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 The Industrial

CONTROVERSIES
Current
Food Complex
The Current Controversies series examines today’s most

T he I ndustrial F ood C omplex

important social and political issues. Each volume
presents a diverse selection of primary sources
representing all sides of the debate in question.

“These are excellent resources for research or debate

that will rouse students interested in contemporary
and controversial topics.”—Booklist
The Industrial
Food Complex
Other Books in the Current
Controversies Series
Antifa and the Radical Left
Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology
The Economics of Clean Energy
Globalization
Historical Revisionism
Interference in Elections
Learned Helplessness, Welfare, and the Poverty Cycle
Soft Power and Diplomacy
Tariffs and the Future of Trade
The Two-Party System in the United States
Whistleblowers
The Industrial
Food Complex
Joellen McCarty, Book Editor
Published in 2020 by Greenhaven Publishing, LLC
353 3rd Avenue, Suite 255, New York, NY 10010

Copyright © 2020 by Greenhaven Publishing, LLC

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer.

Articles in Greenhaven Publishing anthologies are often edited for length to meet page
requirements. In addition, original titles of these works are changed to clearly present
the main thesis and to explicitly indicate the author’s opinion. Every effort is made to
ensure that Greenhaven Publishing accurately reflects the original intent of the authors.
Every effort has been made to trace the owners of the copyrighted material.

Cover image: I Love Coffee dot Today/Shutterstock.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-­Publication Data

Names: McCarty, Joellen, editor.

Title: The industrial food complex / Joellen McCarty, book editor.
Other titles: Current controversies.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Greenhaven Publishing, LLC,
2020. | Series: Current controversies | Includes bibliographical
references and index. | Audience: Grades 9–12.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019003302| ISBN 9781534505391 (library bound) | ISBN
9781534505407 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Food industry and trade—Health aspects. | Food industry and
trade—Environmental aspects. | Food industry and trade—Economic aspects.
Classification: LCC HD9000.5 .I5415 2020 | DDC 338.4/7664—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019003302

Manufactured in the United States of America

Website: http://greenhavenpublishing.com
Contents
Foreword 11
Introduction 14

Chapter 1: Does the Industrial Food Complex

Present a Public Health Problem?
Overview: Industrial Agriculture Has Fundamentally 19
Changed the Way the US Food System Functions
David Wallinga
The industrialization of agriculture has had a myriad of effects on
food production, food retail, the creation of monocultures, and the
use of pesticides on farms. Agribusiness offers food at lower prices,
but there may be hidden health and environmental costs.
Yes: The Industrial Food Complex Is a Public Health Problem
Industrial Agriculture Prevents Global Food Security 26
John Ikerd
Industrial agriculture is inherently unsustainable. Agribusiness relies
on fossil fuels, fosters nutrition-related deficiencies such as obesity,
and does not provide for the needs of developing countries.
Agribusiness’s Reliance on Monocultures Contributes 34
to Hunger
Kumi Naidoo
Agribusiness uses homogenous farming techniques and
monocultures, permanently depleting soil resources and contributing
immensely to climate change. This, in turn, results in inadequate
food supply and contributes to global hunger.
No: The Industrial Food Complex Is
Not a Public Health Problem
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) Provide 38
the Key to Global Food Security
Ramez Naam
Agribusiness funds the creation and development of GMOs. GMOs
can help large-scale farms embrace organic farming and decrease
their effect on the environment.
Industrial Agriculture Can Be Part of the Fight 45
Against Hunger in Developing Countries
Cristian Torres-León, Nathiely Ramírez-Guzman,
Liliana Londoño-Hernandez, Gloria A. Martinez-Medina,
Rene Díaz-Herrera, Víctor Navarro-Macias,
Olga B. Alvarez-Pérez, Brian Picazo,
Maria Villarreal-Vázquez, Juan Ascacio-Valdes,
and Cristóbal N. Aguilar
While food production and the byproducts that result from it can
create a large amount of waste and have negative environmental
impacts, industrial agriculture has the opportunity to be at the
forefront of efforts to reuse byproducts, which would help reduce
hunger and waste.

Chapter 2: Does the Industrial Food

Complex Encourage Obesity?
Overview: Obesity in America Is an Epidemic 54
Berkeley Wellness
Obesity rates in the United States have been increasing for a century.
Key contributors to obesity’s rise include increased daily calorie
intake, a “toxic” food environment, and a lack of exercise.
Yes: The Industrial Food Complex Encourages Obesity
Agribusiness’s Influence and Unethical Food 62
Marketing Drives Obesity in the United States
Mark Hyman
Agribusiness has created an environment in which obesity is normal
by offering primarily sugar-laden, fatty, industrially produced food.
Although this food is addictive, agribusiness shifts blame for obesity
onto consumers instead of self-regulating.
Agribusiness’s Oversize Food Portions Result in 68
Obesity
Lisa R. Young and Marion Nestle
Increased average portion sizes directly correlate to obesity rates in
the United States. Despite USDA guidelines, agribusiness continues
to promote oversize food portions.
No: The Industrial Food Complex Is
Not to Blame for Obesity Rates
USDA Policies Reward Businesses for Selling 76
Inexpensive, Unhealthy Food
David Wallinga
The United States government inadvertently encourages businesses to
supply unhealthy food choices. Only through comprehensive policy
change can obesity in the United States be combated, putting the
onus on the government rather than agribusiness.
Government Intervention in the Food Market 89
Prevents a Balanced Food Supply
Jeffrey A. Tucker
Government intervention in business has created a homogenous,
cheap, unhealthy supply. If the government were less involved in the
market, affordable prices and healthy options would naturally align
more closely.

Chapter 3: Does the Industrial Food

Complex Harm the Environment?
Overview: Agriculture’s Industrialization 95
Currently Relies on Fossil Fuels
Richard Heinberg and Michael Bomford
Industrial agriculture has lowered food prices and helped banish
famine. It currently relies on unsustainable practices that harm the
environment. However, it is possible for agribusiness to transition to
a more sustainable model.
Yes: The Industrial Food Complex Negatively
Impacts the Environment
Industrial Farms Pollute the Air 104
The Earth Institute
Farm emissions from fertilizers, animal waste, and ammonia are
the biggest contributors to air pollution in the United States. This
pollution results in climate change and watershed pollution, and it
can cause heart disease.
Industrial Agriculture Dangerously Pollutes the 107
Earth in Multiple Ways
The Food Empowerment Project
Factory farming contaminates the air, the water supply, and the land.
Factory farms are inherently unsustainable, and consumers should
support small, organic farms instead.
Industrial Agriculture Mandates Deforestation 115
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations
Industrial agriculture grows at the expense of natural resources—
particularly forests. It is possible to achieve food security without
deforestation, but agribusiness continues to use unsustainable
practices.
No: The Industrial Food Complex Does
Not Harm the Environment
Agribusiness Can Promote and Adhere to 119
Sustainable Agriculture Practices
Natasha Geiling
Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and the Forest Trust adopted a
no-deforestation policy, demonstrating that agribusiness can be both
industrialized and sustainable.
Consumer Actions Result in Agribusiness 123
Turning to Sustainable Practices
Olivia Boyd
After consumer campaigns, Coca-Cola vowed to become more
sustainable. This demonstrates that the power and responsibility to
change agribusiness’s environmental practices lies with the consumer.
Industrial Agriculture Is More Effective at 128
Environmental Conservation than Small Farms
Ted Nordhaus
Arguments against industrial agriculture represent a fundamental
misunderstanding of what it is and how it fits into the food system.
The technologies used by industrial farms allow food to be produced
as efficiently as possible, which allows more people to be fed with less
environmental impact.
The Cattle Industry Could Help Fight Climate 137
Change
Jay Walljasper
The cattle industry is often blamed for emitting large amounts of
carbon into the atmosphere, which is considered a leading cause
of climate change. However, through sustainable grazing practices,
cattle farming could play a key role in carbon sequestration—the
removal of existing carbon from the atmosphere.

Chapter 4: Does the Industrial Food

Complex Increase Economic Inequality?
Overview: The Food System Is Inextricably Linked 147
to Wider Struggles in Economic Inequality and
Systemic Racism
Anna Brones
Systemic practices demonstrate the unequal distribution of
healthy food choices. However, diverse populations continue to be
underrepresented in conversations about food justice.
Yes: The Industrial Food Complex
Increases Income Inequality
Agricultural Dumping Increases Income Inequality 157
Worldwide
Sophia Murphy and Karen Hansen-Kuhn
Dumping—exporting a product below production cost—creates
economic struggles for farmers in the United States and around the
world.
Agribusiness Employs Undocumented Immigrants 161
at Unlivable Wages
Sadhbh Walshe
Factory farms, with tacit approval from the United States
government, exploit immigrant labor to keep prices low.
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The Fast Food Industry Profits Off of Struggling 165
Workers
Katey Troutman
Beyond unequal pay for agricultural laborers, inequality in the food
industry also extends to fast food workers. The fast food industry is
wildly profitable and only continues to grow. But despite this, fast
food workers are paid so little that they are often also enrolled in
public assistance programs.
No: The Industrial Food Complex Does
Not Encourage Income Inequality
Agribusiness Can Promote International Economic 171
Development and Sustainability
Catherine Ward
Agribusiness, employing over one billion people worldwide, is
uniquely poised to decrease income inequality. If support emerges
for agricultural labor unions, worker advocacy organizations, and
universal education, agribusiness could be crucial in fostering a
better, more just food system.
Agriculture Could Be Instrumental in Increasing 177
Africa’s Wealth
Akinwumi Adesina
As Africa continues to industrialize, agriculture is likely to become
the biggest business sector, helping Africa as a continent become a
player in the international economy.
The World Trade Organization Is to Blame for 181
Inequality in Agriculture, Not Agribusinesses
Timothy A. Wise and Sophia Murphy
While dumping is undeniably an issue for farmers around the
world, the trade practices enforced by the World Trade Organization
are ultimately to blame for inequality. It is the World Trade
Organization’s responsibility to promote development and fairness in
the food system, and so far it has failed.

