“To me,” he answered, “any music I like is elevating. People say some
music has a bad effect on them. I never found any music that gave me a
bad thought—no—no—quite the opposite; only sometimes, as you see, I go
to sleep. But what a lovely instrument the violin!” A faint flush came
on his parched cheeks. “The human soul that has left the body. A curious
thing, distant bugles at night have given me the same feeling.” The
orchestra was now coming back, and, folding his hands, my neighbour
turned his eyes towards them. When the concert was over we came out
together. Waiting at the entrance was his dog.
“You have a beautiful dog!”
“Ah! yes, Freda, mia cara, da su mano!” The dog squatted on her
haunches, and lifted her paw in the vague, bored way of big dogs when
requested to perform civilities. She was a lovely creature—the purest
brindle, without a speck of white, and free from the unbalanced look of
most dogs of her breed.
“Basta! basta!” He turned to me apologetically. “We have agreed to speak
Italian; in that way I keep up the language; astonishing the number of
things that dog will understand!” I was about to take my leave, when he
asked if I would walk a little way with him—“If you are free, that is.”
We went up the street with Freda on the far side of her master.
“Do you never 'play' here?” I asked him.
“Play? No. It must be very interesting; most exciting, but as a matter
of fact, I can't afford it. If one has very little, one is too nervous.”
He had stopped in front of a small hairdresser's shop. “I live here,” he
said, raising his hat again. “Au revoir!—unless I can offer you a glass
of tea. It's all ready. Come! I've brought you out of your way; give me
the pleasure!”
I have never met a man so free from all self-consciousness, and yet so
delicate and diffident the combination is a rare one. We went up a steep
staircase to a room on the second floor. My companion threw the shutters
open, setting all the flies buzzing. The top of a plane-tree was on
a level with the window, and all its little brown balls were dancing,
quite close, in the wind. As he had promised, an urn was hissing on a
table; there was also a small brown teapot, some sugar, slices of lemon,
and glasses. A bed, washstand, cupboard, tin trunk, two chairs, and a
small rug were all the furniture. Above the bed a sword in a leather
sheath was suspended from two nails. The photograph of a girl stood on
the closed stove. My host went to the cupboard and produced a bottle,
a glass, and a second spoon. When the cork was drawn, the scent of rum
escaped into the air. He sniffed at it and dropped a teaspoonful into
both glasses.
“This is a trick I learned from the Russians after Plevna; they had my
little finger, so I deserved something in exchange.” He looked round;
his eyes, his whole face, seemed to twinkle. “I assure you it was worth
it—makes all the difference. Try!” He poured off the tea.
“Had you a sympathy with the Turks?”
“The weaker side—” He paused abruptly, then added: “But it was not
that.” Over his face innumerable crow's-feet had suddenly appeared, his
eyes twitched; he went on hurriedly, “I had to find something to do just
then—it was necessary.” He stared into his glass; and it was some time
before I ventured to ask if he had seen much fighting.
“Yes,” he replied gravely, “nearly twenty years altogether; I was one of
Garibaldi's Mille in '60.”
“Surely you are not Italian?”
He leaned forward with his hands on his knees. “I was in Genoa at that
time learning banking; Garibaldi was a wonderful man! One could not help
it.” He spoke quite simply. “You might say it was like seeing a little
man stand up to a ring of great hulking fellows; I went, just as you
would have gone, if you'd been there. I was not long with them—our war
began; I had to go back home.” He said this as if there had been but one
war since the world began. “In '60,” he mused, “till '65. Just think of
it! The poor country. Why, in my State, South Carolina—I was through it
all—nobody could be spared there—we were one to three.”
“I suppose you have a love of fighting?”
“H'm!” he said, as if considering the idea for the first time.
“Sometimes I fought for a living, and sometimes—because I was obliged;
one must try to be a gentleman. But won't you have some more?”
I refused more tea and took my leave, carrying away with me a picture
of the old fellow looking down from the top of the steep staircase,
one hand pressed to his back, the other twisting up those little white
moustaches, and murmuring, “Take care, my dear sir, there's a step there
at the corner.”
“To be a gentleman!” I repeated in the street, causing an old French
lady to drop her parasol, so that for about two minutes we stood bowing
and smiling to each other, then separated full of the best feeling.