[Gutenberg 43005] • The Inevitable

The Inevitable, by Louis Couperus

CHAPTER I

The Marchesa Belloni’s boarding-house was situated in one of the healthiest, if not one of the most romantic quarters of Rome. One half of the house had formed part of a villino of the old Ludovisi Gardens, those beautiful old gardens regretted by everybody who knew them before the new barrack-quarters were built on the site of the old Roman park, with its border of villas. The entrance to the pension was in the Via Lombardia. The older or villino portion of the house retained a certain antique charm for the marchesa’s boarders, while the new premises built on to it offered the advantages of spacious rooms, modern sanitation and electric light. The pension boasted a certain reputation for comfort, cheapness and a pleasant situation: it stood at a few minutes’ walk from the Pincio, on high ground, and there was no need to fear malaria; and the price charged for a long stay, amounting to hardly more than eight lire, was exceptionally low for Rome, which was known to be more expensive than any other town in Italy. The boarding-house therefore was generally full. The visitors began to arrive as soon as October: those who came earliest in the season paid least; and, with the exception of a few hurrying tourists, they nearly all remained until Easter, going southward to Naples after the great church festivals.

Some English travelling-acquaintances had strongly recommended the pension to Cornélie de Retz van Loo, who was travelling in Italy by herself; and she had written to the Marchesa Belloni from Florence. It was her first visit to Italy; it was the first time that she had alighted at the great cavernous station near the Baths of Diocletian; and, standing in the square, in the golden Roman sunlight, while the great fountain of the Acqua Marcia gushed and rippled and the cab-drivers clicked with their whips and their tongues to attract her attention, she was conscious of her “nice Italian sensation,” as she called it, and felt glad to be in Rome.

fiction, novel, classic, Roman park, Naples, travel, Cornélie de Retz van Loo