Organizations to Contact 186

Bibliography 191
Index 195
Foreword

C ontroversy is a word that has an undeniably unpleasant

connotation. It carries a definite negative charge. Controversy
can spoil family gatherings, spread a chill around classroom and
campus discussion, inflame public discourse, open raw civic
wounds, and lead to the ouster of public officials. We often feel that
controversy is almost akin to bad manners, a rude and shocking
eruption of that which must not be spoken or thought of in polite,
tightly guarded society. To avoid controversy, to quell controversy,
is often seen as a public good, a victory for etiquette, perhaps even
a moral or ethical imperative.
Yet the studious, deliberate avoidance of controversy is
also a whitewashing, a denial, a death threat to democracy. It
is a false sterilizing and sanitizing and superficial ordering of
the messy, ragged, chaotic, at times ugly processes by which a
healthy democracy identifies and confronts challenges, engages
in passionate debate about appropriate approaches and solutions,
and arrives at something like a consensus and a broadly accepted
and supported way forward. Controversy is the megaphone, the
speaker’s corner, the public square through which the citizenry finds
and uses its voice. Controversy is the life’s blood of our democracy
and absolutely essential to the vibrant health of our society.
Our present age is certainly no stranger to controversy.
We are consumed by fierce debates about technology, privacy,
political correctness, poverty, violence, crime and policing, guns,
immigration, civil and human rights, terrorism, militarism,
environmental protection, and gender and racial equality. Loudly
competing voices are raised every day, shouting opposing opinions,
putting forth competing agendas, and summoning starkly different
visions of a utopian or dystopian future. Often these voices attempt
to shout the others down; there is precious little listening and
considering among the cacophonous din. Yet listening and

11 x
The Industrial Food Complex

considering, too, are essential to the health of a democracy. If

controversy is democracy’s lusty lifeblood, respectful listening and
careful thought are its higher faculties, its brain, its conscience.
Current Controversies does not shy away from or attempt to
hush the loudly competing voices. It seeks to provide readers with
as wide and representative as possible a range of articulate voices
on any given controversy of the day, separates each one out to allow
it to be heard clearly and fairly, and encourages careful listening
to each of these well-crafted, thoughtfully expressed opinions,
supplied by some of today’s leading academics, thinkers, analysts,
politicians, policy makers, economists, activists, change agents, and
advocates. Only after listening to a wide range of opinions on an
issue, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each argument,
assessing how well the facts and available evidence mesh with the
stated opinions and conclusions, and thoughtfully and critically
examining one’s own beliefs and conscience can the reader begin
to arrive at his or her own conclusions and articulate his or her
own stance on the spotlighted controversy.
This process is facilitated and supported in each Current
Controversies volume by an introduction and chapter overviews
that provide readers with the essential context they need to begin
engaging with the spotlighted controversies, with the debates
surrounding them, and with their own perhaps shifting or nascent
opinions on them. Chapters are organized around several key
questions that are answered with diverse opinions representing all
points on the political spectrum. In its content, organization, and
methodology, readers are encouraged to determine the authors’
point of view and purpose, interrogate and analyze the various
arguments and their rhetoric and structure, evaluate the arguments’
strengths and weaknesses, test their claims against available facts
and evidence, judge the validity of the reasoning, and bring into
clearer, sharper focus the reader’s own beliefs and conclusions and
how they may differ from or align with those in the collection or
those of classmates.

x 12
 Foreword

Research has shown that reading comprehension skills

improve dramatically when students are provided with compelling,
intriguing, and relevant “discussable” texts. The subject matter of
these collections could not be more compelling, intriguing, or
urgently relevant to today’s students and the world they are poised
to inherit. The anthologized articles also provide the basis for
stimulating, lively, and passionate classroom debates. Students who
are compelled to anticipate objections to their own argument and
identify the flaws in those of an opponent read more carefully, think
more critically, and steep themselves in relevant context, facts, and
information more thoroughly. In short, using discussable text of the
kind provided by every single volume in the Current Controversies
series encourages close reading, facilitates reading comprehension,
fosters research, strengthens critical thinking, and greatly enlivens
and energizes classroom discussion and participation. The entire
learning process is deepened, extended, and strengthened.
If we are to foster a knowledgeable, responsible, active, and
engaged citizenry, we must provide readers with the intellectual,
interpretive, and critical-thinking tools and experience necessary
to make sense of the world around them and of the all-important
debates and arguments that inform it. We must encourage them not
to run away from or attempt to quell controversy but to embrace
it in a responsible, conscientious, and thoughtful way, to sharpen
and strengthen their own informed opinions by listening to
and critically analyzing those of others. This series encourages
respectful engagement with and analysis of current controversies
and competing opinions and fosters a resulting increase in the
strength and rigor of one’s own opinions and stances. As such, it
helps readers assume their rightful place in the public square and
provides them with the skills necessary to uphold their awesome
responsibility—guaranteeing the continued and future health of
a vital, vibrant, and free democracy.

13 x
Introduction

“The question of what to have for

dinner assails every omnivore, and
always has. When you can eat just
about anything nature has to offer,
deciding what you should eat will
inevitably stir anxiety.”
- Michael Pollan, American
journalist and activist1

F or many in the United States, deciding what to eat is no longer

just a matter of survival; what one eats links back to diet
concerns, debates over the role of businesses and governments,
political stances, the power of the individual to create change,
and, unavoidably, the complicated system known as the industrial
food complex. The industrial food complex encompasses a global
network of businesses that produce and supply most of the world’s
food. The complex includes agriculture, manufacturing, food
processing, advertising and marketing, food distribution, food
service, as well as research and food lobbying. The simple act of
deciding what to cook for dinner puts each of us in contact with
the industrial food complex.
Industrialization drastically changed the way the United States
interacts with food. Since the 1950s, the farm system has rapidly
industrialized.2 The old methods of family farming—farms run by
individuals or families growing a variety of crops for personal and
public use, including feed for animals—were replaced by industrial
farms. An industrial farm is owned by a corporation rather than a

x 14
 Introduction

family, and as industries grew, industrial farms laid claim to more

and more land. Industrial farms drastically increased production
scales not only through land use, but also by focusing on one or two
products instead of a myriad. This method of farming is known as
a monoculture. In particular, large industrial farms often focus on
corn, which is cheap to grow and used for a variety of purposes.
Corn is harvested and turned into products such as corn syrup,
and it is also used as a replacement for traditional animal feed.
By using fossil fuels and pesticides, industrialized farms are able
to produce a much larger volume of products at cheaper prices,
which translates into less expensive food for the average consumer.
Today, in parts of the Midwestern United States, 90 percent of
farmland is used for corn or soybeans.3 As corn flourishes, so does
the industry surrounding it, creating new technological innovations
such as genetically modified crops.
The industrial food complex may begin with farms, but it
doesn’t end with them—the complex includes producers, suppliers,
advertisers, and retailers—concluding with the food found in
grocery stores or restaurants. However, politicians, farmers,
activists, scholars, and consumers are concerned with the possible
hidden costs of the industrial food complex. One possible hidden
cost is the environmental impact. Industrial farms and agribusiness
generally rely on fossil fuels and pesticides in order to maintain
their production and planting cycles. Agribusiness is linked to
deforestation, air pollution, and water pollution.
Another possible hidden cost is to public health. Any severe
ecological cost will take its toll on the human population as well.
Some argue that the environmental unsustainability of industrial
agriculture places food security at risk.4 Agribusiness, critics argue,
depletes natural resources to the extent that once-farmable land
is now barren.5 The fertilizers factory farms use pollute the water
supply, damaging one necessary ingredient for food growth. Further
public health risks include nutrition-related diseases. In 2018, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that

15 x
The Industrial Food Complex

the obesity rate was at 39.8%, affecting nearly 93.3 million adults in
the United States.6 Many link unhealthy food options—provided
cheaply and often by agribusiness—to growing obesity rates.7
A final consideration is the industrial food complex’s relationship
to economic inequality. It has been perceived alternately as both
increasing and decreasing economic inequality. Providing food
at low costs means more people can afford to sustain themselves,
and the industrial food complex creates jobs in many areas and on
various levels, both skilled and unskilled. However, industrial farms
replace family farms, which have become increasingly less common
since the 1950s.8 There are concerns over low wages in the fast food
industry and for farm workers around the world, as well as over the
availability of healthy food options in low-income communities.
At the heart of these debates is a larger discussion: How does and
how should the government, businesses, and consumers mediate
one another? Are businesses responsible for—and ultimately
invested in—the public good? Are consumers responsible on an
individual level for what they eat, and are they responsible for
demanding that businesses make more sustainable choices? How
should the government mediate disputes between agribusiness and
smaller farms, as well as those regarding agribusiness’s impact on
the environment?
Eating is non-negotiable. However, what we eat, why we
eat, and what we should be eating is up for debate. Throughout
Current Controversies: The Industrial Food Complex, environmental
activists, journalists, policy experts, and scholars will discuss and
debate these key questions.

Notes
1. The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan, pg. 4.
2. “Today’s Food System: How Healthy Is It?” David Wallinga, https://www.ncbi.nlm
.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3489133/.
3. “Today’s Food System: How Healthy Is It?” David Wallinga, https://www.ncbi.nlm
.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3489133/.
4. “Can Industrial Agriculture Provide Global Food Security?” John Ikerd, http://
web.missouri.edu/ikerdj/papers/California%20-%20IPDC%20-%20Small%20
Farms.htm.

x 16
 Introduction

5. “Pollution (Water, Air, Chemicals),” Food is Power, http://www.foodispower.org

/pollution-water-air-chemicals/.
6. “Adult Obesity Facts,” CDC, https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html.
7. “Inside the Food Industry: The Surprising Truth about What You Eat,” Joanna
Blythman, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/feb/21
/a-feast-of-engineering-whats-really-in-your-food.
8. “Today’s Food System: How Healthy Is It?” David Wallinga, https://www.ncbi.nlm
.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3489133/.

