the road and held up
their hands. They appeared so suddenly that they made me start. They
were very tall and very grave, dressed alike, in long black coats
buttoned to their chins, black gloves, and high black hats. Each carried
an oaken staff.
"They're mutes," said Sir Ralph as Mr. Barrymore put on the brake.
"They've come to warn us that there's going to be a funeral, and we must
clear out for the procession."
The pair looked so sepulchral, I thought he must be right, though I'd
never seen any "funeral mutes." But Mr. Barrymore answered in a low
voice, "No, they're policemen. I wonder what's up?" Then, aloud, he
addressed the melancholy black beanpoles; but to my surprise, instead of
using his fluent Italian to lubricate the strained situation, he spoke
in English.
"Good day. Do you want something with me?"
Of course they didn't understand. How could they have been expected to?
But they did not look astonished. Their black coats were too tight round
their necks for them to change expression easily. One began to explain
his object or intention, with gentle patience, in soft Italian--so soft
that I could have burst out laughing at the thought of the contrast
between him and a New York policeman.
Now almost my whole knowledge of Italian has been gained since Aunt
Kathryn decided to take this trip, for then I immediately bought a
phrase-book, a grammar, and "Doctor Antonio" translated into the native