flabby Italian, usually in his shirt sleeves and wearing the loose slippers that strike such dismay into British travellers. "No foreigner," said an acute young observer to me recently, "ever has a good dog"; not less true is it that no Latin is ever soundly shod. But the Golden Eagle was not exactly slovenly; he owed it to his hotel not to be that; he was merely a vigilant padrone eternally concerned with his business.
Although there were other people staying under his roof, and they had better rooms than I and drank a better wine, it was I at whom he made this set. It was I for whom he waited and upon whom his great melancholy eyes rested so wistfully. For he was a Golden Eagle with a grievance, and I, in whose bedroom he had been asked to place a writing-table, I, who never went out without a note-book and who bought so many photographs, I, who so obviously was engaged in studying the city, no doubt for the purposes of a book, I it was who beyond question was in a position, by removing that grievance, to restore him to prosperity and placidity again.
And his grievance? The melancholy stamped upon that vast white countenance, although much of it was temperamental, and you might say national (for the Italian features in repose suggest disillusionment and fatalism far oftener than light-heartedness), and the dejection in the great shoulders, were due to the same cause. Baedeker, after years of honourable mention of the Aquila d'Oro among the hotels of the city, had suddenly, in the last edition, removed the asterisk against the name. The Golden Eagle had lost his star. Now you see the connection between this pathetic innkeeper (the last man in the world to call Boniface), our triumphant lion comique and the late Lord Tennyson. But in his case it was not better, either for him or me, that he had lost what he had loved. It would have been better, both for him and for me, if he had never had a star.
Why it had been taken from him he had no notion. He had always done his best; his wife had done her best; people were satisfied and came again; but the star had gone. Was not his hotel clean? The linen was soft, the attendance was good. He himself—as I could perceive, could I not?—never rested, nor did his wife. They personally superintended all. They spared nothing for the comfort of the house. Foolish innkeepers no doubt existed who were cheese-parers, but not he. He knew that wherever else economy was wise, it was not in the dining-room. Were not the meals generous and diversified? Could I name a more abundant collazione at 4 lire or a better pranzo at 5? Or served with more despatch? Was not his wine sound and far from dear?
And yet, four years ago, and all inexplicably, the star had gone from his hotel. It was monstrous, an outrage. Four years ago—without warning and for no cause.
When he had looked at the new edition of Baedeker which a visitor had left about and saw it, he could not believe his eyes. He had called his wife—every one: they were also incredulous. It was like a thunderbolt, and earthquake. After all their hard work too, their desire to please, their regular customers, so contented, who came again and again. Was not that the test—that they came again and again? Obviously then the guide-book was wrong, guilty of a wicked injustice.
What did he think could have happened? All he could suppose was that one of Herr Baedeker's agents, staying there incognito, had had some piece of bad fortune; some accident of the kitchen impossible to prevent, but isolated, had occurred and he had taken offence. But how unfair! No one should judge by a single lapse. So many rivals still with stars and he without!
Thus would the Golden Eagle complain, day after day, during my sojourn, always ending with the assurance that I would help him to get the star back, would I not?—I who had such influence.
And now there is to be, I suppose, a new system of guide-book astronomy. If the Golden Eagle has survived the War he may, in the eclipse of Baedeker, be more resigned to his lot: the substitute for that travelling companion may confer a star of his own. But I do not propose to stay with him in order to make sure.
A MORNING CALL
The card of invitation—for which I have to confess that, like a true social climber, I had to some extent angled—came at last, stating that my visit would be expected on the following day at noon precisely, and that evening dress was to be worn. As I did not receive it until late at night, and as some medals had to be bought and a carriage and pair hired, I was busy enough after breakfast. The medals were for distribution afterwards among certain intimates, and the carriage and pair was to convey my friend and me to the reception, because we wished to enter at the gate of honour, and if you would do this you must have two horses. A single horse, and you are deposited at the inferior door and have a long walk.
It was to one of the most famous buildings in the world that we are going—possibly the most famous—and the horses' hoofs had a brave resonance (not wholly to be dissociated from thoughts of Dumas) as they clattered swiftly over the stones, beneath archways, past sentries, and through spacious and venerable courtyards, to the foot of the famous stairway. After ascending to an ante-room, where colossal guards scrutinised us and splendid lackeys took our hat, we were shown into the reception-room, in the doorway of which an elderly gentleman in black with a black bag was talking with such animation to a major-domo that we had to interrupt them in order to pass.
In this reception-room, an apartment of some splendour, in which we were to meet our host, sufficient guests had already assembled to occupy most of the wall space—for that is how we were placed, in four lines with our backs to the walls. There were about ninety in all, I calculated, of whom many were priests and nuns and many were women, the rest youths, a few girls, and a very few civilian men. It needed only the swiftest glance to discern that my friend and I were the only ones who had complied with the regulation about evening dress. This, naturally, greatly increased our comfort, since we became at once the cynosure (as the learned would say) of every eye. In the centre of the room was a little knot of officials, including four or five soldiers, all chatting in low tones and occasionally glancing through the door opposite that by which we had entered, which gave upon a long corridor. So for some twenty minutes we waited, nervous and whispering, when suddenly the officials stiffened, the soldiers hurriedly fetched their rifles from the far corner (a proceeding not without humour when one considers all things), and the whole ninety of us sank on our knees as a little quick, dark man, dressed in white, entered the room.
To be on one's knees, in evening dress, at twenty past twelve in the day, facing a row of people, across a vast expanse of carpet, similarly kneeling, and being also a little self-conscious and hungry, is not conducive to minute observation; but I was able to notice that our host was alert and bird-like in his movements and had a searching, shrewd, and very rapid and embracive glance. Beneath his cassock one caught sight of elaborate slippers, and he wore a large and magnificent emerald ring.
As he was late he got briskly to work. Each person had to be noticed individually, but some had brought a little problem on which advice was needed; others required solace for the absent and afflicted; most, like myself, had medals of the saints which were to be made more efficacious; and three or four of the priests were accompanied by far from negligible or indigent old lady parishioners, to whom such an event as this would be the more memorable and valuable if a little conversation could be added. Hence, there was work before our host; but he performed his task with noticeable discretion. To me, whom at last he reached, he said nothing; but my friend, who is of the old persuasion, put to him the case of a dying youth and obtained sufficient assurance to be comforted. And all the while I could see the elderly gentleman in black with the black bag glancing round the walls from the doorway—his function, as I afterwards learned, being that of a doctor intent upon restoring to consciousness those (and they are numerous) who swoon under the immensity of this ceremony.
Having come to the last of his visitors, our host retired to the middle of the room and delivered a short address on the meaning of his blessing and the importance of rectitude.
