I do not know whether in remote generations some trickle of Italian
blood went to the making of that entity which I feel to be myself,
or whether in some previous incarnation I enjoyed a Latin existence,
nor do I greatly care: all that really concerns me is that the moment
the train crawls out from its burrowings through the black roots
of pine-scented mountains into the southern openings of the Alpine
tunnels, I am conscious that I have come home. I greet the new heaven
and the new earth, or, perhaps more accurately, the beloved old heaven
and the beloved old earth; I hail the sun, and know that something
within me has slept and dreamed and yearned while I lived up in the
north, and wakes again now with the awakening of Brünnhilde....
The conviction is as unfathomable and as impervious to analysis as the
springs of character, and if it is an illusion I am deceived by it as
completely as by some master-trick of conjuring. It is not merely that
I love for their own sakes the liquid and dustless thoroughfares of
Venice, the dim cool churches and galleries that glow with the jewels
of Bellini and Tintoret, the push of the gliding gondola round the
corners of the narrow canals beneath the mouldering cornices and mellow
brickwork, for I should love these things wherever they happened to be,
and the actual spell of Venice would be potent if Venice was situated
in the United States of America or in Manchester. But right at the back
of all Venetian sounds and scents and sights sits enthroned the fact
that the theatre of those things is in Italy. Florence has her spell,
too, when from the hills above it in the early morning you see her
hundred towers pricking the mists; Rome the imperial has her spell,
when at sunset you wander through the Forum and see the small blue
campanulas bubbling out of the crumbling travertine, while the Coliseum
glows like a furnace of molten amber, or pushing aside the leather
curtain you pass into the huge hushed halls of St. Peter's; Naples has
her spell, and the hill-side of Assisi hers, but all these are but the
blossoms that cluster on the imperishable stem that nourishes them. Yet
for all the waving of these wands, it is not Bellini nor Tintoret, nor
Pope nor Emperor who gives the spells their potency, but Italy, the
fact of Italy. Indeed (if in soul you are an Italian) you will find
the spell not only and not so fully in the churches and forums and
galleries of cities, but on empty hill-sides and in orchards, where the
vine grows in garlands from tree to tree, and the purple clusters of
shadowed grapes alternate with the pale sunshine of the ripened lemons.
There, more than among marbles, you get close to that which the lover
of Italy adores in her inviolable shrine, and if you say that such
adoration is very easily explicable since lemon trees and vines are
beautiful things, we will take some example that shall be really devoid
of beauty to anyone who has not Italy in his heart, but to her lover is
more characteristic of her than any of her conventional manifestations.
So imagine yourself standing on a hilly road ankledeep in dust. On one
side of it is a wine-shop, in the open doorway of which sits a lean,
dishevelled cat, while from the dim interior there oozes out a stale
sour smell of spilt wine mingled with the odour of frying oil. A rough
wooden balcony projects from the stained stucco of the house-front,
and on the lip of the balcony is perched a row of petroleum tins, in
which are planted half a dozen unprosperous carnations. An oblong of
sharp-edged shadow stretches across the road; but you, the lover of
Italy, stand in the white of the scorching sunshine, blinded by the
dazzle, choked by the dust, and streaming with the heat. On the side of
the road opposite the wine-shop is a boulder-built wall, buttressing
the hillside; a little behind the wall stands a grey-foliaged
olive-tree, and on the wall, motionless but tense as a curled spring,
lies a dappled lizard. From somewhere up the road comes the jingle of
bells and the sound of a cracked whip, and presently round the corner
swings a dingy little victoria drawn by two thin horses decorated
between their ears with a plume of a pheasant's tail feathers. The
driver sits cross-legged on the box, with a red flower behind his ear,
and inside are three alien English folk with puggarees and parasols
and Baedekers. You step aside into the gutter to avoid the equipage,
and as he passes, the driver, with a white-toothed smile, raises and
flourishes his hat and says, "Giorno, signor!" The lizard darts into
a crevice from which his tail protrudes, the carriage yaws along in a
cloud of dust.... It all sounds marvellously ugly and uncomfortable,
and yet, if you are an exiled Italian, the thought of it will bring
your heart into your mouth.
It was just this, of which I have given the unvarnished but faithful
jotting, that I saw this morning as I came up from my bathe, and all
at once it struck me that this, after all, more than all the forums
and galleries, and gleams of past splendour and glory of light and
landscape, revealed Italy. But that was all there was to it, the sense
of the lizard and the dust and the _trattoria,_ and yet never before
had my mistress worn so translucent a veil, or so nearly shown me the
secret of her elusive charm. Never had I come so near to catching it;
for the moment, as the Baedekers went by, I thought that by contrast
I should comprehend at last what it is that makes to me the sense of
home in the "dark and fierce and fickle south," as one of our Laureates
so inappropriately calls it, having no more sympathy with Italy than I
with Lapland. For the moment the secret was trembling in the spirit,
ready to flower in the understanding.... But then it passed away
again in the dust or the wine-smell, and when I tried to express to
Francis at lunch in beautiful language what I have here written, he
thought it over impartially, and said: "It sounds like when you all but
sneeze, and can't quite manage it." And there was point in that prosaic
reflection: the secret remained inaccessible somewhere within me, like
the sneeze.
