Mae Madden | Page 8

and there and
fell full on the face of a woman in the steerage, who sat with her arms
crossed on her knee and her face set eastward. She was singing, and her
voice rose clearly above the puff of the engine and the jabber below.
There was a chorus to the song, in which rough men and tired looking
women joined. The song was about home, and once in a while the girl
unclasped her arms and passed her hands over her eyes. Mae and
Norman Mann looked at her silently. "I suppose we don't know when
we make pictures," said Mae. "Don't we?" asked Norman pointedly.
Mae looked very
reprovingly out from her white wraps at him, but he
smiled back composedly and admiringly, and drew her hand a trifle
closer in his arm. And saucy Mae began to feel in that sort of purring
mood women come to when they drop the bristling, ready-for-fight air
with which they start on an acquaintance. Perhaps, if the steamer had
been a sailing-vessel, there would have been no story to tell about Mae
Madden, for a long line of evenings, and girls singing songs, and
hurricane decks by moonlight, are dangerous things. But the vessel was
a fast steamer, and was swiftly nearing land again.
CHAPTER II.
ROME, February, 18--.

MY DEAR MAMMA:--Yes, it is Rome, mamma, and everybody is
impressed. The boys talk of emperors all the time; Edith is wild over
Madonnas and saints, and Mrs. Jerrold runs from Paul's house to Paul's
walks and Paul's drives and Paul's stand at the prisoner's bar, and reads
the Acts through five times a day, in the most religious and Romanistic
spirit. No one could make more fuss over a patron saint, I am sure. For
my part, I feel as if I were in the most terrible ghost story. The old
Romans are all around me.
Underneath the street noises, I seem to
hear cries, and in the air I half see a constant flashing of swords and
scars and blood, and I can't even put my foot on the Roman pavement
without wondering which dead Caesar my saucy Burt boot No. 2 is
walking over. I shouldn't mind trampling old Caligula, but I don't like
the thought on general principles. I feel all out of place, so modern and
fixed up and flimsy. If I could get into old picturesque clothes and out
of the English-speaking quarter, I should not be so oppressed and might
worship Rome. But I seriously think I shall die if I stay here much
longer. There's a spirit-malaria that eats into my life. I feel as if all the
volumes of Roman history bound in heavy vellum, that papa has in his
study, were laid right on top of my little heart, so that every time it
beats, it thumps against them, and I assure you, mamma, its worse than
dyspepsia. If I could only get out on a New England hillside, where
there were no graves more important than those of grasshoppers and
butterflies! What should I do when I got there? Take off my hat, and
scream for joy, and feel free and glad to be in a fresh country, with rich,
warm, untainted earth and young life.
But all this is nonsense, mamma, and I shouldn't be writing it, if I
hadn't just come from the catacombs of St. Calixtus. To think of
Albert's insisting upon going there the very first thing! But so he did,
and so we went, and talked solemnly about the Appian Way, and saw
everybody's tombs and ashes, and quoted poetry, until I stuck a pin in
Albert's arm and sang Yankee Doodle, to keep from crying. Then, oh,
how shocked they looked. Even Mr. Mann seemed ashamed of me.
When we reached the place, we each took a candle and the guide led
the way down into the bowels of the earth. Mamma, they are very
unpleasant. There were two German youths along, and green lizards
crawled all over. They winked at me. The way grew so narrow that we

had to walk one by one through lines of wall perforated with holes for
dead bodies. Once in a while we would come to a small chapel, for
miserable variety's sake, and be told to admire some very old, very
wretched painting. Jonah and the whale were represented in a
double-barreled miracle picture. Not only was the whale about to
swallow Jonah, but he was only as large as a good-sized brook trout,
while Jonah towered away above him like a Goliath. I found myself
wondering if the guide had convulsions, and, if he should have one now,
and die, how many days would pass before we should eat each other.
And would they take me first, because