But for all the outlandish suggestion of
these pillars, the villa now belongs to the Jesuits, who have a college
there, where only the sons of noble families are received for education.
As we rounded a sunny wall in driving away, we saw a line of people, old
and young of both sexes, but probably not of noble families, seated with
their backs against the warm stone eating from comfortable bowls
a soup which our driver said was the soup of charity and the daily dole
of the fathers to such hungry as came for it. The day was now growing
colder thaa it had been, and we felt that the poor needed all the soup,
and hot, that they could get.
After a vain visit to Grotta Ferrata, which was signally disappointing,
in spite of the traces of a recent country fair and the historical
merits of a church of the Greek rite, with a black-bearded monk coming
to show it through a gardened cloister, we were glad to take the tram
back to Rome and to get into the snug inside of it. The roof, which had
been so popular and populous in the morning, was now so little envied
that a fat lady descended from it and wedged herself into a row of the
interior where a sylph would have fitted better but might not have added
so much to the warmth.
Pages:
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369