In the doubt
which attends all recollections of the past, after age renders us
uncertain of the present, I hastened on my second Sunday at Rome in
February, 1908, to enjoy this vision, if possible. I found the Pincio
unexpectedly near; I found the sunshine; I found the familiar winter
warmth which in Southern climates is so unlike the summer warmth in
ours; but the drive which I had remembered as a long ellipse had
narrowed to a little circle, where one could not have driven round
faster than a slow trot without danger of vertigo. I did not find that
series of apparent principessas or imaginable marchesas leaning at their
lovely lengths in their landaus. I found in overwhelming majority the
numbered victorias, which pass for cabs in Rome, full of decent
tourists, together with a great variety of people on foot, but not much
fashion and no swells that my snobbish soul could be sure of. There was,
indeed, one fine moment when, at a retired point of the drive, I saw two
private carriages drawn up side by side in their encounter, with two
stout old ladies, whom I decided to be dowager countesses at the least,
partially projected from their opposing windows and lost in a delightful
exchange, as I hoped, of scandal.
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