Francis has been an exceedingly wise person in the conduct of his life.
Some fifteen years ago he settled, much to the dismay of his uncle, who
thought that all gentlemen were stockbrokers, that he liked Italy much
better than any other country in the world, and that, of all the towns
and mountains and plains of Italy, he loved best this rocky pinnacle of
an island that rises sheer from the sapphire in the mouth of the Bay of
Naples. Thus, having come across from Naples for the inside of a day,
he telegraphed to his hotel for his luggage and stopped a month. After
a brief absence in England, feverish with interviews, he proceeded
to stop here for a year, and, when that year was over, to stop here
permanently. He was always unwell in England and always well here;
there was no material reason why he should ever return to the fogs,
nor any moral reason except that the English idea of duty seems to be
inextricably entwined with the necessity of doing something you dislike
and are quite unfitted for. So herein he showed true wisdom, firstly,
in knowing what he liked, and secondly, in doing it. For many otherwise
sensible people have not the slightest idea what they like, and a
large proportion of that elect remainder have not the steadfastness
to do it. But Francis, with no ties that bound him to the island of
England, which did not suit him at all, had the good sense to make his
home in this island of Italy that did. Otherwise he most certainly
would have lived anæmically in an office in the City, and have amassed
money that he did not in the least want. And though it was thought very
odd that he should have chosen to be cheerful and busy here rather
than occupied and miserable in London, I applaud the unworldliness of
his wisdom. He settled also (which is a rarer wisdom) that he wanted
to think, and, as you will see before this record of diary is out, he
succeeded in so doing.
Many Mays and Junes I spent with him here, and six months ago now,
while I was groping and choking in the fogs, he wrote to me, saying
that the Villa Tiberiana, at which we had for years cast longing
glances as at a castle in Spain, was to be let on lease. It was too
big for him alone, but if I felt inclined to go shares in the rent, we
might take it together. I sent an affirmative telegram, and sat stewing
with anxiety till I received his favourable reply. So, when a fortnight
ago I returned here, I made my return home not to Italy alone, but to
my home in Italy.
The Villa Tiberiana, though not quite so imperial as it sounds, is one
of the most "amiable dwellings." It stands high on the hill-side above
the huddled, picturesque little town of Alatri, and is approachable
only by a steep cobbled path that winds deviously between other
scattered houses and plots of vineyard. Having arrived at the piazza
of the town, the carriage road goes no further, and you must needs
walk, while your luggage is conveyed up by strapping female porters,
whom on their arrival you reward with _soldi_ and refresh with wine.
Whitewashed and thick-built, two-storied and flat-roofed, it crouches
behind the tall rubble wall of its garden that lies in terraces below
it. A great stone-pine rears its whispering umbrella in the middle of
this plot, and now in the May-time of the year there is to be seen
scarcely a foot of the earth of its garden beds, so dense is the
tapestry of flowers that lies embroidered over it. For here in the
far south of Europe, the droughts of summer and early autumn render
unpractical any horticultural legislation with a view to securing
colour in your flower-beds all the year round. However much you
legislated, you would never get your garden to be gay through July
and August, and so, resigning yourself to emptiness then, you console
yourself with an intoxication of blossom from March to June. And never
was a garden so drunk with colour as is ours to-day; never have I seen
so outrageous a riot. Nor is it in the garden-beds alone that rose and
carnation and hollyhock and nasturtium and delphinium unpunctually but
simultaneously sing and blaze together. The southern front of the house
is hidden in plumbago and vines with green seed-pearl berries, and as
for the long garden wall, it is literally invisible under the cloak of
blue morning-glory that decks it as with a raiment from foundation to
coping-stone. Every morning fresh battalions of blue trumpets deploy
there as soon as the sun strikes it, and often as I have seen it thus,
I cannot bring myself to believe that it is real; it is more like some
amazing theatrical decoration. Beyond on the further side lies the
orchard of fig and peach, and I observe with some emotion that the
figs, like the lady in Pickwick, are swelling visibly.
