TIRRALARIA
I HAD other questions; but we had run into a basin that had once been a
harbour. Every bastion and rampart had been pounded and bruised by the
billows till the débris lay scattered along the beach. Every house and
building stood in dilapidation. Yet to look upwards over the terraced
slopes of the lower hills was still to think of paradise. Magnificent
temples, pure with marbles and broken in outline with minarets and
towers and niched statues, dwarfed the forest trees or the cliff over
which they stood. There was not a meaner building to be seen. It looked
as if only the gods dwelt here amid blossoming or fruited trees; and
streams flashed at intervals athwart the verdant slopes; and over a
precipice or down a ravine they smote the dark rock with the noise of
their silver sword; and at every impulse from the capricious fan of the
wind the emerald face of the cliff shone faintly through the silver veil
of water that twisted back into a single thread again. Up for hundreds
of feet the great stairs of the hills mounted, each step crowned with a
gleaming fane and enriched with meadow and orchard. And Time, the
supreme artist, had been there with his brush. I could see the moss and
ivy and other coloured creepers brocade the human architecture and
soften the gleam of the marble with their cool tracery. Beneath the warm
passion of the setting sun the picture was most entrancing. Nothing was
too new. There was a quaint tone from the centuries even about the
motley garments that clothed the throng of beggars in the roads and
lanes; for there were no streets and no comfortable looking citizens and
burghers to be seen, unless the loungers that crowded the arcades and
piazzas of the temples and leaned against the pillars up the hill were
of that class. I supposed that some convulsion of nature had wrecked the
edifices of the flat by the beach and the piers of the harbour, and that
there had been no time or purpose for rebuilding them, and as the sun
flared up from beneath the turban of clouds that hid his disk, the
softened colours stole into the rents and crevices of the ruins and
raised them into beauty. The dim suffusion of rose lent a picturesque
warmth even to the rags and patches of the lazzaroni that smeared with
unctuous indolence every available resting-place.
I was glad to get on shore; for the rancid food of the falla had not
been to my taste, and the foul odour and sluttishness of the cabin were
alone enough to close the pores of appetite. There was at least power to
move away from these on land.
Yet the change was not altogether for the better. Dry though the roads
and earth underfoot were from long absence of rain, the nose was still
assailed by something that seemed to strike out from all quarters. A
whiff of the sea wind would now and again beat it down only to make it
more obtrusive. The whole putrescence of the earth seemed to have found
here a lay-stall. Garrulesi looked quite unconscious of it. We hurried
along over prostrate bodies that as the shadows clotted into night often
tripped me up. They might have been logs, so irresponsive were they even
to the impact of my toes. I soon learned to jump over everything that
seemed to gather more darkness to it, and after a time we began to
ascend, and the streaks of moveless humanity lay along instead of
athwart our path. An occasional snore or groan or sigh told us of layers
of it beneath the trees to right and left. One consolation was our
gradual escape from the purgatory of stenches as we rose. What
surrounded us I could not see, but it seemed heaven to all the senses,
so keenly did they sympathise with that of smell in its new freedom.
We wound and zigzagged ever upwards till at last we reached the portico
and arcade of one of the great edifices I had seen from the sea. Time
and the seasons, I could perceive, even in the underlight of the stars,
had carved and wrought its walls with eccentric design. And no human
hand, as far as I could see, had interfered with their workmanship. They
had been analytic more than synthetic architects, for, when we went
inside, the stars peered down on us through chinks and rents with
impudent curiosity.
It was indeed a strange building. A great torch flared over what had
once been the altar, and moved and guttered in the baffling draughts. As
the eyes focussed themselves to the sandwiched light and gloom, I saw a
great tablet of marble with a raised map of some mountainous country
upon it in spent grease and resin; and the huge fagot of pine splinters
and pitch that was stuck into a rent in it was still at its work of
mapping in relief. I followed the flicker of the lambent flame upwards
and was amazed by the height of the roof or dome above the pillared nave
and aisles. Even yet beneath the grime and smoke of ages and the litter
of myriads of birds I could see carved woodwork of graceful or fantastic
shape and an occasional dim relic of some gigantic fresco. The windows
were choked with logs and branches of trees and débris of all kinds, and
yet they showed how marvellous they were in their grace and magnitude.