17 x
 Chapter
1
Does the Industrial
Food Complex
Present a Public
Health Problem?

x 18
Industrial Agriculture Has
Fundamentally Changed the Way
the US Food System Functions
David Wallinga
David Wallinga is a senior health advisor for the Natural Resources
Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit environmental advocacy
organization. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science
from Dartmouth College, a master’s degree in public affairs from
Princeton University, and completed medical school at the University
of Minnesota.
[…]

P rior to the late 1950s, farms in the upper Midwest, the American
“Corn Belt,” grew row crops like corn and soybeans but only
on about half the farmland, where it was interspersed with other
small grains, hay, and pasture. Grain, hay, and pasture on the
farm typically were not commoditized or sold but were fed to
one or more kinds of animals on the same farm.1 It was a type of
food production system where the farming and the health of the
ecosystem were closely linked and environmental degradation was
uncommon, as Altieri and Nicholls2 have described:
[C]rop yields in agricultural systems depended on internal
resources, recycling of organic matter, built-in biological control
mechanisms and rainfall patterns. Agricultural yields were modest,
but stable. Production was safeguarded by growing more than
one crop or variety in space and time in a field as insurance
against pest outbreaks or severe weather. Inputs of nitrogen were
gained by rotating major field crops with legumes. In turn rotations
suppressed insects, weeds and diseases by effectively breaking the
life cycles of these pests (p. 13).

David Wallinga, “Today’s Food System: How Healthy Is It?” Journal of Hunger &
Environmental Nutrition, Taylor & Francis Group, December 11, 2009.

19 x
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The Industrial Food Complex

The farm family lived there on the farm and performed most
of the labor themselves with little or no hired help or specialized
machinery.2 They too were an integral part of the agro-ecosystem;
their health and well-being were intimately tied to it. That typical
integrated Midwestern farm of a few decades ago is well on its
way to extinction.

What Is Meant by Industrialization?

Over the last 150 years, industrialization slowly transformed
American agriculture, including the mindset of farmers. New
technologies have been one important driver of industrialization:
the advent of cheap, abundant fossil fuels; the innovation of new
higher-yielding plant and animal breeds; farm mechanization;
and changes in railroads, highways, and other transportation
infrastructure, as well as in refrigeration, making it easier to
ship agricultural products to distant points. Industrialization
has transformed American agriculture from a local, smaller-
scale enterprise where most of the needs of the farm were met by
on-farm resources into a much more specialized enterprise, one
consolidated into ever fewer and more massive farms, where off-
farm resources such as fossil fuel energy, pesticides, and fertilizers
are used intensively. Specialization means that whereas the typical
American farm once produced many different things (e.g., corn,
oats, wheat, chickens, hogs, cows, milk, etc.), including both crops
and animals, it now produces just one or two commodities, and
crop production has been “delinked” from the raising of food
animals to which most grains and other grasses on the farm used
to be fed.
The specialization, scale, and resource intensiveness of
industrialized agriculture all impact on human and ecosystem
health in ways that are best appreciated from a systems perspective.
For example, the delinking of crop from animal production has
rendered infeasible a number of practices that historically provided
important services adding to the health and resilience of the food
production system. Rotation of corn with soybeans or other

x 20
 Does the Industrial Food Complex Present a Public Health Problem?

nitrogen-fixing crops helped replenish soil nitrogen; the growing

of multiple crops (“multicropping”) also helped to suppress the
lifecycles of pests and disease.2 Animals once provided cheap
horsepower for crop production, and animal manure plus crop
refuse (corn stover, etc.) in turn was recycled to restore organic
matter and fertility into soil as part of a low-cost, closed-loop
system. Soils high in organic content can sequester more carbon,
better resist erosion, and help retain more rainwater, making
them more resilient during drought. Indirect impacts of the loss
of these ecosystem functions on human health are discussed in
the following section.
Over the last 5 decades especially, the changes begun under
the initial industrialization of agricultural crystallized into what
Lang and Heasman have termed a productionist mindset—placing
short-term quantity or yield over all other priorities. This has
become the dominant 20th-century outlook for the food system
not only in the United States but globally.3

What Does Agricultural

Industrialization Look Like?
Under industrialized or productionist agriculture, rural farm
landscapes have transformed in appearance; once diverse landscapes,
agro-ecosystems comprised of mixtures of crops, animals, pastures
and woodlots, have given way to “monocultures”—ever-larger
homogeneous farms, specializing in a single commodity. In
ecological and economic terms as well, this transformation has
been dramatic. In some counties in the heart of the Corn Belt over
90% of farmland is planted in corn or soybeans1 and increasingly
in just corn. Moderately sized Iowa farms (100 to 500 acres) are
disappearing;4 of the farms that remain, 60% are larger than
1000 acres.1
Economies of scale in the production of single commodities,
or monocultures, helped precipitate the trend toward larger
farms, with more acres under till.1 Ever larger machinery meant
that greater acreage in corn and soybeans could be planted

21 x
The Industrial Food Complex

and then harvested in very narrow calendar windows, sparing

labor.5 Specially designed seed varieties plus the use of insecticides
made it possible in the short term to grow only corn, year after
year, without significant yield consequences. Herbicide-tolerant
soybean breeds also have reduced the summer hours previously
needed to “walk the beans” for the control of weeds.
Since Corn Belt farms are increasingly devoted to monocultures
of single crops, crop farmers have no animals to tend, and the help
of machinery, fuels, and new seeds means less time than ever is
required to plant, weed, and harvest their huge acreage. As a result,
today’s crop farmer has few reasons to be on the farm for most
of the year. Second jobs are typical. From within the industrial
agricultural economic model, these changes typically are perceived
as gains in efficiency.
Bigger machines and chemical-intensive production [have]
made farming much more capital intensive, however. An estimated
half a million dollars in capital are required to support a farm
today, raising a significant economic barrier for the entry of new
farmers.6 With more than 60% of farm operators 55 years of age
or older in 1997, this looms as an important issue.
In addition, because crop farmers are now delinked from the
animal-related fertilizer and recycling practices that previously
added health and resilience to on-farm systems, they have turned
instead to off-farm resources or “inputs.” Along with specialization,
the intensive use of these inputs is a hallmark of industrialized
production. Moving from horses or oxen to mechanized tractors,
farmers traded farm “tools” that could be fed on forage to ones fed
only on fossil fuels. Crop monocultures, made possible by the use
of hybrid seed varieties fertilized with inorganic off-farm, natural
gas-derived fertilizers, have replaced diverse multicropping systems
that were fertilized by on-farm manure or other organic residues.
Crop monocultures, however, also encourage pest outbreaks by
concentrating the opportunities for pests (rodent, insect, and weed)
of these crops to thrive while also undermining the integrated
ecosystems that might play host to the natural enemies of these

x 22
 Does the Industrial Food Complex Present a Public Health Problem?

pests.6 The new plant hybrids, like “Roundup Ready” corn or

soybeans, therefore have been specially designed to tolerate heavy
applications of herbicides without being killed themselves. The
patented seeds, which must be purchased annually from off-farm,
in some cases replace seeds collected on-farm for free by the farmer.
The herbicides too are derived from off-farm petroleum.
Movement of animals off-farm has made the on-farm use of
organic manure impractical or uneconomic or both. What has
been lost is more than just an inexpensive, on-farm source of
fertility. Over the past few decades, crop farmers who had animal
barns or fences remaining on their property came to see them
as unproductive assets and got rid of them. Now, nondiversified
crop farmers can no longer “hedge their bets” when grain crops
fail or the prices are low, by raising and selling animal products—
their production model is more vulnerable by virtue of its lack of
diversification. As will be discussed, public policy has encouraged
this transformation.
Moving the discussion from crop to food animal production,
the increased specialization in industrialized agriculture also
has meant that animal operations focus on producing just one
species, and increasingly, one age range for that animal; for
example, facilities devoted to only small, “weaner” pigs that are
later shipped to other facilities for maturing to slaughter size.
Larger-scale production means hundreds or thousands of hogs
or poultry typically are confined indoors in a single building,
with many such facilities clustered spatially and often regionally.
Large animal numbers mean large quantities of manure waste are
generated and concentrated in these areas as well.
Off-farm resources used intensively by these industrialized
animal facilities include feed grains, water and energy, as well
as antibiotics and other feed additives. The poultry and hog
industries are the most industrialized. The most delinked from
pasture-based production, they are the systems most based on
indoor confinement of animals and therefore on feeding animals
a diet of feed grains rather than of crop residues or the other

23 x
The Industrial Food Complex

by-products on which animal production had previously relied.

The poultry and hog industries consume over 75% of cereal and
oilseed-based concentrated animal feeds, worldwide.7 Corn and
soybeans constitute 83% to 91% of these feed grains, and so 55%
to 65% of the US corn crop and 45% to 50% of its soybeans are
consumed by domestic livestock and poultry.8
Lacking the associated cropland to spread manure as
fertilizer, large-scale industrial livestock producers have found
few alternatives other than to waste it. The manure cannot be
economically transported for any distance. It therefore is often
disposed of in ways that lead to nutrient runoff and pollution of
surface and/or groundwater resources. USDA data demonstrate
that the largest industrial hog operations tend to be those with
the most manure pollution problems; that is, where manure is
disposed of as waste product rather than a productive resource.9
Industrialization of the food system, it is important to note, has
been happening globally. Further, industrialization has occurred
all along the food supply chain, as processors acquired the capacity
to preserve, store, and distribute huge volumes of food. Over
recent decades, these food processors grew both horizontally (by
buying competitors) and vertically (by buying their own suppliers
and distributors), leading to market concentration. Eventually,
this growth gave rise to increasingly global trade of grains, meat,
and other food products, which in turn became another driver
in the further industrialization of the food system. US trade
“liberalization” policies in food have had the effect of reinforcing
these patterns.
Globalization of the food system has had impacts on patterns
of resource use and pollution, as well as on social health.3, 10 Power
in the food system is shifting from the production end to food
processors and retailers that operate globally, and this has
important health implications as well.10 For example, contractual
agreements increasingly bind the financial interests of farmers to
the interests of both the buyers of their output and the suppliers of
their inputs.6 By 1997, just 163,000 farms accounted for over 61%