Within, the house has assumed its summer toilet, which is another way
of saying that it has been undressed; carpets and curtains have been
banished; doors are latched back, and the air sweeps softly from end
to end of it. A sitting-room that faces south has been dismantled, and
its contents put in the big studio that looks northwards, and even in
the height of summer, we hope, will not get over-hot, especially since
a few days ago we had the roof whitewashed and thick matting hung over
its one southern window. Breakfast and dinner, now that the true May
weather has begun, we have on the terrace-top of the big cistern in the
garden, roofed over between the pilasters of its pergola with trellis,
through which the vineleaves wriggle and wrestle. But now at noon it
is too hot in the garden, and to-day I found lunch ready in the square
vaulted little dining-room, with Pasqualino bringing in macaroni and
vine-leaf-stoppered decanter, and Francis, who refrained from bathing
this morning owing to the Martha-cares of the household, debating
with Seraphina (the cook) as to whether the plumbago ought not to be
pruned. It has come right into the room, and, as Seraphina most justly
remarks, it is already impossible to shut the window. But since we
shall not need to shut the window for some months to come, I give my
vote to support Francis, and suffer the plumbago to do exactly as it
likes. So we are two to one, and Seraphina takes her defeat, wreathed
in smiles, and says it is not her fault if burglars come. That is a
poor argument, for there are no burglars in Alatri, and, besides, there
is nothing to steal except the grand piano....
Just now social duties weigh rather heavily on Francis and me, for
the British colony in Alatri consider that, as we have moved into
a new house, they must behave to us as if we were new-comers, and
have been paying formal visits. These civilities must be responded
to, and we have had two house-warmings and are going to have a third
and last to-day. The house-warmings should perhaps be described as
garden-warmings, since we have tea on the terrace in great pomp,
and then get cool in the house afterwards. Rather embarrassing
incidents have occurred, as, for instance, when Miss Machonochie came
to a garden-warming the day before yesterday. She is a red amiable
Scotchwoman, with a prodigious Highland accent, which Francis, whom
she has for years tried to marry, imitates to perfection. So perfect,
indeed, is his mimicry of it, that when Miss Machonochie appeared and
began to talk about the wee braw garden, Pasqualino, who was bringing
out a fresh teapot, had to put it hurriedly down on the ground, and
run back again into the kitchen, from which issued peal after peal
of laughter. So overcome was he, that after a second attempt (Miss
Machonochie being still full of conversation) he had to retire again,
and Seraphina must serve us till Miss Machonochie went away. This she
did not do for a long time, since, after just a little vermouth, she
wanted no persuasion at all to sing a quantity of Scotch ditties about
Bonnie Charlie and Loch Lomond, and other beautiful and interesting
topics. Technically, I should say that she had one note in her voice,
which she was in a great hurry to get on to and very loath to leave.
This had an amazing timbre like a steam siren, and as I played her
accompaniment for her, my left ear sang all the evening afterwards.
But her accent was indubitably Highland, and Mrs. Macgregor declared
she could smell the heather. I was glad of that, for I was afraid that
what I smelled (it being now near dinner-time) was the _fritura_ that
Seraphina was preparing in the kitchen.
This island-life is the busiest sort of existence, though I suppose a
stockbroker would say it was the laziest, and, in consequence, these
social efforts give one a sense of rush that I have never felt in
London. The whole of the morning is taken up with bathing (of which
more presently), and on the way up you call at the post-office for
papers and letters. The letters it is impossible to answer immediately,
since there is so much to do, and the pile on my table grows steadily,
waiting for a wet day. After lunch you read the papers, and then,
following the example of the natives, who may be supposed to know the
proper way of living in their own climate, you have a good siesta.
After tea, the English habit of physical exercise asserts itself, and
we walk or water the garden till dinner. After dinner it is, I take
it, permissible to have a little relaxation, and we either play a game
or two of picquet up here in the studio, or more often stroll down to
the piazza and play in the café, or attend a thrilling cinematograph
show. In the country it is natural to go to bed early, and, behold, it
is to-morrow almost before you knew it was to-day. When it rains, or
when the weather is cold, it is possible to do some work, and Francis
asserts that he does an immense quantity during the winter. I daresay
that is so; I should be the last person to quarrel with the statement,
since he so amiably agrees that it is impossible to behave like that in
the summer.
The mind is equally well occupied, for we always take down books to the
bathing-place, and for the rest the affairs of the island, Pasqualino
and his family, Seraphina and her family, the fact that Mrs. Macgregor
has dismissed her cook, that Mr. Tarn has built a pergola, completely
absorb the intellectual and speculative faculties. What happens outside
the island seems not to matter at all. England, with its fogs and its
fuss, is less real and much further away than the hazy shores of the
mainland, where all that concerns us is the smoke of Vesuvius, which
during the last week has been increasing in volume, and now stands up
above the mountain like a huge stone-pine. The wiseacres shake their
heads and prophesy an eruption, but _che sarà, sarà_--if it comes, it
comes, and meantime it is a marvellous thing to see the red level rays
at sunset turn the edges of the smoke-cloud into wreaths of rose-colour
and crimson; the denser portions they are unable to pierce, and can
but lay a wash of colour on them, through which the black shows like
a thing of nightmare. In the calm weather, which we have been having,
this stone-pine of smoke is reflected in the bay, and the great tree of
vapour steals slowly across the water, nearer and nearer every day. The
observatory reports tell us that its topmost wreaths are eight vertical
miles away from the earth. Sometimes when it is quite calm here we see
these tops torn by winds and blown about into fantastic foliage, but
the solidity of the trunk remains untouched.
