So they set forth, and had gone but a little way, when the narrow street
emerged into a piazza, on one side of which, glistening and dimpling in
the moonlight, was the most famous fountain in Rome. Its murmur--not
to say its uproar--had been in the ears of the company, ever since they
came into the open air. It was the Fountain of Trevi, which draws its
precious water from a source far beyond the walls, whence it flows
hitherward through old subterranean aqueducts, and sparkles forth as
pure as the virgin who first led Agrippa to its well-spring, by her
father's door.
"I shall sip as much of this water as the hollow of my hand will hold,"
said Miriam.
"I am leaving Rome in a few days; and the tradition goes, that a
parting draught at the Fountain of Trevi insures the traveller's return,
whatever obstacles and improbabilities may seem to beset him. Will you
drink, Donatello?"
"Signorina, what you drink, I drink," said the youth.
They and the rest of the party descended some steps to the water's
brim, and, after a sip or two, stood gazing at the absurd design of the
fountain, where some sculptor of Bernini's school had gone absolutely
mad in marble. It was a great palace front, with niches and many
bas-reliefs, out of which looked Agrippa's legendary virgin, and several
of the allegoric sisterhood; while, at the base, appeared Neptune, with
his floundering steeds, and Tritons blowing their horns about him, and
twenty other artificial fantasies, which the calm moonlight soothed into
better taste than was native to them.
And, after all, it was as magnificent a piece of work as ever human
skill contrived. At the foot of the palatial facade was strewn, with
careful art and ordered irregularity, a broad and broken heap of massive
rock, looking is if it might have lain there since the deluge. Over a
central precipice fell the water, in a semicircular cascade; and from
a hundred crevices, on all sides, snowy jets gushed up, and streams
spouted out of the mouths and nostrils of stone monsters, and fell in
glistening drops; while other rivulets, that had run wild, came leaping
from one rude step to another, over stones that were mossy, slimy, and
green with sedge, because, in a Century of their wild play, Nature had
adopted the Fountain of Trevi, with all its elaborate devices, for her
own. Finally, the water, tumbling, sparkling, and dashing, with
joyous haste and never-ceasing murmur, poured itself into a great
marble-brimmed reservoir, and filled it with a quivering tide; on which
was seen, continually, a snowy semicircle of momentary foam from the
principal cascade, as well as a multitude of snow points from smaller
jets. The basin occupied the whole breadth of the piazza, whence flights
of steps descended to its border. A boat might float, and make voyages
from one shore to another in this mimic lake.