x 24
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up for the night at the modest little hotel bearing the name of “Zwei
Thore.” The hostess ushered us into a room with a pointed ceiling
and an enormously high bedstead. How pleasant it was to get rid of
my vow of silence, which was becoming unbearable; for a whole day
I had kept my lips sealed, although my anger had sensibly
evaporated. When the hostess left us we became reconciled upon
the spot, and all was right again.
Next morning we were back at Milan, and went to visit the
“Campo Santo.” This vast cemetery is a veritable museum. We
wandered about, looking at the tombstones, reading names and
epitaphs. I noticed a great many beautiful monuments, including
those of some fearless people who gave themselves monuments and
erected shrines during their lifetime. We admired the mausoleum of
Mario, the celebrated tenor, which is surmounted by his bust, with
his favourite “cavatina” incrusted on a metal plate. The poor folk are
buried in a remote corner of the cemetery; their tombs are all level,
with black crosses and the number of the tomb painted on white
labels. After the lapse of ten years all the bones are gathered
together in heaps, in large boxes, and placed in the charnel-house.
When we approached the Crematory Temple, we saw smoke coming
out from the chimneys, and were told that the corpse of an Austrian
engineer was being consumed at that moment. This dismal
procedure generally takes about an hour-and-a-half, and costs fifty
francs. When we entered the Crematory I felt somewhat frightened,
and the odour was so sickening that I thought I must faint, and felt
sorely in want of smelling-salts, but the guardian’s pretty daughter
seemed to feel quite at her ease in that ghastly kitchen, and ate her
luncheon with great appetite. I hadn’t the courage to peep into the
Crematory furnace, but Sergy perceived the corner of the huge
frying-pan upon which broiled the corpse of the Austrian engineer.
His wife and children, who were present at this awful ceremony,
didn’t appear much impressed by it, and chattered on gaily all the
time. It had been too much for my nerves, and when we were back
at the hotel I went straight to bed and had a good cry.
 CHAPTER XXX
VILLA D’ESTE

On the following day we started for Cernobbio to spend a week at

the Villa d’Este. Our apartment was large and airy; the marble floor
and white-washed walls looked agreeably cool, with windows and
balcony looking out on the lake, and the hotel terrace with flights of
white marble steps descending to the water’s edge. A boat
belonging to the hotel was anchored near it.
I went early to bed that night, and just as I was going to fall
asleep, I heard a chorus of men’s voices singing to a guitar
accompaniment. I jumped out of bed and saw a boat moored to the
terrace, in which a dozen men, gifted with fresh, strong voices, were
giving us a serenade. The moon came up at that moment, silvering
the lake and lighting up the scene. I leant out of the window to
throw some coins in the direction of the singers, who were making
the round of the group of visitors who had gathered on the terrace. I
was very much disenchanted when I was told that these minstrels
were, all of them, citizens of Como, who, having their day’s work
done, floated on the lake and sang ballads.
Time passed slowly, one day like another. The heat obliged us to
stay indoors all the afternoon, and I was glad to rest in our cool
room. After dinner, we took long walks in the park surrounding the
hotel, with mediæval castles, turrets, fountains and water-falls. On
the top of a hillock stands a pavilion named Il Bello Sguardo, from
which you have a full view of the lake. One morning we went for a
row on the lake. I was at the wheel, and Sergy, taking off his coat,
rowed on for an hour or more. Our light skiff flew like a bird on the
beautiful lake, which is fifty miles long. The shores are lovely,
surrounded by hills covered with fig-trees, olive-trees, pine-trees,
like big open umbrellas, and rich vineyards. The edges of the lake
are strewn with pretty villas of the nobility of Milan, with splendid
gardens stretching down to the water. The wonderful southern
vegetation amazed us; orange and lemon trees, laden with fruit,
grow in groves in the open air. As there is no road, there is no
approach but by water to the villas; nearly all of them have a small
separate embankment. One of the prettiest villas belongs to Taglioni,
the renowned ballet dancer, who in long past days delighted our
grandfathers. A little further on we saw the villa belonging to Mme.
Pasta, the celebrated French actress. On its frescoed fronts different
musical instruments are painted. Bellini once upon a time had been
on a visit to Mme. Pasta, and the piano on which the great composer
had improvised his music, is kept there as a relic.
We went another day by steamer to Menaggio. The hills that
encircled these shores are covered by poor vegetation, only dull olive
trees here and there. We were startled by the formidable report of
the dynamite blowing up the rocks which are to serve for the
building of houses; the hills all around caught up the sound and
echoed it from one to the other.
From Menaggio to Porlezza we continued our trip in a carriage,
and took the boat again to Lugano. The Swiss frontier begins on the
middle of the lake, and thus, for a short time, we found ourselves on
Helvetic waters. Towards night we returned to Como by the railway.
Baron Rosen, the Russian military attaché at Rome, came to spend
two or three days at the Villa d’Este. We saw a great deal of him; he
devoted his whole attention to me, and offered me his escort for
moonlight promenades, but I preferred to regain prosaically my bed
rather than stroll with him about the moonlit park. He called me
obstinate and matter-of-fact, and said that I had warm water instead
of blood, and that, like the “Sleeping Beauty in the Woods,” I was
asleep to the whole of life’s pleasures, leading the existence of a
nun; but his agreeable task to wake me up did not succeed.
The heat continued to be overpowering, then one morning, after
many days of waiting, the rain fell, but in the afternoon, the sun was
ablaze, and again there was no breath of air in the overheated
atmosphere.
During dinner that same day, I saw by the expression of Sergy’s
face that he was preparing a surprise for me. And, in fact, he made
me awfully happy by announcing that instead of establishing me at
Frau Weidemann’s boarding-house, he would take me with him to
Piacenza, a small town in the neighbourhood of which the
manœuvres would take place. And thus it was settled that we should
start on the following day for the Baromees Islands on Lake
Maggiore, and go straight from there to Piacenza.
We left the train at Verona and took the boat, coasting along Lake
Maggiore. We passed Isola Madre and moored at Isola Bella, the
residence of the Counts Barromée, who dwell here only in autumn,
but the beautiful feudal castle and gardens are open to the public. A
smart footman showed us all over the place, after which we took a
row-boat and crossed over to Isola Peschia, a fishing village with
only nets all along the shore hanging out to dry, and a fishy smell
over it all. On the water edge small boats were moored and a group
of fishermen were sitting on the shore, mending their nets and
counting their day’s catch. Suddenly I heard someone calling
“Romeo!” I turned round and beheld a fisher-lad, bare-legged, with
clothes in tatters, and a dirty fish-basket over his arm, looking most
unromantic, and bearing very little resemblance to the Shakesperian
hero.
On our return to Isola Bella, we took the train to Milan, where we
arrived at sunset. Before we went to bed, it was settled that we
should go next morning to Piacenza. When I awoke, Sergy made me
understand that it would be far more convenient for him to go first
by himself to Piacenza, in order to look out for a lodging for me. I
was foolish enough to feel horribly hurt, and to take it into my head
that my husband wanted to get rid of me. “Oh! very well, be it so!” I
said to myself, and made the vow to await the end of the
manœuvres at Cernobbio at Frau Weidemann’s boarding-house; and,
acting on blind impulse, with quick tears rising to my eyes, I told
Sergy I did not want him to be bothered with me and intended to
start with the first train to Como. Having said my say I began
instantly to throw my things into my trunk in petulant haste, drying
my tears with quick, impatient dashes. Sergy tried to talk some
common sense into me, but to reason with me at that moment was
impossible; what I once made up my mind to do, I would do, no
matter how hard it was. Sergy insisted upon accompanying me to
Cernobbio. We had to be at the station by eight o’clock, but with all
these parleys we missed the train, and Sergy, knowing my tempers
to be of short duration, was very glad of it, thinking that it was just
as well that I should be allowed a little time to recover my good-
humour. But I made out that there was another train about nine.
When we had secured a compartment to ourselves, I drew myself
far into my corner and pulled down my veil to hide my tears, feeling
as if I was going off to prison. We rolled on towards Como in gloomy
spirits; the journey was a very silent one. How stupid of me to have
made that vow, but it was too late to alter matters now, and pride,
holding me back, I had to stand firm. Nevertheless I blamed myself
bitterly. All the pleasure of our trip was at an end.
 CHAPTER XXXI
CERNOBBIO

