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Updated: June 26, 2025
Life here is reduced to its simplest elements. It is only when the little bundle has ceased to be bambino that she thinks of a larger life as possible, or wonders why women who work more hours than men, and often do a man's labor, are paid only half the men's rate. In Rome, where these lines are written, the story is the same.
But, somehow or other, I have wandered strangely from my subject. Scusi, but what has all this to do with the Bambino? The Santissimo Bambino is a very round-faced and expressionless doll, carved, as the legend goes, from a tree on the Mount of Olives, by a Franciscan pilgrim, and painted by Saint Luke while the pilgrim slept.
The old battered lamp which hangs in front of these shrines is still kept lighted by some faithful hand, and in spring-time the children will often come and lay little bunches of wild-flowers on the ledge below. 'It is for the Jesu Bambino, they will say, and their little faces grow solemn and reverent as they kneel and say a prayer. Then off again they go to their play.
"Davvero! but this was the hour of his highest favor, and I followed with the rest of the crowd till there was scarce breathing space under the clock tower, where the Magi were just coming forth to salute the Madonna and the Bambino at the stroke of the day; and the people were shouting so one could not hear the bell for cries of 'Gold! gold! Bragadin!
And it comforted them to think that the Madonna had been a real woman like themselves, and that the Jesu Bambino would stoop to bless them still, just as He leaned forward to bless the wise men in the picture. How real too would seem the old story of the meeting of Anna and Joachim at the Golden Gate, when they could gaze upon the two homely figures under the narrow gateway.
The inscrutable look of the painted face seemed but a faint reflex of the living one. "You have succeeded well," she said at last. "We will omit the Bambino." She moved slowly, graciously, toward the door, gathering the fragile sewing as she went. He started toward her suddenly conscious of her power a man again. A parting of the draperies arrested them.
She listlessly extended her arm and filled it to the brim with Cyprian and a sweetened Oriental wine which I afterward found so bitter on the deserted Lido. "Here," she said, presenting it to me, "per voi, bambino mio." "For you and for me," I said, presenting her my glass in turn. She moistened her lips while I emptied my glass, unable to conceal the sadness she seemed to read in my eyes.
An Italian version which lies before me is entitled, Canzonetta nuova, sopra la Madonna, quando si partò in Egitto col Bambino Gesù e San Giuseppe, "A new Ballad of our Lady, when she fled into Egypt with the Child Jesus and St. Joseph." It begins with a conversation between the Virgin, who has just arrived from her long journey, and the gypsy-woman, who thus salutes her: And so the story ends.
As he cast his drowsy eyes around upon the homely little room, the coarsely-painted frescoes on the walls the gaudy cups and plates arranged in a cupboard opposite the bed and on a wax Gesù Bambino, placed in state upon the mantel-piece, surrounded by a flock of blue sheep, browsing on purple grass, he could not at first remember where he was.
And she came forward to show the child to the Signora. It was a bonny baby: the whole company was united in adoration and service of the bambino. There was a moment of suspension, when religious submission seemed to come over the inn-room. Then the Signora began to talk, and it broke upon the Italian child-reverence. 'What is he called? 'Oscare, came the ringing note of pride.
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