But Vesuvius is far away, twenty-five miles at the least, and here in
this siren, lotus-eating island nothing across the sea really interests
us. But island affairs, as I have said, are perfectly absorbing, and
during this last fortnight we have been in vertiginous heights of
excitement. Only yesterday occurred the _finale_ of all this business,
and Francis thinks with excellent reason, that he is accomplice to a
felony. The person chiefly concerned was Luigi, nephew of our cook
Seraphina, who till six months ago was valet, butler, major-domo,
and gardener to Francis. Then, in a misguided moment, he thought to
"better himself" by going as hall-boy to the Grand Hotel in Alatri.
There were tips, no doubt, in the tourist season at the Grand Hotel,
but there was also trouble. It happened like this.
From the day of the supposed crime the sympathy of the island generally
was on the side of Luigi, in the fiery trials that awaited him. It
was felt to be intolerable that a boy who had just changed into his
best clothes, and had taken a carnation from one of the tables in the
dining-room, and was actually going out of the hotel gate to spend the
afternoon of the _festa_ in the Piazza, should have been summarily
ordered back by the porter, and commanded to show a fat white German
gentleman, who was staying in the hotel, the way to the bathing-place
at the _Palazzo a mare,_ and carry his towels and bathing-dress for
him, the latter of which included sandals, so that the fat white
gentleman should not hurt his fat white toes on the shingle. This
abominable personage had also preferred, in the unaccountable manner of
foreigners, to go all the way on foot, instead of taking a victoria,
which would have conveyed him three-quarters of the distance and saved
much time. But he would go on his feet, and being very fat had walked
at tortoise-pace along the dusty road, under a large green umbrella,
perspiring profusely, and stopping every now and then to sit down.
There was Luigi standing by, carrying the sandals and the bathing-dress
and the towels, while all the time the precious moments of this holiday
afternoon were slipping along, and the Piazza, where Luigi should have
been (having been granted a half-holiday on account of the _festa_),
was full of his young friends, male and female, all in their best
clothes, conversing and laughing together, and standing about and
smoking an occasional cigarette, in the orthodox fashion of a holiday
afternoon. Then, after this interminable walk, during which the German
gentleman kept asking the baffled Luigi a series of questions in an
unknown tongue, and appeared singularly annoyed when the boy was unable
to answer him except in a Tower-of-Babel manner, he drew three coppers
from his pocket, and after a prolonged mental struggle, presented
Luigi with two of them, as a reward for his services. He then told
him that he could find his way up again alone, and having undressed,
swam majestically off round the promontory of rock that enclosed the
bathing-beach.
An hour afterwards Luigi, defrauded of half his holiday afternoon,
returned to the gaiety and companionship of the Piazza, and recounted
to an indignant audience this outrageous affair. But some time during
the afternoon, Francis, looking out of his bedroom window after his
siesta, thought he saw Luigi slipping across the garden of the Villa
Tiberiana, and climbing down over the wall at the bottom. He says he
was not sure, being still sleepy, and when he shouted Luigi's name out
of his window, there came no answer.
Luigi returned to the Grand Hotel in time to get into his livery again
before dinner, and on entrance was summoned into the manager's bureau,
where he was confronted with his Teutonic taskmaster of the afternoon,
and charged with having picked his pocket while he was bathing. A
portfolio was missing, containing a note for a hundred liras, and this
the German gentleman was gutturally certain he had on his person when
he started off to bathe, and equally certain that he had lost when he
came to dress for dinner. His certainty was partly founded on the fact
that he had tipped the boy when they arrived at the _Palazzo a mare,_
and to have tipped him he must have had his money in his pocket. In
answer, Luigi absolutely denied the charge, and then made a dreadful
mistake by suggesting that the Signor had a hole in his pocket, through
which the portfolio had slipped. This was quite the most unfortunate
thing he could have said, for, as the German gentleman instantly
demonstrated, the hole in his pocket was undoubtedly there. But how, so
he overpoweringly urged, could Luigi have known there was a hole there,
unless he had been examining his pockets? And an hour later poor Luigi,
with gyves upon his wrists, was ignominiously led through the Piazza,
all blazing with acetylene lights and resonant with the blare of the
band, and was clapped into prison to await the formal charge.
Arrived there, he was searched, and a similar examination was made in
his room at his mother's house, where he went to sleep at night, but
nothing that ever so remotely resembled a German portfolio or a note
for a hundred liras was found, and he still doggedly denied his guilt.
