Hilda's present expedition led her into what was--physically, at
least--the foulest and ugliest part of Rome. In that vicinity lies the
Ghetto, where thousands of Jews are crowded within a narrow compass,
and lead a close, unclean, and multitudinous life, resembling that of
maggots when they over-populate a decaying cheese.
Hilda passed on the borders of this region, but had no occasion to
step within it. Its neighborhood, however, naturally partook of
characteristics 'like its own. There was a confusion of black and
hideous houses, piled massively out of the ruins of former ages; rude
and destitute of plan, as a pauper would build his hovel, and yet
displaying here and there an arched gateway, a cornice, a pillar, or
a broken arcade, that might have adorned a palace. Many of the houses,
indeed, as they stood, might once have been palaces, and possessed still
a squalid kind of grandeur. Dirt was everywhere, strewing the narrow
streets, and incrusting the tall shabbiness of the edifices, from the
foundations to the roofs; it lay upon the thresholds, and looked out of
the windows, and assumed the guise of human life in the children that
Seemed to be engendered out of it. Their father was the sun, and their
mother--a heap of Roman mud.
It is a question of speculative interest, whether the ancient Romans
were as unclean a people as we everywhere find those who have succeeded
them. There appears to be a kind of malignant spell in the spots that
have been inhabited by these masters of the world, or made famous in
their history; an inherited and inalienable curse, impelling their
successors to fling dirt and defilement upon whatever temple, column,
mined palace, or triumphal arch may be nearest at hand, and on every
monument that the old Romans built. It is most probably a classic trait,
regularly transmitted downward, and perhaps a little modified by the
better civilization of Christianity; so that Caesar may have trod
narrower and filthier ways in his path to the Capitol, than even those
of modern Rome.
As the paternal abode of Beatrice, the gloomy old palace of the Cencis
had an interest for Hilda, although not sufficiently strong, hitherto,
to overcome the disheartening effect of the exterior, and draw her over
its threshold. The adjacent piazza, of poor aspect, contained only an
old woman selling roasted chestnuts and baked squash-seeds; she looked
sharply at Hilda, and inquired whether she had lost her way.
"No," said Hilda; "I seek the Palazzo Cenci."
"Yonder it is, fair signorina," replied the Roman matron. "If you wish
that packet delivered, which I see in your hand, my grandson Pietro
shall run with it for a baiocco. The Cenci palace is a spot of ill omen
for young maidens."
Hilda thanked the old dame, but alleged the necessity of doing her
errand in person. She approached the front of the palace, which, with
all its immensity, had but a mean appearance, and seemed an abode which
the lovely shade of Beatrice would not be apt to haunt, unless her doom
made it inevitable. Some soldiers stood about the portal, and gazed at
the brown-haired, fair-cheeked Anglo-Saxon girl, with approving glances,
but not indecorously. Hilda began to ascend the staircase, three lofty
flights of which were to be surmounted, before reaching the door whither
she was bound.