Roman Holidays And Others, By W. D. Howells

























































































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The earthy scent of the catacomb will cling to the reader's clothes, and
he will have two minds about keeping - Page 144
Roman Holidays And Others, By W. D. Howells - Page 144 of 186 - First - Home

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The Earthy Scent Of The Catacomb Will Cling To The Reader's Clothes, And He Will Have Two Minds About Keeping

For a souvenir the taper which he carried, and which the guide wraps in a bit of newspaper for him;

He may prefer the flower which he is allowed to gather from the tiny garden at the entrance to the catacombs. Yet these Catacombs of Domatilla are among the cheer-fulest of all the catacombs, and a sense of something sweet and appealing invests them from the memory of the gentle lady whose piety consecrated them as the last home of the refugees and martyrs. They are of the more recent Roman excavations, but I do not know whether later or earlier than those which have revealed the house of the two Christian gentlemen, John and Paul, of unknown surname, where they suffered death for their faith, under the Passionist church named for them. Twenty-four rooms on the two stories have been opened, and there are others yet to be opened; when all are laid bare they will perfectly show what a Roman city dwelling of the better sort was like in the mid-imperial time. The plan differs from that of the average Pompeian house as much as the plan of a cross-town New York dwelling would differ from that of the average Newport cottage. The rooms are incomparably smaller than those of the mediaeval palaces of the Roman nobles, and the decoration is sometimes crudely mixed of pagan and Christian themes and motives; the artists, like the painters of the Domatilla catacombs, were probably lingering in the old Greek tradition.

The young Passionist father who showed us through the church and the house under it made us wait half an hour while he finished his lunch, but he was worth waiting for. He was a charming enthusiast for both, radiantly yet reverently exulting in their respective treasures, and justly but not haughtily proud of the newly introduced electricity which lighted the darkness of the underground rooms and corridors. He told us he had been twenty years a missionary in Rumania, where he had possibly acquired the delightful English he spoke. When he would have us follow him he said, "All persons come this way," and he politely spoke of the wicked emperor whose bust was somehow there as Mr. Commodus. With all his gentleness, however, that good father had a certain smiling severity before which the spirit bowed. He had made us wait half an hour before he came to let us into the church, and during the hour we were with him there he kept the door locked against an unlucky lady who arrived just too late to enter with us. Not only this, but he utterly refused to go back with her singly and show her the things we had seen. Perhaps it would not have been decorous; they do not let ladies, either singly or plurally, into the garden of the convent, which is memorable among many other facts as being the retreat of Mr. Commodus when he suffered from sleeplessness, and where he once carelessly left his list of victims lying about, so that his friend Marcia found it and, reading her name in it, joined with other friends in his assassination.

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