Then, since nothing incriminating could be got out of him, the key
was turned, while through the small high-grated window came the sound
of the band in the Piazza for this _festa_ night. Later, by standing
on his board bed, he could see the fiery segment of the aspiring path
of the rockets, as they ascended from the peak above the Piazza, and
listen to the echo of their explosions flap and buffet against the
cliffs of Monte Gennaro. But it was from prison that he saw and heard.
Outside in the Piazza the tragic history of his incarceration formed a
fine subject for talk, and public opinion, which cheerfully supposed
him guilty, found extenuating circumstances that almost amounted to
innocence. The provocation of being obliged to spend the best part
of a _festa_ afternoon in walking down to the sea with a fat white
Tedesco was really immense, and the reward of twopence for those lost
hours of holiday was nothing less than an insult. What wonder if Luigi
for a moment mislaid his honesty, what wonder if when so smooth-faced
and ready-made a temptation came, he just yielded to it for a second?
Certainly it was wrong to steal, everyone knows that--_Mamma mia,_
what a rocket, what a _bellezza_ of stars!--but it was also primarily
wrong to dock a jolly boy of his promised half-holiday. No wonder,
when the German signor--ah, it was the same, no doubt, as was sick in
Antonio's carriage the other day, and refused to pay for a new rug--no
wonder, when that fat-head, that pumpkin (for who but a pumpkin would
carry a hundred liras about with him?) swam away round the corner of
those rocks, that Luigi's hand just paid a visit to his great pockets
to see if he was as poor as that miserable tip of twopence seemed to
say! Then he found the portfolio, and turned bitter with the thought
of the _quattro soldi_ which was all that had been given him for his
loss of the half-holiday. Ah, look! Was it really a wheel like that
on which Santa Caterina had been bound? How she must have spun round!
What giddiness! What burning! A steadfast soul not to have consented
to worship Apollo; no wonder that Holy Church made a saint of her.
But what could Luigi have done with the portfolio and the note for a
hundred liras? He had been searched and on him was nothing found; his
room had been searched, but there was nothing there. Was it possible
that he was innocent, _il povero?_ Could the sick German gentleman
really have lost his foolish pocket-book by natural means as he came up
from his bathe? It might be worth while taking a walk there to-morrow,
always keeping a peeled eye on the margin of the path. It was possible,
after all, that he had lost his pocket-book all by himself, without aid
from Luigi, for the hole in his pocket was admitted, and shown to the
manager of the Grand Hotel. But then there was Luigi's fatal knowledge
of the hole in his pocket. That was very bad; that looked like guilt.
If only the boy had held his tongue and not said that fatal thing! He
only suggested that there was a hole in his pocket? No, no; he said
there _was_ a hole in his pocket, didn't he? What a lesson to keep the
tongue still! Luigi had always a lot to learn about keeping the tongue
still, for who will soon forget the dreadful things he shouted out last
winter at the priest, his mother's cousin's uncle, when he had smacked
his head? They were quite true, too, like the hole in the pocket....
Ah, there is the great bomb. Pouf! How it echoes! So the fireworks are
over! _Buona notte! Buona notte!_
All this, while lounging in the Piazza, listening to the band and
watching the fireworks, I heard from the tobacconist and the barber and
a few other friends. I coupled with this information that which Francis
told me as we strolled up homewards again, namely, that he thought
he had seen Luigi that afternoon slipping through the garden. He was
not sure about it, so leaving it aside, he recalled a few facts about
Luigi when he was in his service. He used to hurry over his house-work
always, for he preferred his rôle of gardener to all others, and used
to wander among the flower-beds, making plants comfortable, and giving
this one a drop of water, and that a fresh piece of stick to lean
on. Then he would make a mud pie by turning on the cistern tap, and
plant verbenas in it, or in more mysterious fashion made _caches_ in a
hole behind loose masonry in the cistern wall. Francis has got a just
appreciation of the secrecy and rapture of making _caches,_ and never
let Luigi know that he was aware of this hidden treasure. But after
Luigi had gone home to his mother's of an evening, he would yield to
curiosity and see what the boy had put there. Sometimes there would
be a matchbox, or a pilfered cigarette, or a piece of string carefully
wrapped up in paper.... And now poor Luigi was behind his grated
window, and Seraphina, with deepest sarcasm, said that this was what he
called bettering himself. He would have done better to have done worse
and remained at the Villa Tiberiana in the service of the Signori.
But suddenly next day, like a change in the weather coming from
a cloudless sky, a fresh train of thought was suggested by the
Luigi-episode, and the mention of the lottery, and how the various
incidents and personages bore on the luck of numbers. On the instant
Luigi and all he had done or not done ceased to interest anybody
except in so far as the events were concerned with the science and
interpretation of numbers in the lottery as set forth in the amazing
volume called "Smorfia." There you will find what any numeral means,
so that should an earthquake occur or an eclipse, the wise speculator
looks out "earthquake" or "eclipse" in "Smorfia," and at the next
drawing of the National Lottery or the lottery at Naples backs the
numbers to which these significations are attached. As it happened, no
event of striking local interest had occurred in Alatri since, in April
last, the carpenter in the Corso Agosto had unsuccessfully attempted to
cut his throat with a razor, after successfully smothering his aunt.
