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It is surrounded by a pretty park, and lies on a hill, which is divided into six terraces. Large conservatories stand on each side of these; and in front of them are long alleys of orange and lemon-trees. The palace has only a ground floor, and is surrounded by arbours, trees, and vines, so that it is almost concealed from view.
There are trellis-work arbours and walks covered with leafy vines or other trailing plants. There are clumps of bay-trees, plane trees, or myrtles, with marble seats beneath. There is either an avenue or a covered colonnade, where the ground is made of soft earth or sand, and where the family may take exercise by being carried in a litter up and down in the open or under the shade.
Not wishing to disturb them, I turned back through one of the arbours and approached by another path. As I slipped noiselessly along in my felt-soled shoes I heard Bertha's voice, and quite near, through the leafy tracery, I glimpsed the grey of her gown. "Why with your beauty," came the answering voice of a man, "did you not find a lover from the Royal Level?"
During all this, conversation respecting the sport rolls on. We carried away this day about a dozen or more beasts, some hares, foxes, and polecats. The night overtook us soon after we quitted the arbours. And this is the daily diversion of their Catholic Majesties. It is time now, however, to resume the thread of my narrative, from which these curious and little-known details have led me.
And now I sallied out, and with good success; for with a long engine which reached the top of the wall, I fixed the end of my ladder there, and mounted it, and sitting on the top brought my ladder easily up to me, and turned over to the other side, and with abundance of ease descended into the garden, which was the finest I had ever seen; for now, as good luck would have it, who was designed to favour me, the moon began to shine so bright, as even to make me distinguish the colours of the flowers that dressed all the banks in ravishing order; but these were not the beauty I came to possess, and my new thoughts of disposing myself, and managing my matters, now took off all that admiration that was justly due to so delightful a place, which art and nature had agreed to render charming to every sense; thus much I considered it, that there was nothing that did not invite to love; a thousand pretty recesses of arbours, grotts and little artificial groves; fountains, environed with beds of flowers, and little rivulets, to whose dear fragrant banks a wishing amorous god would make his soft retreat.
But our view at length extending and becoming more comprehensive, we begin to see parterres balancing each other, trees, statues, and arbours placed symmetrically, and that the whole is an assemblage of parts mutually reflective.
All the wood used was new and speckless, and smelt sweet and clean. The other huts were constructed with similar attention to detail. Also, one came across tables and benches in shady nooks, and arbours of the kind found in German beer-gardens. "Jehoshaphat," gasped Major Mallaby-Kelby, "this is indeed the height of war luxury."
Two, three, four hundred peasants had early in the morning beaten the country round, with hue and cry, after having enclosed it and driven all the animals together as near these arbours as possible. When in the arbour you were not allowed to stir, or to make the slightest remarks, or to wear attractive colours; and everybody stood up in silence.
It was, however, more particularly in the less sumptuous gardens, those of a more homely grace, that Pierre realised that even things have souls. Ah! that Villa Mattei on one side of the Coelius with its terraced grounds, its sloping alleys edged with laurel, aloe, and spindle tree, its box-plants forming arbours, its oranges, its roses, and its fountains!
"Attention! Stand at ease!" said Nandy, drawing himself up to the salute. "The Lord deliver us!" screamed Susannah, dropping teapot and cream-dish together: and at the sound of it a dozen gentlemen in regimentals came rushing out from their arbours.
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