enlarged the King at the Italian hospital. With a banquet, I suppose.
An English banquet has that effect. Further:
Il ritorno dei Sovrani
a Roma
ROMA, 24, ore 22,50.–I Sovrani e le Principessine Reali si attendono
a Roma domani alle ore 15,51.
Return of the sovereigns to Rome, you see. Date of the telegram,
Rome, November 24, ten minutes before twenty-three o’clock. The
telegram seems to say, “The Sovereigns and the Royal Children expect
themselves at Rome tomorrow at fifty-one minutes after fifteen o’clock.”
I do not know about Italian time, but I judge it begins at midnight
and runs through the twenty-four hours without breaking bulk.
In the following ad, the theaters open at half-past twenty.
If these are not matinees, 20.30 must mean 8.30 P.M., by my reckoning.
Spettacolli del di 25
TEATRO DELLA PERGOLA–(Ore 20,30)–Opera. BOH`EME. TEATRO
ALFIERI.–Compagnia drammatica Drago–(Ore 20,30)–LA LEGGE.
ALHAMBRA–(Ore 20,30)–Spettacolo variato. SALA EDISON–
Grandiosoo spettacolo Cinematografico: QUO VADIS?–Inaugurazione della
Chiesa Russa–In coda al Direttissimo–Vedute di Firenze con
gran movimeno–America: Transporto tronchi giganteschi–I ladri
in casa del Diavolo–Scene comiche. CINEMATOGRAFO–Via Brunelleschi
n. 4.–Programma straordinario, DON CHISCIOTTE–Prezzi populari.
The whole of that is intelligible to me–and sane and rational, too–
except the remark about the Inauguration of a Russian Chinese.
That one oversizes my hand. Give me five cards.
This is a four-page paper; and as it is set in long primer leaded
and has a page of advertisements, there is no room for the crimes,
disasters, and general sweepings of the outside world–thanks be!
Today I find only a single importation of the off-color sort:
Una Principessa
che fugge con un cocchiere
PARIGI, 24.–Il MATIN ha da Berlino che la principessa
Schovenbare-Waldenbure scomparve il 9 novembre. Sarebbe partita
col suo cocchiere.
La Principassa ha 27 anni.
Twenty-seven years old, and scomparve–scampered–on the 9th November.
You see by the added detail that she departed with her coachman.
I hope Sarebbe has not made a mistake, but I am afraid the chances
are that she has. SONO DISPIACENTISSIMO.
There are several fires: also a couple of accidents. This is
one of them:
Grave disgrazia sul Ponte Vecchio
Stammattina, circe le 7,30, mentre Giuseppe Sciatti, di anni 55,
di Casellina e Torri, passava dal Ponte Vecchio, stando seduto sopra
un barroccio carico di verdura, perse l’ equilibrio e cadde al suolo,
rimanendo con la gamba destra sotto una ruota del veicolo.
Lo Sciatti fu subito raccolto da alcuni cittadini, che, per mezzo
della pubblica vettura n. 365, lo transporto a San Giovanni di Dio.
Ivi il medico di guardia gli riscontro la frattura della gamba
destra e alcune lievi escoriazioni giudicandolo guaribile in 50
giorni salvo complicazioni.
What it seems to say is this: “Serious Disgrace on the Old
Old Bridge. This morning about 7.30, Mr. Joseph Sciatti, aged 55,
of Casellina and Torri, while standing up in a sitting posture
on top of a carico barrow of vedure (foliage? hay? vegetables?),
lost his equilibrium and fell on himself, arriving with his left
leg under one of the wheels of the vehicle.
“Said Sciatti was suddenly harvested (gathered in?) by several citizens,
who by means of public cab No. 365 transported to St. John of God.”
Paragraph No. 3 is a little obscure, but I think it says that
the medico set the broken left leg–right enough, since there
was nothing the matter with the other one–and that several
are encouraged to hope that fifty days well fetch him around
in quite giudicandolo-guaribile way, if no complications intervene.
I am sure I hope so myself.
There is a great and peculiar charm about reading news-scraps in a
language which you are not acquainted with–the charm that always goes
with the mysterious and the uncertain. You can never be absolutely
sure of the meaning of anything you read in such circumstances;
you are chasing an alert and gamy riddle all the time, and the
baffling turns and dodges of the prey make the life of the hunt.
A dictionary would spoil it. Sometimes a single word of doubtful
purport will cast a veil of dreamy and golden uncertainty over a
whole paragraph of cold and practical certainties, and leave steeped
in a haunting and adorable mystery an incident which had been vulgar