This had been the last occasion on which there was clear guidance
as to the choice of numbers in the Naples lottery, and nobody of a
sporting turn of mind who had the smallest sense of the opportunities
life offers had failed to back No. 17, which among other things means
"aunt," and numbers which signified "razor," "throat," "blood" and
"bolster." Nor had "Smorfia," the dictionary that gives this useful
information, disappointed its adherents, for Carmine, Pasqualino's
brother, had backed the numbers that meant "throat," "razor,"
"carpenter," "aunt" and "Sunday," the last being the day on which those
distressing events occurred, and went to bed that night to dream of
the glories which awaited him who nominated a _quinterno secco._ (This
means that you back five numbers, all of which come out in the order
named.) Once, so succulent tradition said, a baker at the Marina had
accomplished this enviable feat, after which Alatri saw him no more,
for his reward was a million francs, a marquisate and an estate in
Calabria, where soon afterwards he was murdered for the sake of his
million. This stimulating page of history was not wholly repeated in
the case of Carmine and the carpenter's aunt, but by his judicious
selection he had certainly reaped two hundred francs where he had only
sowed five. The doctor also, who had attended the abortive suicide, had
done very well by backing salient features of the tragedy, and astute
superstition had, on the whole, been adequately rewarded.
Next day, accordingly, the Piazza seethed with excitement as to the
due application of the Luigi episode to the enchanting Lorelei of
the lottery. It had magnificent and well-marked features; "Smorfia"
shouted with opportunities. First of all, there was Luigi himself to
be backed, and, as everyone knew, "boy" was the number 2. Next there
was the German gentleman. ("Michele, turn up 'German.'") Then there
was "pocket" and "hole" and "portfolio" and "bathe." All these were
likely chances. Other aspects of the affair struck the serious mind.
"_Festa_" was connected with it; so, too, was "prison," where now Luigi
languished. Then there was "theft" and "denial." Here were abundant
materials for a _quinterno secco_, when once the initial difficulty
of selecting the right numbers was surmounted. And marquisates and
millions hovered on the horizon, ready to move up and descend on Alatri.
Among those who were thus interested in the _affaire Luigi_ from the
purely lottery point of view, there was no more eager student than the
boy's mother. Maria was a confirmed and steadfast gambler, of that
optimistic type that feels itself amply rewarded for the expenditure of
ten liras on a series of numbers that prove quite barren of reward, if
at the eleventh attempt she gained five. She had been to see her son
in prison, had wept a little and consoled him a little, had smuggled
a packet of cigarettes into his hand, and had reminded him that the
same sort of thing, though far worse, had happened to his father, with
whom be peace. For at the most Luigi would get but a couple of months
in prison, owing to his youth (and the cool of the cell was really not
unpleasant in the hot weather), and the severity of his sentence would
doubtless be much mitigated if he would only say where he had hidden
the portfolio and the hundred liras. But nothing would induce Luigi
to do this; he still firmly adhered to his innocence, and repeated
_ad nauseam_ his unfortunate remark that there was a hole in the fat
German's pocket.
Expostulation being useless, and Luigi being fairly comfortable, Maria
left him, and on her way home gave very serious consideration to the
features of the case which she intended to back at the lottery. She
had ascertained that Luigi had his new clothes on (which was the sort
of flower on which that butterfly Chance alighted), and on looking up
the number of "new clothes, novelty, freshness," found that it was
8. Then, on further study of "Smorfia," she learned that the word
"thief" was represented by No. 28, and following her own train of
thought, discovered that No. 88 meant "liar." Here was a strange thing,
especially when, with an emotional spasm, she remembered that "boy" was
No. 2. Here was the whole adventure nutshelled for her. For was there
not a boy (2) who put on his new clothes (8), showed himself a thief
(28) and subsequently a liar (88)? 2 and 8 covered the whole thing, and
almost throttled by the thread of coincidence, she hurried down to the
lottery-office, aflame with the premonition of some staggering success,
and invested fifteen liras in the numbers 2, 8, 28, 88.
She lingered in the Piazza a little, after laying this touching garland
on the altar of luck, to receive the condolences of her friends
on Luigi's wickedness, and had a kind word thrown to her by Signor
Gelotti, the great lawyer, who had come over for a week's holiday to
his native island. Ah, there was a man! Why, if he got you into the
witness-box, he could make you contradict yourself before you knew you
had opened your mouth. Give him a couple of minutes at you, and he
would make you say that the man you had described as having a black
coat and a moustache had no coat at all and whiskers, and that, though
you had met him at three o'clock precisely in the Piazza, you had just
informed the Court that at that hour you were having a siesta in your
own house. Luigi's father had at one time been in his service, and
though he had left it, handcuffed, for a longer period of imprisonment
than his son was threatened with, Lawyer Gelotti had always a nod and a
smile for his widow, and to-day a pleasant little joke about heredity.
