John Passos - 1919

The bell rang and Schuyler went out in the hall. Dick heard whispering and a woman’s voice talking Italian in a thin treble. After a moment Ed pushed a little longnosed woman with huge black eyes into the room. “This is Magda,” he said, “Signora Sculpi, meet Captain Savage.” After that they had to talk in mixed French and Italian. “I don’t think it’s going to rain,” said Dick. “Suppose I get hold of a girl for you and we take a drive and eat supper at Caesar’s palace… maybe it won’t be too cold.”

Dick remembered Anne Elizabeth and called up the N.E.R. The Texas voice was delighted, said the relievers were awful and that she’d made a date with Mr. Barrow but would get out of it. Yes, she’d be ready if they called for her in half an hour. After a lot of bargaining between Signora Sculpi and a cabman they hired a twohorse landau, considerably elegant and decrepit. Anne Elizabeth was waiting for them at her door. “Those old hens make me tired,” she said, jumping into the cab. “Tell him to hurry or Mr. Barrow’ll catch us…. Those old hens say I have to be in by nine o’clock. I declare it worse’n Sundayschool in there…. It was mighty nice of you to ask me out to meet your friends, Captain Savage…. I was just dying to get out and see the town…. Isn’t it wonderful? Say, where does the Pope live?”

The sun had set and it had begun to get chilly. The Palazzo dei Cesari was empty and chilly, so they merely had a vermouth there and went back into town for dinner. After dinner they went to a show at the Apollo. “My, I’ll ketch it,” said Anne Elizabeth, “but I don’t care. I want to see the town.”

She took Dick’s arm as they went into the theatre. “Do you know, Dick… all these foreigners make me feel kinder lonesome… I’m glad I got a white man with me…. When I was at school in New York I used to go out to Jersey to see a textile strike… I used to be interested in things like that. I used to feel like I do now then. But I wouldn’t miss any of it. Maybe it’s the way you feel when you’re having a really interesting time.” Dick felt a little drunk and very affectionate. He squeezed her arm and leaned over her. “Bad mans shan’t hurt lil’ Texas girl,” he crooned. “I guess you think I haven’t got good sense,” said Anne Elizabeth, suddenly changing her tone. “But oh lawsie, how’m I going to get along with that Methodist Board of Temperance and Public Morals I’ve got to live with! I don’t mean I don’t think their work’s fine… It’s awful to think of poor little children starving everywhere…. We’ve won the war, now it’s up to us to help patch things up in Europe just like the President says.” The curtain was going up and all the Italians around started shushing. Anne Elizabeth subsided. When Dick tried to get hold of her hand she pulled it away and flicked his with her fingers. “Say, I thought you were out of highschool,” she said.

The show wasn’t much, and Anne Elizabeth who couldn’t understand a word, kept letting her head drop on Dick’s shoulder and going to sleep. In the intermission when they all went to the bar for drinks, Anne Elizabeth dutifully took lemonade. Going upstairs again to their seats, there was suddenly a scuffle. A little Italian with eyeglasses and a bald head had run at Ed Schuyler screaming, “Traditore.” He ran at him so hard that they both lost their balance and rolled down the redcarpeted steps, the little Italian punching and kicking and Ed holding him off at arm’s length as best he could. Dick and Anne Elizabeth, who turned out to be very strong, grabbed the little Italian, picked him up off the ground and locked his arms behind him while Signora Sculpi fell on his neck sobbing. It was the husband.

Ed meanwhile got to his feet looking very red and sheepish. By the time the Italian police appeared everything had quieted down and the manager was nervously brushing the dust off Ed’s uniform. Anne Elizabeth found the little Italian his eyeglasses, that were badly bent, and he led his wife out, who was sobbing. He looked so funny, when he stopped in the door with his bent eyeglasses trembling on the end of his nose to shake his fist at Ed, that Dick couldn’t help laughing. Ed was apologizing profusely to the manager, who seemed to take his side, explaining to the policemen in their shiny hats that the husband was pazzo. The bell rang and they all went back to their seats. “Why, Anne Elizabeth, you’re a jujutsu expert,” Dick whispered, his lips touching her ear. They got to giggling so they couldn’t pay attention to the show and had to go out to a café.

“Now I suppose all the wops’ll think I’m a coward if I don’t challenge the poor little bugger to a duel.” “Sure, it’ll be cappistols at thirty paces now… or eggplants at five yards.” Dick was laughing so hard he was crying. Ed began to get sore. “It isn’t funny,” he said, “it’s hell of a thing to have happen… a guy never seems to be able to have any fun without making other people miserable.. poor Magda… it’s hellish for her…. Miss Trent, I hope you’ll excuse this ridiculous exhibition.” Ed got up and went home.

“Well, what on earth was that about, Dick?” asked Anne Elizabeth, when they’d gotten out in the street and were walking towards the N.E.R. boarding house. “Well, I suppose Signore husband was jealous on account of Ed’s running around with Magda… or else it’s a pretty little blackmail plot… poor Ed seems all cut up about it.” “People sure do things over here they wouldn’t do at home… I declare it’s peculiar.” “Oh, Ed gets in trouble everywhere… He’s got a special knack.” “I guess it’s the war and continental standards and everything loosens up people’s morals…. I never was prissy, but my goodness, I was surprised when Mr. Barrow asked me to go to his hotel the first day we landed… I’d only spoken to him three or four times before on the boat…. Now at home he wouldn’t have done that, not in a thousand years.” Dick looked searchingly into Anne Elizabeth’s face. “In Rome do as the Romans do,” he said with a funny smirk. She laughed, looking hard into his eyes as if trying to guess what he meant. “Oh, well, I guess it’s all part of life,” she said. In the shadow of the doorway he wanted to do some heavy kissing, but she gave him a quick peck in the mouth and shook her head. Then she grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard and said, “Let’s us be good friends.” Dick walked home with his head swimming with the scent of her sandy hair.

Dick had three or four days to wait in Rome. The President was to arrive on January 3 and several couriers were held at his disposition. Meanwhile he had nothing to do but walk around the town and listen to the bands practicing The Star-Spangled Banner and watch the flags and the stands going up.

The first of January was a holiday; Dick and Ed and Mr. Barrow and Anne Elizabeth hired a car and went out to Hadrian’s Villa and then on to Tivoli for lunch. It was a showery day and there was a great deal of mud on the roads. Anne Elizabeth said the rolling Campagna, yellow and brown with winter, made her think of back home along the Middlebuster. They ate fritto misto and drank a lot of fine gold Frascati wine at the restaurant above the waterfall. Ed and Mr. Barrow agreed about the Roman Empire and that the ancients knew the art of life. Anne Elizabeth seemed to Dick to be flirting with Mr. Barrow. It made him sore the way she let him move his chair close to hers when they sat drinking their coffee on the terrace afterwards, looking down into the deep ravine brimmed with mist from the waterfall. Dick sat drinking his coffee without saying anything.

When she’d emptied her cup Anne Elizabeth jumped to her feet and said she wanted to go up to the little round temple that stood on the hillside opposite like something in an old engraving. Ed said the path was too steep for so soon after lunch. Mr. Barrow said without enthusiasm, er, he’d go. Anne Elizabeth was off running across the bridge and down the path with Dick running after her slipping and stumbling in the loose gravel and the puddles. When they got to the bottom the mist was soppy and cold on their faces. The waterfall was right over their heads. Their ears were full of the roar of it. Dick looked back to see if Mr. Barrow was coming.