Frau Weidemann, a comely, grey-haired woman, in a frilled cap

and white apron, came out to receive us and wish us welcome. She
had taken us for a honeymoon couple, and thought that we started
forth on our wedding trip. Her boarding-house is a quiet family sort
of establishment, but the whole effect of my apartment was rather
cheerless, and the boarding-house surroundings were distasteful to
me. The furniture was old and shabby, with faded curtains and
threadbare carpet in the middle of the room. Frau Weidemann’s
prices are very moderate, I pay eight francs per day for board with a
room. I have arranged to have breakfast and lunch in my own room,
but must go down to dinner at table-d’hôte, which I do not like at
all.
My windows look out on the lake and bit of garden belonging to
our boarding-house. Just before dinner I looked out of the window
and discovered our hostess sitting in the garden, holding a bit of
crotchet in her fingers. I found that she had altered in a most
surprising way, and was utterly metamorphosed and unrecognisable,
transformed into a portly lady, wearing a black silk dress, with hair
beautifully dressed.
When we entered the dining-room we saw Frau Weidemann
presiding at the dinner table, looking very prim and dignified. All her
boarders were present: A Russian lady—Mme. N⸺ and her
daughter, Melle. Nadine, future opera-singer, studying singing with
Professor Lamperti, the first singing master of the day. Then came
Fräulein Weltmann, a maiden lady of ripe years, an ex-prima donna
still dreaming of her successes, which she alone remembers, and
who must have been once upon a time very good-looking, but it was
a thing of the past, alas. All through dinner we had to listen to the
endless stories of the brilliant days of her conquests in her vanished
youth. I remarked that in speaking of herself she generally dropped
dates. Last came an American lady, Mrs. G⸺, with her two
children, a boy and girl aged eight and ten, called Hermann and
Danys. Mrs. G⸺ is what one might call miscellaneous, she has an
American father, a Spanish mother and a German husband. Little
Danys is a Roman Catholic, and her brother is a Lutheran. Mrs. G
⸺ crossed the ocean, coming all the way from New Orleans to
Cernobbio, to prepare herself for professional work with Professor
Lamperti, who inhabits Milan in winter and comes to Cernobbio in
summer. The old mæstro has the custom to nick-name his pupils,
thus Mrs. G⸺ is called “Norma” because of her two children,
though they are not twins. Danys is a very clever little girl, and
unusually sharp for her years. This small damsel, who sat next to
Sergy at table, made shrewd observations and questions, not
unfrequently astonishing her elders. Finding it her duty to entertain
her neighbour, like a grown up person, she at once entered into
conversation: “My name’s Danys, what’s yours? Have you got any
children and how many? You are old enough to have a lot, though
your wife looks so young!” cried out the ingenuous child in a breath,
and when she was told by Frau Weidemann that little girls must not
pass remarks, the bold little maid, turning scarlet, exclaimed: “One
always asks how many children have you got when one meets for
the first time!”
Sergy returned to Milan with the evening boat, and left me a grass
widow in charge of Frau Weidemann. I suddenly felt utterly alone
and so miserable, so desolate, with no one to care about my
comings and goings! Our ladies took pity on me and said that they
would try to make me feel at home with them. As soon as Sergy left
the house, I shut myself in my room, and then my nerves failed me
altogether. I sat down on my lonely bed and cried. Then I lay down
and fell asleep and woke unhappy. Marie, the Swiss maid-of-all-work,
in very creaking boots, brought in a telegram from Sergy with my
breakfast. The day began well!
 When I went down to luncheon I was taken by storm by Danys,
who had felt one of these sudden fancies to me, which children
sometimes do form for their elders. She rushed up to me, and
flinging her arms tempestuously around my neck kissed me so
rapturously that I was afraid of being smothered.
“Melle. Vava, you’re a darling! I’m so glad you came down. I love
you so much I should like to eat you up!” cried out Danys. I am
called here by everyone Madame Vava, but Danys insisted in calling
me Melle. Vava, saying that it didn’t suit me to be called Madame
because I didn’t look at all like a married lady. Both children wanted
to sit next me at table, “Oh! sit by me!” pleaded Danys, rubbing her
cheek against my hand, “No, by me, please!” said Hermann, and I
good-naturedly placed myself between them both.
For the first few days I got on pretty well with Frau Weidemann’s
boarders, who were all showing themselves very amiable and kind to
me. One night they asked me to go to the theatre, where a
travelling troop was giving a performance. And such a theatre! We
found ourselves in a long room with a small stage at one end,
lighted by three petroleum lamps suspended from the ceiling, which
smoked horribly and were very dim; in fact they gave more smell
than light. The grey holland curtain came up by the aid of two cords
drawn through an iron ring. The band was supplied by local talent,
all the musicians being labourers and workmen from Cernobbio, our
gardener in the number, who received 20 centimes per evening. As
to the performers they were all more or less bad. It was the benefit
night of the leading actress, who was to be a mother in three
months, and you could see it at a glance. Our seats in the first row
cost only one franc. The audience consisted chiefly of Lamperti’s
pupils. Lamperti has produced many divas, Marcella Sembrich in the
number. The mæstro was present at the play. He carries very lightly
his eighty years, and has just taken, for second wife, one of his
favourite pupils, a very pretty young creature.
I am having a very dull time, and my spirits are down to zero. I do
want Sergy so badly, so very badly! Oh! if I had only not come to
that horrid Cernobbio! I am spending my days stretched in an easy-
chair, yawning over a book. Melle. Nadine’s room is next to mine,
and I can hear her singing or chatting with her intimate friend,
Baroness B⸺ a tall, rather ungainly girl, with red hands and very
bad manners. Her mother is a very troublesome, bad-tempered old
lady, embellished by a horrid black wig. She is vulgarity itself, and
resembles a cook trying to play the lady. That detestable woman
generally makes her appearance with a horrid pug-dog tucked under
one arm, which snarls at you, and flies out of her arms trying to bite
your toes.
Melle. Nadine and her friend carried on a flirtation with a young
Italian tenor, and ran after him in a most barefaced fashion,
contriving both to catch him. Melle. Nadine, who was determined to
keep him for herself, took him in hand and totally eclipsed the young
Baroness, which led to a succession of stormy scenes. I perceived
that the atmosphere was highly charged with electricity, and that
there will be a row presently. One day they had a fearful dispute
about the hero of their romance, after which the young Baroness did
not appear for a week. Her mother, wishing to reconcile the rivals,
brought over her daughter to make up her quarrel with Melle.
Nadine, but the interview was not pleasant. Melle. Nadine refused to
see her friend’s outstretched hand, at which the old Baroness flew
into a rage and fell on Melle. Nadine with fiery reproaches. “What!”
screamed the old lady at the top of her voice and rolling infuriated
eyes, “My daughter wants to make up with you and this is the way
you treat her. You base, ungrateful girl! I will never allow her after
that to set foot in your house!” Having said her say, the old Baroness
sank into an armchair, holding strong smelling-salts to her nose, and
throwing back her head, she waited for a fit of hysterics which would
not come, and two minutes after she made her exit, banging the
door after her. If I were in the place of Melle. Nadine I should have
nothing more to do with the Baroness and her daughter, but half-an-
hour afterwards I saw both young ladies seated close together on a
bank in the garden, hand in hand, mingling their tears together,
after having made each other the vow of eternal friendship.
 Melle. Nadine had another admirer in the person of Doctor
Bianchi, a forty-year old cherub, who worshipped the very ground
that she trod on, and cooed his romance into her ears like a real
troubadour. But he is far from being the ideal Lohengrin, with his
bald head and prominent abdomen. He wouldn’t have been my hero
even with more hair on his head, being rather a fool and very
ignorant, especially of geography. To him Russia represented only
snow, bears, and tallow candles. “May I ask you if you are English?”
he inquired when being presented to me.—“Russian?” he exclaimed
in blank astonishment. “Oh! I can’t believe it, you look quite
European.” Stupid fellow! I detested him after that, for I am
exceedingly tenacious in questions of patriotic pride. Doctor Bianchi
had made several times the offer of his hand and heart to Melle.
Nadine, but she refused him flatly over and over again. She treats
him very harshly and hates the very sight of him. When Doctor
Bianchi enters one door she goes out by the other. But the long-
suffering physician makes an ass of himself and continues to
persecute his lady-love with his tenacious wooing and poor Melle.
Nadine doesn’t know how to get rid of him. As for me I would have
known how to knock the calf-love out of him soon enough. What
awful idiots men make themselves when they are in love.
Our landlord, Signor Bonsignore, is a magnificent old beau, awfully
stuck up and prim, belonging to the ancient school, and suited
rather to the eighteenth century than to our modern era. He affected
an antiquated style of dress, his chin resting within the points of a
high collar, which reached to his ears. One day he came to keep me
company whilst I had my lunch in my room, and remained quite a
long time paying me old-fashioned compliments. He said that he
regretted that he had not met my second-self in his young days, and
that it was the reason why he is still single. Signor Bonsignore is an
awful old screw, one could see it by the motto carved over the door
of our dining-room saying: “One never repents of having eaten too
little.” Frau Weidemann follows the motto to the letter in respect of
her boarders, practising rigorous economy, rarely varying her scanty
menus and making mental photographs of the joints before they are
removed. My frugal breakfast, day after day, has been coffee, one
egg and insufficient bread and butter. My lunch is brought in to me
on a tray; the limited menu is unvariably composed of cold meat,
green beans and a dessert of two biscuits and half an apple. Marie,
the household treasure, whilst clearing away my scanty repasts,
always asks as if in derision: “Madame a bien mangé?” which made
me groan inwardly.
Mrs. G⸺ and Melle. Nadine came in hopelessly late to table, and
sometimes didn’t appear until after eight, keeping dinner waiting.
One day when I descended to the dining-room, a smart young man,
in the barber’s block style, wearing very yellow gloves and yellow
boots, walked in. He had a white gardenia in his buttonhole and an
eyeglass, which made him squint. Frau Weidemann introduced him
to me as Signor Gorgolli, the son of her close friend. He shook hands
with me raising his elbow to his ear, and bowed his head as politely
as the exigencies of his high collar would allow. Mrs G⸺, who
lighted up when men were present, but languished if there were
only ladies in the room, had taken extraordinary pains with her
toilette for Signor Gorgolli, and came down to dinner having put on
her most becoming gown. She was displaying her best graces to
him, and laid herself out to be irresistible, and encouraged the
young snob, which I regretted, because you could see at once that
he wasn’t the kind who needs encouragement, being thoroughly
pleased with himself and seeming to think that every woman must
fall in love with him. Edging his chair closer to where Mrs. G⸺ was
sitting, he picked out a rose from a bowl of flowers that stood on the
dinner-table, and pinned it into her low bodice. That coxcomb talked
of himself all through the course of the meal, and didn’t want to
hear what you say, only to tell you about himself. The letter “I” was
the backbone of his conversation. He said “I this” and “I that” every
time he opened his mouth; a more conceited ass I never set eyes
upon. His manner struck me as peculiarly odious. He was trying all
the time to impress the company with the idea that he belongs to a
circle in society in which he certainly never set foot, and confessed
barefacedly that his finances, being at low ebb, he was on the look-
out for a rich heiress to pay off his debts, but that in the meanwhile
he was disposed to get all the fun he could out of life, feeling far too
young to settle into a sober family man.
Signor Gorgolli came back the next day and the day after. He tried
to get up a flirtation with me and was always hanging about me,
twisting up the ends of his moustache and prepared for conquest.
He paid me compliments upon my looks and said that he came to
Cernobbio only on my account, at which I assumed an expression of
extreme innocence, and pretended not to understand what he was
driving at. He was certainly a very compromising young man, and I
tried to avoid every occasion of meeting him, but he was such a fool,