Ah, if Lawyer Gelotti would only take up the case! He would muddle
everybody up finely, and in especial that fat German fellow, who, like
his beastly, swaggering, truculent race, was determined to press home
his charge. But Lawyer Gelotti, as all the world knew, never held up
his forefinger at a witness under a thousand liras. What a forefinger.
It made you tell two more lies in order to escape from each lie that
you had already told.
Three days passed, while still Luigi languished behind bars, and
then a sudden thrill of excitement emanating from the offices of the
lottery swept over the island. For the Naples lottery had been drawn,
and the five winning numbers were issued, which in due order of their
occurrence were 2, 8, 28, 4, 91. Alatri grew rosy with prospective
riches, for in this _affaire Luigi_ it would have been slapping the
face of the Providence that looks after lotteries not to have backed
No. 2 (boy) and No. 28 (thief). At least ten dutiful folk had done
that. But--_che peccato_--why did we not all back No. 8, as Luigi's
mother had done, for we all knew that Luigi must have had his new
clothes on, as did every boy on a _festa?_ What a thing it is to use
rightly the knowledge you possess! The lucky woman! She had won a
_terno,_ for the first three numbers she backed came out in the order
she nominated. Never was such a thing seen since the days of the
classical baker! Why, her _terno_ would be worth three thousand liras
at least, which was next door to the title of a marchioness. But No.
91 now: what does No. 91 mean? Quick, turn it up in "Smorfia"! Who has
a "Smorfia?" Ernesto, the tobacconist, of course, but he is a mean
man, and will not lend his "Smorfia" to any who does not buy a packet
of cigarettes. Never mind, let us have both; a cigarette is always a
cigarette. There! No. 91! What does No. 91 signify? _Dio!_ What a lot
of meanings! "The man in the moon" ... "the hairs on the tail of an
elephant" ... "an empty egg-shell." ... Who ever heard the like? There
is no sense in such a number! And No. 4--what does No. 4 mean? Why, the
very first meaning of all is "truth." There is a curious thing when we
all thought that Luigi was telling lies! And No. 4, look you, was the
fourth number that came out. It would have been simple to conjecture
that No. 4 would be No. 4. Pity that we did not think of that last
week. But it is easy to be wise after the event, as the bridegroom said.
The talk on the Piazza rose to ever loftier peaks of triumph as fresh
beneficiaries of Luigi, who had made a few liras over "boy" and
"thief," joined the chattering groups. He had done very well for his
friends, had poor Luigi, though "pocket" and "portfolio" had brought
in nothing to their backers. And it was like him--already Luigi was
considered directly responsible for these windfalls--it was like him to
have turned up that ridiculous No. 91, with its man in the moon, and
its empty egg-shell. Luigi, the gay _ragazzo,_ loved that extravagant
sort of joke, of which the point was that there was no point, but
which made everybody laugh, as when he affixed a label, "Three liras
complete," to the fringe of Donna Margherita's new shawl from Naples
as she walked about the Piazza, showing it off and never guessing
what so many smiles meant. But No. 4, which stood for "truth," it was
strange that No. 4 should have turned up, and that nobody dreamed of
supposing that Luigi was telling the truth. His mother, for all her
winnings, must be finely vexed that she had not trusted her son's word,
and backed "truth," instead of putting her money on "liar." Why, if
she backed "truth," she would have gained a _quaterno,_ and God knows
how many liras! Ah, there she is! Let us go and congratulate the good
soul. Her winnings will make up to her for having a son as well as a
husband who was a thief.
But Luigi's mother was in a hot haste. She had put on all her best
clothes, not, as was at first conjectured, because in the affluence
that had come to her they had been instantly degraded into second-best,
but because she was making a business call on Lawyer Gelotti. She
was not one to turn her broad back on her own son--though it is true
that she had confidently selected No. 88 with its signification of
"liar"--and if the satanic skill of Lawyer Gelotti could get Luigi off,
that skill was going to be invoked for his defence. A hundred thanks,
a hundred greetings to everybody, but she had no time for conversation
just now. Lawyer Gelotti must be seen at once, if he was at home; if
not, she must just sit on his doorstep and wait for him. Yes; she had
heard that a thousand liras was his fee, and he should have it, if that
was right and proper. There was plenty more where they came from! And
this _bravura_ passage pleased the Piazza; it showed the gaiety and
swagger proper to a lady of property.
