their hands if it be winter, or the everlasting fan if it be summer, for a whole afternoon. What pretty faces one thus sees as one looks upwards, in some of the dark narrow streets, watching hour after hour, with steady unmoved gaze, the passing crowds. Faces which bear the same lines and are of the same type as the features we have so admired in the churches and galleries. Masaccio has painted them, and Lippo Lippi and they have been idealised by Perrugino. Faces which have a sudden flashing out into smiles which is peculiarly Italian, and which, seen framed by the dark old arched windows, with their twisted columns in the centre and mediæval copings, are a picture in themselves.
I have spoken of the Tuscan lady’s-maid. She, however, is a person of grander and larger and more barbaresque mould. She has a kind of indolent and stolid fierceness about her. Her steady wide-open eyes have far less sparkle and intelligence in them, and she is certainly not so clever or efficient as her Tuscan sister, but she is affectionate and faithful. In cases of illness, she will sit rocking herself on the ground telling her beads by the side of the patient night after night, without a murmur or complaint. Then it is more than worth her salary to hear her speak with the musical full enunciation she gives to her words, and to watch the way she holds that noble head of hers, with its loops of black tresses, fastened by the silver, crescent-shaped comb.
There is the Lucchese, of fairer complexion and slimmer figure, handy, clever, industrious, but, as a general rule, less to be relied on; the Pistorian, with “a wild-fruit flavour,” and a savage kind of grace about her, and the Neapolitan, full of tricks and cleverness, and humour and plausibilities; but all are easily contented, more obedient, and more obliging than an English servant, and more faithful and less selfish than a French one. The experience of some years has brought me to this conclusion, that no servant is more generally useful and more pleasant to have in one’s house than a good Italian cameriera. Let me add that this word cameriera means both more and less, than its literal translation, lady’s-maid.
THE COOK AND MAN-SERVANT.
As a companion to the Italian lady’s-maid, I must describe the Italian man-servant. This personage is at once housemaid, cook, purveyor, footman, butler, and waiter. In the morning he sweeps and cleans the drawing-rooms and dining-rooms, and prepares the breakfast; he then goes to market and buys the day’s provisions. This is done deliberately, and gives opportunity for an unlimited quantity of gossip with other servants occupied in the same manner, and a diversion into a café to look at the “Nazione,” and indulge in a little rest and a cup of black coffee. Then it is time to return home. A white apron and white cap are put on, and the real business of the day commences. The charcoal fires are lighted and the preparations made.
At intervals the cloth is laid, and then, when all is ready, and with an occasional help from the woman, the dinner is served.
An Italian servant usually keeps in his own private employment some retainer who does the dirty work, draws the water, washes up the dishes, and cleans the kitchen. This supernumerary is usually nameless, or bears a nickname. The one who is “attachè” to my servant is called “Vecchio.” He is certainly an elderly individual, but does not deserve by any means, either from age or appearance, so disagreeable an appellation as “the old one.”
After the dinner is cleared away comes a season of repose, spent over a cigar or pipe by some, in a siesta by others, until the hour of the afternoon drive. By that time the man is dressed, and ready to attend as footman; if the dinner is late and the carriage not used, the eternal café with its dominoes and cards and gossip is again resorted to. A man receives five or six dollars a month. I am always speaking of servants paid according to the rate that Italians pay their domestics. There are servants, and those by no means the best, who are engaged by English, or Russian, or American families, who receive treble that amount of wages, but the sum I have mentioned is the Italian average salary. The usual manner of house-keeping is for your servant to buy, day by day, the articles wanted for daily use, and you pay him every day or once a week. That array of tradesmen’s books, with those wonderful hieroglyphics with which the butchers like to puzzle and aggravate you, and the baker and greengrocer vie with each other in confusing you, are all but unknown. One sum in addition serves for all.
Some persons adopt a method of limiting their expenses and simplifying still more their household arrangements, which is to agree that their cooks should provide for the expenses of the family at a certain sum per diem, which is to include everything but tea, wine, or any extraordinary and unusual demand. This is termed “a cottino.” It requires, of course, a knowledge of the price of every article to judge whether justice is done in the quantity and quality of the food provided, and it also requires an exercise of imagination on the part of the cook to vary the “ordinary” of each day. To my thinking, it is not a satisfacfactory method for either party.
In Italy, the luxuries of life are cheaper in proportion than the necessaries. The difference in the weights and measures approximates the expenses of living in England and in Italy more than could be at first sight imagined. A hundred a-year can go as far in England as in Italy, but every additional hundred is worth half as much again, and after five hundred, worth twice as much again.
The character of an Italian man-servant is usually pacific and indolent. This last quality seems strange, considering the multiplicity of occupation which he gladly undertakes, but is the fact. In variety of work is repose, so philosophers tell us; and the manner in which an apartment is arranged, the absence of much, or sometimes of any, running up and down stairs, the little dust or dirt which can accumulate on those painted floors, and the facility with which wood fires are kept up, combine to spare the strength of one’s domestics. An Italian has also great personal independence. He will not sacrifice his beard or moustache on