and would imagine anything except that he is not wanted.
Presuming young idiot!
One afternoon I sat with a book on the veranda whilst our ladies
were out shopping, and Signor Gorgolli, who was quick to take
advantage of it, came to keep me company. I grasped the fact that
he intended to stay with me, and began to wish the ladies would
come back. In the street a hand-organ was reeling out a waltz, and I
was reckless enough to give Signor Gorgolli a dance. He put his arm
round me and held me very tight. I had done wrong in allowing my
hand to stay in his a second or two longer than necessary. Dating
from that afternoon he became bolder than ever, and ventured even
to press my hand under the table-cloth during dinner. I never heard
of such impudence! The matter was going a bit too far, and I began
to crush him with my scorn, and soon put him back to his proper
place in throwing his photograph, which he had just given me, into
the waste-paper basket, whilst he pulled his moustache and looked
silly. He left the room feeling terribly snubbed. A week went by and I
saw nothing of him. I was awfully glad to be free from his detestable
society. He might go to Jericho for what I cared.
The evenings were getting longer, and dragged like an eternity. To
shorten them somehow we played society games and puzzles, which
bored me to death and made me yawn.
 One night after I had gone to bed, a terrible storm arose;
ceaseless lightning harrowed the sky, and the rain came pouring
down. Suddenly one of my windows was blown open. I jumped out
of bed and went to shut it, and was nearly carried away by a gust of
wind. After having wedged the frames with matches I crept back to
bed, when bang! bang!! went the windows, and I had to get up
again, and the match work had to be done all over once more.
When I awoke next morning I opened the window and breathed the
fresh pure air with delight. The mist was hanging like a grey curtain
across the lake and the swallows were flying low over the water.
From afar I heard the church bells ringing the Ave Maria. As a
contrast to this peaceful scene, I saw under my window our cook
chasing the hens, innocently awaiting their hasty doom in the patch
of garden which was the resort of Frau Weidemann’s fowls. The
pacha of these poor victims, a little crested cock, didn’t seem to
remark the diminution of his harem, and continued to fling out his
shrill Koukarikou joyously.
The little Americans are quite their own masters. They are running
about all day without no one to look after them, and spend most of
their time in quarrelling, flying at each other’s faces, pulling each
other by the hair, and pinching, and scratching. I hear Danys’s shrill
little voice coming from the garden, shouting orders to her brother,
“Hermann, go in the shade!” but he would not obey and paid no
heed to her repeated calls to be quiet.
Hermann’s sole idea of pleasure was making others miserable. He
was full of mischief, and took delight in provoking his sister, and
teased her constantly. One day he glued the hair of Danys’s favourite
doll, and she broke, in revenge, the legs of all the animals in his
Noah’s ark.
Another day Danys entered into a loud detail of grievances of
which her brother was the cause. She had to keep strict watch on
him; but he did everything that he was told not to do, and gave her
a world of trouble. When he got ideas into his head, there was never
peace till he had what he wanted. He was mamma’s own pet, and
could get almost anything he liked out of her, and led her by the
nose. Whatever Hermann did, whatever Hermann said, was always
right, and Danys was always in the wrong, and had undeserved
punishment even when she was behaving in the most exemplary
manner. She was Hermann’s scapegoat and accustomed to hear
herself roughly spoken to by her mother, and always roared at. “I
wish I were as small as a needle and Hermann as big as an
elephant, perhaps I wouldn’t have always to bear the blame then!”
said poor Danys, her eyes filling with tears.
“It is perfectly true,” shouted Hermann, giving Danys a vicious
little pinch, “I can thump her as much as I like, and she doesn’t dare
to touch me even with her little finger!”
But Danys, who was in a rebellious mood just then, turned upon
him in a rage, and a resounding slap came before we could interfere,
thereupon Hermann belaboured her with his little fists, straining to
get his teeth into her hands.
Hermann was a very wicked little boy, and took delight in torturing
animals and insects. What pleased him more than anything was to
help the cook to wring the chickens’ and hens’ necks and then to
boast of it afterwards, showing us his blood-stained hands. Horrid
little creature! There never was such a child for mischief; he enjoyed
playing all sorts of tricks on Frau Weidemann. That imp of a boy
stole behind her chair when she was knitting in the garden, and took
a malicious pleasure in tangling her skeins of wool. At dinner
Hermann loved annoying Danys; the little pig dropped hair into her
soup and gave her furtive little kicks under the table. Frau
Weidemann did all she could to train him a little.
One day, just as we were sitting down to table, Hermann brought
me a radish, fresh from its bed of mould, and the hand that held it
out was evidently the spade that had dug it therefrom, and in sore
need of soap. Frau Weidemann told him that he must always be
washed and brushed before he went down to the dining-room, and
ordered him to go and wash his hands immediately, but Hermann,
who had no acquaintance with the word must, set his mouth in a
hard curve and didn’t move; he looked so obstinate that I was
strongly tempted to shake him. A more wilful boy I never saw: he’d
try the temper of a saint. But this time Frau Weidemann had her
own way, and ordered him out of the room. Hermann reluctantly
obeyed, with rage in his little heart, and dashed from the room,
banging the door with a shock that made the room rattle. Hermann
ran straight to his mother, who didn’t come down to dinner that day,
to complain of Frau Weidemann, and instead of giving him a good
scolding, Mrs. G. rewarded him with chocolates and kisses.
That night when I went to bed, passing through the dark corridor,
I suddenly felt a tight grip on my wrist, it was Hermann, who giving
an emphatic tug at my skirts, said in a husky whisper, “That’s you
who must have clean hands, because you are a young lady, and as
to me, I may have them dirty as much as I like. I cannot be always
washing myself and always thinking of my nails, like grown ups!”
Both children had got bad manners at table; they fidgeted on their
chairs, kicked their legs right and left, and were eating noisily,
rattling vigorously their knives and forks. They spilt their soup all
over their napkin and spattered jam all over themselves. They also
made a point of overeating themselves, transferring the largest and
best pieces to their plates; they had several helps of pudding and
wanted to have all the cake.
One morning Frau Weidemann caught Hermann throwing stones
at passers-by over the hedge of our garden. “What are you doing,
horrid little boy?” cried out our hostess.
“I am chasing these people away, I don’t want them to stare at
me!” declared Hermann vehemently.
“You are a bad, undutiful child!” exclaimed Frau Weidemann, “go
away, go away at once!”
But Hermann, who meant to go on being obstinate, jerking his
shoulders, retorted rudely, “Mamma told me that I am not bound to
obey Frau Weidemann, and I’ll do as I please, do you understand, as
I please, as I please!” shouted that delightful boy stamping viciously
his little foot.
Frau Weidemann losing patience, said she would have him
punished for daring to be so rude, and wouldn’t take him with his
sister for their habitual walk next morning.
Danys, with tears coursing down her cheeks, implored Hermann to
ask forgiveness, but tears and prayers were of no avail; he stuck
firmly to his chair, his nose in his picture book, dangling his feet
backwards and forwards, and would not apologise.
“I don’t propose to ask Frau Weidemann’s pardon anyhow, that’s
flat. When I am in a rage, I remain in a rage one week, two months,
a whole year!” declared Hermann, doggedly, and remained sternly
unapproachable.
When I came down to dinner that day I saw poor Danys, her eyes
all swollen, her nose red, huddled up in a chair—a picture of misery.
“We don’t go for our walk to-morrow!” she said sobbing loudly.
The next day I was writing in my room upstairs, with the windows
wide open, when suddenly I heard in the garden below my name
called in a ringing voice, “Hullo! Madame Vava, look out of the
window.” It was Hermann, success written in his sunny little
countenance, accompanied by Danys and Frau Weidemann, who
having fallen into a melting mood, was taking out the children for
their usual walk, and Hermann, radiant with triumph, wanted to
prove to me that he had it all his own way. It was Hermann who had
forced Danys to ask his forgiveness, and she had coaxed Frau
Weidemann, with kisses and pleading words, to go out for a walk
with them. She is a weak person, Frau Weidemann; I should have
kept my word in her place.
Danys also was not quite easy to manage, and was liable
sometimes to storms of temper. One afternoon all the company,
except myself, went out for a sail on the lake. Frau Weidemann, who
had forgotten to prepare a sauce for the trout we were to have at
dinner, returned home before the others with Danys, in a small row-
boat. Danys was in a fury to come back so early, and made an awful
scene with Frau Weidemann, rocking herself to and fro in a
paroxysm of grief; she fretted, foamed and turned nasty, shouting
out all her bad words, for when she loses her temper she does not
measure her language. She called down curses on Frau Weidemann
and sent her to Mephistopheles, and wished her at the bottom of the
lake, and eaten up by the mermaids. As soon as they reached home
the door of my room was dashed open and Danys flew in looking
like a fury. “That’s Frau Weidemann who insisted on coming back so
early for that horrid old sauce. I hate it and shall never eat it as long
as I live! I wish there were no sauces at all in the world, that I do!”
cried out Danys. That same day at dinner Danys was tiresome with
awkward questions: “why this,” and “why that,” and Frau
Weidemann found it necessary to stop her. “Eat your soup,” she said,
“and remember that polite little girls never interrupt people’s
speeches.” “But I say,” exclaimed Danys, turning to her with blazing
eyes and face aflame, “polite little girls can want to know what they
do not know, can’t they?” At which her mother administered a good
scolding to her and told her that if she said one word more, she
would give her a damned slap. “It isn’t me that mamma curses, it is
the slap!” said the bold little girl unabashed.
I hadn’t got any news from Sergy for several days, and wrote to
him six pages full of reproaches. I was expecting the postman’s
knock every moment, but nothing came. One morning I was sitting
at my solitary breakfast, when at last a long letter from Sergy was
brought to me. I devoured its contents. He wrote in high spirits and
gave me all the details of his life at Piacenza, and glowing accounts
of the manœuvres and all he was seeing. Two big rooms were
reserved to him at the Hotel San Marco. After lunch, on the day of
his arrival, he put on his uniform and went to present himself to the
Commandant of Piacenza, in whose drawing-room a group of foreign
officers, in the most varied uniforms, were gathered. Such a lot of
strangers was quite an event for the little town of Piacenza, which
was dressed all over with flags; a band played in the Square. When
Sergy returned to the hotel he found on his table an envelope
containing different instructions concerning the manœuvres, with
maps and programmes for every day. The military representatives
received a compliment in verse with the following inscription: Dedica
agli eccellentissimi signori, rappresentarano le nazioni, in occasione
della lora venuta a Piacenza. The representatives were entertained
with much festivity; rich banquets were given in their honour.
Twenty officers of different armies sat down to table every day: four
Austrians, one Bavarian, three Germans, two Belgians, two Swedes,
two Englishmen and three Russians. Sergy’s neighbour was a
Swedish general, an old trooper belonging to the school of “Gustav
Vasa,” who probably would never have stirred the world with any
striking discovery, being rather narrow-minded. He said to Sergy that
whilst travelling in Italy he was very much astonished that all the
railway stations were named “Uscita” (which means exit), and was
quite bewildered that in this country even children were able to
surmount the difficulties of the language, and chatted Italian quite
as a matter of course to each other! The manœuvres of one division
against the other began on the 18th August. My husband with his
brother-officers got up at daybreak and started by a special train to
“Castello Giovanni,” where a hillock, surrounded by vineyards, was
chosen as point of observation. The Marchese Cambroso gave them
a lunch in his splendid mansion that day, with champagne in
abundance; a military band played during the repast. On the
following morning the valiant sons of Mars went to Voghera, where
they put up in private houses, as there was no hotel in that small
place. Their proprietors hoisted up the flags of the different
nationalities who sheltered under their roofs. Over the house where