In due course followed the event which Alatri was quite prepared for
when it knew that Lawyer Gelotti was engaged on Luigi's behalf, and
that the full blast of his hurricane of interrogations would be turned
on the fat German gentleman. Never was there such a tearing to shreds
of apparently stout evidence; its fragments were scattered to all
points of the compass like the rocket-stars which Luigi had watched
from his grated window. The Tedesco was forced to allow that he had
not looked in his pockets, to see if his portfolio was safe, till full
three hours after he had returned from his bathe. What had he done in
those three hours? He did not know? Then the Court would guess! (That
was nasty!) Again he had told the manager of the hotel that he knew
he had his portfolio with him when he went to bathe, because he had
tipped the boy. Ah, that wonderful tip! Was it, or was it not twopence?
Yes: Lawyer Gelotti thought so! Twopence for carrying a basket of
towels and a bathing costume and two elephant sandals all over the
island! _Tante grazie!_ But was it really his custom to carry coppers
in his portfolio? Did he not usually carry pence loose in a pocket?
Had he ever to his knowledge carried pennies in his portfolio? Would
he swear that he had? Come, sir, do not keep the Court waiting for a
simple answer! Very good! This magnificent tip did not come out of the
portfolio at all, as he had previously affirmed.
Lawyer Gelotti had a tremendous lunch at this stage of the proceedings,
and tackled his German afterwards with renewed vigour. Was it credible
that a man so careful--let us say, so laudably careful--with his money
as to make so miserly a tip, would have taken a portfolio containing a
hundred liras down to the bathing-place, and left it in his clothes?
And what was the number of this note? Surely this prudent, this
economical citizen of Germany, a man so scrupulously careful of his
money as to tip on this scale, would have taken the precaution to have
registered the number of his note. Did he not usually do so? Yes. So
Lawyer Gelotti suspected. But in this case, very strangely, he had not.
That was odd; that was hard to account for except on the supposition
that there was no such note. And this portfolio, about which it seemed
really impossible to get accurate information? It was shabby, was
it, and yet an hour before we had been told it was new! And who else
had ever set eyes on this wonderful portfolio, this new and ragged
portfolio with its note of unknown number? Nobody; of course, nobody.
* * * * *
There followed a most disagreeable forensic picture of the fat German
gentleman, while above him, as a stained glass window looks down on
Mephistopheles, Lawyer Gelotti proceeded to paint Luigi's portrait
in such seraphic lines and colour that Maria, brimming with emotion,
felt that sixteen years ago she had given birth to a saint and had
never known it till now. Here was a boy who had lost his father--and
Gelotti's voice faltered as he spoke of this egregious scamp--who
from morning till night slaved to support his stricken mother, and
through all the self-sacrificing days of his spotless boyhood never
had suspicion or hint of sin come near him. The Court had heard how
blithely and eagerly he had gone down to the _Palazzo a mare_--it
was as well the Court had not heard his blithe remarks as he passed
through the Piazza--on the afternoon of what should have been his
holiday. What made him so gay? Gentlemen, the thought that inspired him
was that by his service he might earn a franc or perhaps two francs,
since it was a _festa,_ to bring home to his aged parent. And what was
his reward? Twopence, twopence followed by this base and unfounded
and disproved and diabolical accusation. Prison had been his reward;
he languished in a dungeon while all Alatri kept holiday and holy
festival. As for the admission of which the prosecution had made so
much, namely, that Luigi had said that the German gentleman had a hole
in his pocket, how rejoiced was Lawyer Gelotti that he had done so.
It was suggested that Luigi must have searched his clothes, and found
there the apocryphal portfolio and the note that had no number. But it
was true that Luigi was intimately acquainted with those voluminous
trousers. But how and why and when?... And Lawyer Gelotti paused, while
Luigi's friends held their breath, not having the slightest idea of the
answer.
Lawyer Gelotti wiped his eyes and proceeded. This industrious saintly
lad, the support of his mother's declining years, was hall-boy at the
Grand Hotel. Numerous were the duties of a hall-boy, and Lawyer Gelotti
would not detain them over the complete catalogue. He would only tell
them that while others slept, while opulent German gentlemen dreamed
about portfolios, the hall-boy was busy, helping his cousin, the valet
of the first floor, to brush the clothes of those who so magnificently
rewarded the services rendered them. Inside and outside were those
clothes brushed: not a speck of dust remained when the supporter of
his mother had done with them. They were turned inside and out, they
were shaken, they were brushed again, they were neatly folded. In this
way, gentlemen, and in no other came the knowledge of the hole in the
pocket....
_Dio mio!_ Who spoke of fireworks?
* * * * *
That evening Luigi came up to the villa to receive Francis's
congratulations on his acquittal and departed through the garden. Next
morning Francis, strolling about, came to the wall of the cistern,
where Luigi's cache used to lurk behind the loosened masonry. The
garden-bed just below it looked as if it had been lately disturbed,
and with a vague idea in his mind he began digging with his stick in
it. Very soon he came upon some shredded fragments of leather buried
there.... I am rather afraid Francis is an accomplice.