How the architects could have raised that stupendous mass of stone to
resist the centuries, how they could have hung that sea of stone foliage
and flower in mid-air, were bewildering questions. I could see the
graceful floral shapes even underneath the guano of ages.
It was the scurviest sight I had seen for many a day; but the worst was
to come. The crowd of rather noble-featured beggars that jostled each
other on all sides were evidently preparing for rest. Mats of tree bark
or dried leaves of a tough texture were being slung like hammocks from
every corner of vantage. Garrulesi handed me one from a niche in the
wall and some cordage, and led me to a space between two pillars that
was still unoccupied. Dozens came in afterwards and hung their mats
above me and below me and on both sides of me till I felt stifled by the
slung and snoring humanity that festooned me round. He also pitched into
my hammock some hard fruits and dried meats, which I munched till I fell
asleep with the fatigue of the unwonted exercise. When I awoke in the
morning this great ecclesiastical dormitory was unslinging itself.
Unfledged deities were sitting in their hammocks as far up into the
clustering darkness of the dome as my eye could reach, and yawning and
rubbing their grimy eyelids with their grimy hands. They did not seem to
notice the stercoraceous volley from the restless birds as the winged
multitude flashed and screamed athwart the shadows or rustled and tore
through the withered branches that filled the windows. Some of these
callow gods descended the pillars or the festoons of sleeping mats by
finger and toe as nimbly as monkeys. Others were gathered round a great
fire by the altar roasting grains or kernels of fruit, whilst in corners
lounged groups munching ugly viands that they held in their hands.
I was marvelling over this stupendous rookery, watching its antics as it
unrolled itself out of the coil of dreams and descended with its mats by
ledges out into the foliated and clustered pillars, when Garrulesi
appeared. I scarcely recognised him, so transformed was he by his change
of dress. Instead of the spruce garments of Aleofane that added such
neatness to his oratory, he had clothed himself in a motley collection
of rags of varied colour and texture. His beard hung in smeary locks,
his hair was a mop, and by some process that was almost artistic he had
begrimed his features and hands. He did not leave me time to question or
reflect on the transformation of the divine demagogue into the beggar,
for he threw into my mat a bundle of choice antiquities that might
perhaps have brought twopence in any rag market. He assisted me to
disentangle the foul and rent miscellany and to tack them together over
my nakedness. My other garments he took from me, and, bidding me follow,
hid them, I alone present, in a secret crevice of a vault under the
edifice; he rolled a huge stone in order to conceal the aperture.
He explained to me that I must adopt in paradise the primitive clothing
of paradise, and that to appear in other guise would offend the humility
and sense of symmetry of his people. The greatest sages had preferred
beggardom and a crust to wealth and luxury, and what could any nation do
better than to follow their example? And at this point it flashed upon
me that the crowds whom I had taken for beggars the night before were
representatives of the nation.
When we returned to the temple above, we found all the pillars and
niches and roofs free from their chaplets and festoons of sleeping
mats, and the whole frippery stowed away in holes and crevices of the
walls. The birds had the upper ranges all to themselves and were
evidently satisfied with the division of the space, for they had
ceased their screaming and uneasy flight. The marble floor was covered
with groups standing, or sitting, or lying, engaged in easy
conversation or in cooking or eating food. Most of the night’s
occupants had evidently gone outside. I now began to see that most of
those who cooked were beardless, and although the rags of the two
sexes were indistinguishable, I could separate them by the different
outlines of the forms and faces. There was little respect or honour
paid to the gentler sex; they were jostled and pushed about; they had
to look after themselves and their interests. The men had clearly all
cooked their morning meal before; the women had to be content with the
remains of the fire and the remains of the heap of food that had been
piled in one of the corners of the edifice. There was undoubtedly
equality of the sexes; gallantry and chivalry had been banished as an
insult to their common humanity.
After a time I could see that the women were struggling to seize a share
of the food, not for themselves, but for others who were sick or weak or
deformed. The stronger men would have had it all but for this, and the
helpless would have gone unbreakfasted. The women were most of them as
brawny and tanned by the weather as the other sex, and they had come by
long struggle and heredity to be able almost to hold their own. They
hustled the crowd that stood in their way and gave tit for tat with as
lusty a muscle as if they had navvied from infancy. But it was
interesting to see in them the survival of their old tenderness for the
sick and feeble. It was doubtless their maternal functions that had
saved this relic from the general wreck of femininity.
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]