Sergy stopped, with two members of the Russian mission, a flag
with a double eagle floated, and in their sitting-room stood a
samovar (a Russian tea-kettle) deprived of its tap. It was Count
Bellisione who regaled the missions that day in his superb feudal
castle.
My husband seemed to be quite happy while I am pining away at
Cernobbio, and I positively could not admit that he was enjoying
himself apparently while I was gloomily brooding here alone and
miserable. How I long to go away from that hateful Cernobbio! I am
quite out of place with my surroundings and feel like a fish out of
water, thoroughly out of my element and out of tune with the whole
atmosphere, which is a very different one from that to which I was
accustomed. The relations between Frau Weidemann’s lady boarders
were not so warm as they had promised to be at first. I wanted to
be very good friends here with everybody, but our way of life is so
different and our natures are diametrically opposite; we seemed to
be as far apart as the poles. The only topic of conversation of our
lady-boarders was vocal matters, solfeggias and exercises. I tried to
keep out of their way and remained in my room as long as I could.
Frau Weidemann was far more sympathetic than her boarders; I
liked her kind, motherly ways. She tried to cheer me up and took the
greatest pains to amuse me, but I refused all propositions of
amusement and didn’t care to join their out-of-door parties. For two
weeks I had been controlling myself, but it gets worse every day.
Our lady-boarders turn up their noses at me and cut me dead. We
scarcely notice each other and only meet at table. What dismal
meals we had! It is Mrs. G— who has especially taken a dislike to
me. If wishes could have killed, I should have been dead long ago.
She detested me, I could read it in her eyes. We were at daggers
drawn. I, too, was in entire readiness to show fight, for I like people
who like me and hate those who don’t like me; it is unchristian, but I
can’t help it! I am not a quiet, woolly lamb, and if Mrs. G— wanted
to bite, I knew how to show my teeth too, and could take revenge
on her, for to be silent and let others have all their say is not my
nature.
Without the least intention of playing the eavesdropper I chanced
to overhear a word or two spoken plainly on my account by Mrs. G
—, which hadn’t been intended to reach my ears. I had not the
temperament to turn “the other cheek” at any insult; I could take
revenge, too. I tried to hold my tongue when I sat next to Mrs. G—
at table, and had to close my lips tight—tight, or else a bad word
would jump out, but the day would surely come when we should
have a regular fight. We were both in a mood when the merest
spark would cause explosion, and the spark came! At dinner one day
Mrs. G—, in the presence of her children, boasted shamelessly that
she could do very well without her husband, who, luckily for her, was
retained by business in America, whilst she was enjoying herself
across the ocean. Her vicious morality was so different from my own
that I found it necessary to give her to understand that she was a
heartless and undutiful woman, and losing all control over myself at
such cynicism, I gave her a bit of my mind, and was obliged to tell
her some truths which did not please her, after which Mrs. G—, who
has a cutting tongue, made spiteful allusions concerning Signor
Gorgolli, and asked if I ever practised what I preached, and added
that I had better be careful of myself. But I was not a bit baffled by
the sharp prick of her poisonous arrow, and not a bit afraid of her
back-handed little stabs. I knew how to answer her and hold my
ground, and got the better of her after all, having taught her not to
interfere with me.
Our hen-coop is in commotion by the advent of a cock of very
nasty plumage, it is true. The new-comer is an American chanter,
who has come from Chicago to study singing with Professor
Lamperti. At dinner I gazed with some curiosity at the Yankee, and
found him helplessly shy and utterly unattractive, with sandy-
coloured hair and features all wildly wrong; his kindest friend could
not have called him anything but ugly. His clothes had the air of
having been bought ready-made at a cheap shop and wanted
brushing badly; he wore a turned-over collar which showed his neck
far down, and a white tie, tied a good deal on one side. Our new
lodger was painfully conscious of his physical shortcomings, and if
ever a man wanted taming he did. At dinner he made all sorts of
blunders, kept his eyes on his plate all the time and hardly spoke at
all. The advent of a man of that kind was not dangerous and far
better for the peace of mind of our lady-boarders, for the new arrival
was assuredly not of the type who seek adventure; having nothing
of the hero about him he would not play the Don Juan like Signor
Gorgolli.
 The Regattas had attracted a great number of spectators on the
shore of Cernobbio. Eighteen row-boats, adorned with wreaths of
flowers, bearing each its number and denomination, were lining the
coast like race-horses ready to start. At a signal given by a cannon
shot the boats spun along rapidly in the direction of Como. I didn’t
take any interest at all in these Regattas, my thoughts being miles
away, for the manœuvres being over, I was leaving Cernobbio on the
following day. To think that to-morrow at this time I shall be with
Sergy again! I was getting so excited I didn’t know how to wait till
next morning, and went to bed as early as possible in order to
reduce the evening to its very shortest proportions. It was my last
night in that nasty place, and to-morrow I would shake the dust off
my feet!
When I awoke in the morning I felt a great happiness. I dressed
quickly and went to the window to look out for the carriage that was
to take me to the railway station. To my great pleasure all our ladies,
except Frau Weidemann, were asleep. I shall probably never set
eyes on them again. If I ever see them, it will be only in my
nightmares. I wanted to get away from here without the delay of a
minute, and was leaving the house at a quarter to seven. I set out of
Cernobbio deliciously light of heart, and hope I shall never return to
this inhospitable place again. I had a first-class compartment to
myself and felt like a schoolgirl off on her holiday. At every turn of
the wheels my heart gave a glad throb at the thought that soon I
would meet my husband, who was to arrive at Milan a few hours
after me. I have left all my sorrows at Cernobbio: all the little
bothers that were my lot were left behind. All that was done with
now, and I’ll make up for lost time, that I will!
On arriving at Milan I went straight to the Hôtel de la Ville. The
manager came up to me and made me welcome, and told me that
my husband was expected in the afternoon. I was shown into the
same apartments we had before, which made me feel quite at
home. I grew awfully impatient waiting; I could not keep still and
began to walk restlessly up and down the room, counting the
minutes when Sergy would arrive, and every little while looking at
the clock. At last I heard hurried steps in the corridor, and in an
instant Sergy held me in his arms.
After luncheon, I drove with my husband in a smart landau with a
pair of fine bays, put at our disposal by the Government, to the
Hôtel Continental where all the members of the foreign missions had
put up. Sergy wore his full uniform, on which shone many
decorations, and created a great sensation; people stopped and
turned their heads when we passed through the street. In the long
gallery of the hotel we saw groups of foreign representatives walking
about. Sergy proceeded to introduce all the officers to me. Captain
Sawyer, the aide-de-camp of General Freemantle, the English
representative, was the best looking of them all. A Spanish colonel,
Señor Achcaragua, came up by himself and begged for an
introduction. His ardent eyes fixed on mine rather frightened me.
One of his brother officers told Sergy that the colonel’s brains were
slightly touched, thanks to his somewhat stormy youth, during which
he had spent himself too much physically, being not insensible to the
Southern temperament of the Spanish ladies. During this edifying
colloquy, General Fabre, the French representative, came up to
Sergy and told him that he had just been appointed by King
Humbert “Cavaliere” of the Order of the Corona d’Italia.
“It is the arrival of my wife at Milan, which has brought me that
luck!” Sergy put in gallantly. We have invited the members of the
Russian mission to dine with us at the National that night. Just as we
were sitting down at table, an Italian officer brought the Order and
ribbon granted to Sergy by the King, and I received in the same time
a printed invitation from the Syndic of the town to assist at the
grand review of troops which was to take place on the following day.
After dinner we removed to the Hôtel de la Ville, where an
apartment was appointed to my husband. His name was on the door
“Maggiore General de Doukhovskoy,” in big white letters. I had
scarcely time to take off my hat, when General Freemantle asked for
permission to present himself to me. He was accompanied by
Captain Sawyer, a very fair specimen of the English officer; he was
considerably over six feet and looked very smart and upright in his
red uniform. That charming son of Albion paid me much attention
and was extremely entertaining, he was astonished at my English, a
language with which, from my childhood, I had been familiar. We
didn’t have five minutes’ talk before Captain Sawyer defined my
character. He called me whirlwind, and nicknamed me “Quicksilver.” I
must confess I liked Captain Sawyer, he was quite my type of man.
When the members of the English mission left us, three officers of
the German army came in, bowing with great clinking and much
ceremony. They were martial-looking individuals, with fiercely
twisted moustaches. The Teuton trio solemnly kissed my hand, sat
down for two minutes, and stiffly bowed themselves off.
Italian orderlies, speaking the language of the members of the
foreign missions, have been put to their service. The soldier allotted
to my husband, Giovanni Varallo by name, a very handsome chap,
spoke Russian very well, being born in Moscow where his parents
have a little shop. Varallo is a funny sort of type. From the very
beginning he made all sorts of blunders; he disengaged himself of
his knapsack in the drawing-room, and put his cap on the middle of
the table!
At eight o’clock the following morning we were awakened by
Varallo, who rapped sharply at our door and said that it was time to
get up. I dressed quickly, and on entering our sitting-room I saw
that Varallo had arranged it according to his idea of a lady’s
requirements. To complete all he was holding my hat at the moment
and insisted on brushing it with the blacking brush!
Mme. Favre, the wife of the French General, asked me to drive
with her to the parade ground, our husbands having started
together some minutes before us. We went first to the railway
station to see the arrival of the King and Queen from Monzo, the
Royal summer residence. On stepping out of the train King Humbert,
mounted on horseback, and Queen Margareta took her place in a
victoria, bowing graciously on right and left. The Italians do not
cheer their sovereigns as we do in Russia, they applaud and shout
“bravo,” which seemed rather strange to me.
At the review we had seats in the Queen’s stand. Queen
Margareta sat a few paces from us, looking splendid in a beautiful
gown embroidered with golden flowers. The King soon appeared,
followed by his suit, my husband in the number. The throng was so
great that the policemen had to use main force to procure free
passage to the King. A crowd of lookers-on stood behind the double
range of soldiers shouting bravo and clapping their hands to the
King. In an open space of ground both infantry and cavalry were
assembled. After all the regiments had defiled before the King, we
went to the Continental where the representatives of the different
nations were invited to a banquet given to them by the government.
They came out afterwards into the courtyard to have their group
taken. The photographer grouped the party according to his idea.
Sergy and General Freemantle in the centre, while the others
clustered round them. Many failures issued, as all these warriors,
feeling themselves returned to boyhood, wouldn’t sit still and
laughed when they had to keep serious. The patience of the
photographer was something wonderful. I looked at that comic
scene out of the gallery facing the courtyard. Captain Sawyer came
up to me and said that he had fixed me all the time whilst they were
being photographed in order to have a pleasant expression and to
look nice.
On that same day the missions were invited to dinner at Monzo. I
remained alone at the hotel and sat in the deep window-seat to
witness their departure. Varallo found it his duty to entertain me
during my husband’s absence and brought up an album with
coloured views of Milan, which he began to explain to me.
Sergy returned enchanted with the warm reception of the Royal
family. At dinner he sat next to the beautiful Countess Barromée. All
the ladies wore a daisy pinned on their bodices, in honour of Queen
Margaret. When the guests were leaving Monzo, the King, speaking
in Russian, bade Sergy adieu, saying Do svidania, which means
“good-bye,” and asked Sergy to transmit his best regards to our
Emperor.
 CHAPTER XXXII
VENICE

