Shall I go on the continent again? Yes.
To what part of it? Suppose I revisit
Austrian Italy, for the sake of renewing my
familiarity with certain views, buildings, and
pictures which once delighted me?  But let
me first ascertain whether I had any serious
drawbacks to complain of on making
acquaintance with that part of the world.
Black mirror! show me my first evening in
Austrian Italy.

A cloud rises on the magic surface—rests
on it a little while—slowly disappears. My
eyes are fixed on the cannel coal. I see
nothing, hear nothing of the world about me.
The first of the magic scenes grows visible.
I behold it, as in a dream. Away with the
ignorant Present. I am in Italy again.

The darkness is just coming on. I see
myself looking out of the side window of a
carriage. The hollow roll of the wheels has
changed to a sharp rattle, and we have
entered a town. We cross a vast square,
illuminated by two lamps and a glimmer of
reflected light from a coffee-shop window.
We get on into a long street, with heavy
stone arcades for foot-passengers to walk
under. Everything looks dark and confused;
grim visions of cloaked men flit by, all
smoking; shrill female voices rise above the
clatter of our wheels, then subside again in a
moment. We stop. The bells on the horses‘
necks ring their last tiny peal for the night.
A greasy hand opens the carriage-door, and
helps me down the steps. I am under an
archway, with blank darkness before me,
with a smiling man holding a flaming tallow
candle by my side, with street spectators
silently looking on behind me. They wear
high-crowned hats and brown cloaks,
mysteriously muffling them up to the chin.
Brigands, evidently. Pass, Scene! I am a
peaceable man, and I don't like the suspicion
of a stiletto, even in a dream.

Show me my sitting-room. Where did I
dine, and how, on my first evening in
Austrian Italy?

I am in the presence of two cheerful
slovenly waiters, with two flaring candles.
One is lighting lamps; the other is setting
brushwood and logs in a blaze in a
perfect cavern of a hearth. Where am I,
now that there is plenty of light to see
by? Apparently in a banqueting-hall, fifty
feet long by forty wide. This is my private
sitting-room, and I am to eat my little bit of
dinner in it all alone. Let me look about
observantly, while the meal is preparing.
Above me is an arched painted ceiling, all
alive with Cupids rolling about on clouds,
and scattering perpetual roses on the heads
of travellers beneath. Around me are classical
landscapes of the school which treats the
spectator to umbrella-shaped trees, calm green
oceans, and foregrounds rampant with dancing
goddesses. Beneath me is something
amazingly elastic to tread upon, smelling very like
old straw, which indeed it is, covered with a
thin drugget. This is humanely intended to
protect me against the cold of the stone or
brick flooor, and is a concession to English
prejudices on the subject of comfort. May I
be grateful for it, and take no fidgety notice
of the fleas, though they are crawling up my
legs from the straw and the drugget already.

What do I see next? Dinner on the table.
Drab-coloured soup, which will take a great
deal of thickening with grated Parmesan
cheese, and five dishes all around it. Trout
fried in oil, rolled beef steeped in succulent
brown gravy, roast chicken with water-cresses,
square pastry cakes with mince-meat inside
them, fried potatoes—all excellent. This is
really good Italian cookery: it is more
fanciful than the English and more solid than
the French. It is neither greasy nor garlicky,
and none of the fried dishes taste in the
slightest degree of lamp oil. The wine is
good, too—effervescent, tasting of the
muscatel grape, and only eighteen-pence a bottle.
The second course more than sustains the
character of the first. Small browned birds
that look like larks, their plump breasts
clothed succulently with a counterpane of
fat bacon, their tender backs reposing on
beds of savoury toast,—stewed pigeon,—a
sponge-cake pudding,—baked pears. Where
could one find a better dinner or a pleasanter
waiter to serve at table? He is neither
servile nor familiar, and is always ready to
occupy any superfluous attention I have to
spare with all the small talk that is in him.
He has, in fact, but one fault, and that
consists in his very vexatious and unaccountable
manner of varying the language in which he
communicates with me. I speak French and
Italian, and he can speak French also as well
as his own tongue. I naturally, however,
choose Italian on first addressing him,
because it is his native language. He understands
what I say to him perfectly, but he answers
me in French. I bethink myself, upon this,
that he may be wishing, like the rest of us,
to show off any little morsel of learning that
he has picked up, or that he may fancy I
understand French better than I do Italian,
and may be politely anxious to make our
colloquy as easy as possible to me. Accordingly
I humour him, and change to French
when I next speak. No sooner are the words
out of my mouth than, with inexplicable
perversity, he answers me in Italian! All through
the dinner I try hard to make him talk the
same language that I do, yet, excepting now
and then a few insignificant phrases, I never
succeed. What is the meaning of his playing
this game of philological see-saw with me?
Do the people here actually carry the national
politeness so far as to flatter the stranger by
according him an undisturbed monopoly of
the language in which he chooses to talk to
them? I cannot explain it, and dessert
surprises me in the midst of my perplexities.
Four dishes again! Parmesan cheese, macaroons,
pears and green figs. With these