WE were talking about famous love affairs
the other evening, and Fothergil Finch
said he was thinking of writing a ballad
about Citronella and Stegomyia.
And, of course, everybody pretended they knew
who Citronella and Stegomyia were. Mrs. Voke
Easeley -- You've heard about Voke Easeley and his
New Art, Haven't you? -- Mrs. Voke Easeley said:
"But don't you think those old Italian love affairs
have been done to death?"
"Italian?" said Fothy, raising his eyebrows at
Mrs. Voke Easeley.
You know, really, there wasn't a one of them
knew who Citronella and Stegomyia were; but they
were all pretending, and they saw Mrs. Voke Easeley
was in bad. And she saw it, too, and tried to
save herself.
"Of course," she said, "Citronella and Stegomyia
weren't Italian lovers THEMSELVES. But so many of
the old Italian poets have written about them that
I always think of them as glowing stars in that
wonderful, wonderful galaxy of Italian romance!"
Fothy can be very mean when he wants to. So he said:
"I don't read Italian, Mrs. Easeley. I have been
forced to get all my information about Citronella
and Stegomyia from English writers. Maybe you
would be good enough to tell me what Italian poet
it is who has turned out the most recent version of
Citronella and Stegomyia?"
Mrs. Voke Easeley answered without a moment's
hesitation: "Why, D'Annunzio, of course."
That made everybody waver again. And Aurelia
Dart said -- she's that girl with the beautiful arms,
you know, who plays the harp and always has a
man or two to carry it about wherever she goes --
somebody else's husband, if she can manage it --
Aurelia said:
"D'Annunzio, of course! Passages of it have
been set to music."
"Won't you play some of it?" asked Fothy, very
politely.
"It has never been arranged for the harp," said
Aurelia. "But if Mrs. Easely can remember some
of the lines, and will be good enough to repeat them,
I will improvise for it."
That put it up to Mrs. Easeley again, you know.
She hates Aurelia, and Aurelia knows it. Voke
Easeley carried Aurelia's harp around almost all
last winter. And the only way Mrs. Easeley could
break Voke of it was to bring their little girl along
the one that has convulsions so easily, you know.
And then when Voke was getting Aurelia's harp
ready for her the little girl would have a convulsion,
and Mrs. Easeley would turn her over to Voke,
and Voke would have to take the little girl home,
and Mrs. Easeley would stay and say what a family
man and what a devoted husband Voke was, for an
artist.
Well, Mrs. Easeley wasn't stumped at all. She
got up and repeated something. I took up Italian
poetry one winter, and we made a special study of
D'Annunzio; but I didn't remember what Mrs.
Easeley recited. But Aurelia harped to it.
Improvising is one of the best things she does.
And everybody said how lovely it was and how
much soul there was in it, and, "Poor Stegomyia!
Poor Citronella!"
The Swami said it reminded him of some passages
in Tagore that hadn't been translated into
English yet.
Voke Easeley said: "The plaint of Citronella is
full of a passion of dream that only the Italian
poets have found the language for."
Fothy winked at me and I made an excuse and
slipped into the library and looked them up -- and,
well, would you believe it! -- they weren't lovers at
all! And I might have known it from the first, for
I always use citronella for mosquitoes in the country.
They were still pretending when I got back, all
of them, and Aurelia was saying: "Citronella differs
psychologically from Juliet -- she is more like
poor, dear Francesca in her feeling of the cosmic
inevitability of tragedy. But stegomyia had a strain
of Hamlet in him."
"Yes, a strain of Hamlet," said Voke Easeley.
"A strain of Hamlet in his nature, Aurelia -- and
more than a strain of Tristram!"
"It is a thing that Maeterlinck should have written,
in his earlier manner," said Mrs. Voke Easeley.
"The story has its Irish counterpart, too," said
Leila Brown, who rather specializes, you know, on
all those lovely Lady Gregory things. "I have always
wondered why Yeats or Synge hasn't used it."
"The essential story is older than Ireland," said
the Swami. "It is older than Buddha. There are
three versions of it in Sanskrit, and the young men
sing it to this day in Benares."
Affectation! Affectation! Oh, how I abhor
affectation!
It was perfectly HORRID of Fothy just the same.
ANYONE might have been fooled.
I might have been myself, if I were not too
intellectually honest, and Fothy hadn't tipped me
the wink.