On the following day we took the Venice express at nine o’clock in

the morning. Two Belgian members of the foreign missions travelled
to Venice with us. Colonel Theuniss and Major Havard proved very
entertaining companions, only their knowledge of Russia was sadly
deficient. They believed that wolves prowled in the streets of St.
Petersburg in broad daylight.
At eight o’clock in the evening we reached Venice and rolled
slowly along a narrow pier. At the railway-station a group of
gondoliers rushed up to us, offering their gondolas, just like cabmen.
We stepped down into a gondola lighted up by lanterns on bow and
poop. The gondolier pushed off from the steps and we silently glided
along the Great Canal, surrounded by side canals crossed by small
private bridges. Venice is built on piles, and stands upon many
islands linked by bridges. At each crossing of the aquatic streets our
strong-lunged gondolier shouted Gia-e! to escape collision. He
brought us to the Hotel Danielli where we passed a sleepless night,
not having followed the wise advice of the chambermaid, who told
us not to raise the mosquito-nets. We were thoroughly punished for
it, having been devoured by mosquitoes.
Lunch over, we went out for a walk along narrow little pathways
leading to the Piazza San Marco. After a stroll in the arcades of the
Square, we took a gondola for a sail on the Canale Grande. We
glided smoothly on the silent waves of the Adriatic, passing before
grim old buildings. The palaces in which Byron, Schiller and Lucrezia
Borgia have dwelt are now transformed into hotels. Venice, the town
of legends and dreams, has very unpleasant odours, and nearly all
the windows are hung with a flutter of drying sheets and towels,
flapping in the air like old tattered flags.
 On the following day we took the boat to Lido, a fashionable sea-
bathing-place, and returned to Venice just in time for the table
d’hôte. There was a great festival at night on the Canale Grande; all
the gondolas of Venice were on the water, lighted with coloured
lanterns. On the broadest part of the Canal they were tied one to
the other thus forming a large floating bridge, on the middle of
which a group of street-singers were giving a serenade. Our
gondolier, at our request, shouted out in a stentorian voice: Funiculi,
funicula, and the singers performed with great emphasis that
popular song, after which they crossed over from one gondola to the
other, holding out their hats which were soon amply filled. We gave
all the change we had in our pockets.
We only remained two days at Venice, having had quite enough of
that aquatic town which does not suit my vivacious temperament.
 CHAPTER XXXIII
FLORENCE

Leaving Venice at ten o’clock in the morning, we arrived towards

night at Florence, and took an apartment at the Hotel de Russie,
with a ceiling ornamented with flying nymphs in a blue sky all over,
and an enormous bedstead on the top of which was placed a
gigantic wreath of laurel. In my opinion, to sleep under it is an
honour which few people deserve on earth.
The next day we went to the Pitti Galleries, to see the Exhibition
of old Masters. This museum was formerly maintained by the monks,
and the pictures were taken in preference from Scripture subjects,
but at present the nude mythological element predominates. In the
sculpture section we met a group of curates who were all in a state
of sanctimonious adoration before the marble Venus. I could hardly
keep from laughing at the sight of these tonsured admirers of art,
whose expression of the face, for the moment, could easily serve for
a picture representing the temptation of St. Antony. At the entrance
of the Medici Chapel, an old curate impeded the passage of the
turnstile, searching for his hat, which was hanging by the elastic on
his back. Surely the venerable pater had also contemplated rather
too much of the marble goddess.
After the Pitti Galleries, we were shown the Palace, maintained by
the town, in which King Humbert is received in great ceremony, as a
guest, when he comes to Florence. A carriage road leads to each
floor separately replacing the elevator. The King was expected in a
few days, and a legion of servants were cleaning the hangings and
polishing the furniture whilst we went through the Palace.
On our way back we were driven in the “cascine,” landaus,
victorias, and open cabs of every variety, all filled with animated
people, streamed along the wide road. We met in the park the
famous American millionaire perched high upon the seat of his
phaeton, who drives every afternoon in the “Cascine” a team of
twelve horses, one pair in front of the other.
My old friends the Levdics have taken their abode in Italy having
been expatriated by the doctors on account of their health. They
spend the winter months in Florence and the summer at Viareggio, a
little sea-side resort beyond Florence. We went to see them at
Viareggio, and as we knew nothing of their address, we had to go to
the post-office for information. Their home is a very pretty one, and
the outlook from their terrace on the Mediterranean and the
neighbouring mountains is wonderful.
Next day we visited the “Certosa,” a convent situated on a high
mountain in the outskirts of Florence. The cloister opens hospitable
doors to strangers. We were gallantly received by the monks, who
live here a luxurious life. Each monk occupies an apartment of
several rooms, with a patch of garden. A tall, stout monk, in flowing
white robes, served as guide to us. He conducted us, clacking his
sandals on the stone flags, along white bare corridors paved with
marble, which echoed to our footsteps. We were taken into a large
refectory resembling much more an elegant Parisian restaurant.
Then we went to the dormitory where the monks sleep. When our
guide ushered us into his bedroom, I stealthily touched his bed and
found it far too soft for a recluse. Before leaving the cloister we
bought a few bottles of the “certosa liqueur” fabricated by the
monks, for which we had to pay a considerable tax before entering
Florence. Feeling awfully hungry, we stopped half-way at an
“Osteria” when passing through the little town of Galuppi. It was
very cool and pleasant here after the dusty road, but our dinner had
been uneatable: we had a dish of macaroni swimming in oil, and a
fish fried also in oil. Ugh—the horror! Night was approaching and icy
cold rain began to fall. We returned to Florence famished and chilled
to the very bone. And our room at the hotel was so cold! You feel
the cold much more abroad than in Russia, where the houses are
much better heated. How I long for our warm Russian stoves!
 Profiting by our stay in Florence, Sergy wanted me to be
immortalised by brushes and chisels, on canvas and on marble. He
ordered my portrait to be taken by Parrini, a well-known painter, and
my bust by Romanelli, the famous sculptor, who took us to his
“studio,” full of nymphs and cupids and limbs; a moving platform for
the model occupied the middle of the room. I had to sit from nine
o’clock in the morning until six in the evening, which was rather
fatiguing. Whilst Parrini painted my portrait, his wife, Signora
Adelgunda, a buxom, pleasant-faced lady, stood behind and
generally approved, nodded her head and murmured, caressing her
husband’s cheek, “Bene, bene, caro, Beppé.” Signora Adelgunda was
also a painter, and had exhibited several times. She has watched for
eight years the right to obtain the first place to copy Rafaele’s
Madonna at the Pitti Galleries. Her picture had found its way into the
Museum and was sold for the sum of two thousand francs. Parrini,
during the sittings, told me little humorous things he could think of,
trying to keep me amused. I laughed very much when he related to
me that he had just received from America the photographs of a
gentleman and his wife who wanted to have their portraits painted
conformably to these photos, only the gentleman wished to be
reproduced with less hair on his head and ten years more on his
shoulders, whilst his spouse, on the contrary, wanted him to drop
ten years of her age. Parrini related to me that when Mme. Lebrun,
the celebrated lady-painter, in her old age, visited the Pitti Galleries
and saw an oil painting of her, reproducing her young and beautiful,
the poor woman had a fit of hysterics and nearly fainted away. Yes,
certainly, it must not be pleasant to grow old, especially when one
has been gifted by good looks. I felt very flattered when Parrini told
me in his artistic language, that like Mme. Lebrun my face had warm
and cold touches. Shall I ever fall into a swoon, if I ever reach old
age, when looking at my portrait painted by Parrini, I wonder? The
Parrinis have got a little son named Mario, a premature painter, who
puts paint on the doors, walls and statues which adorn his father’s
“studio.” He is a very lively and noisy little boy, who gives trouble
and puts things out of place. His last exploit was to daub with red
paint the statue of the daughter of Niobe, and to adorn her beautiful