I
Martin leaned across the dusty parapet, ridden by that singular
depression which one may know in strange cities. The fervour of the
August sun, giving an intolerable vividness of outline and detail to
the curving perspective, did not serve to cozen his mood. The ragged
gully of the Arno, sunken between the ordered stone embankments,
the wider curve of parallel façades with their indefinable touch of
dignity and age, the dainty miniature of Santa Maria della Spina, the
crenelated pile of the old citadel behind the _Ponte a Mare_, gave
him the sense of something known and wearied of long ago. He looked
down as from an infinite height upon a group of boys shouting below.
They were splashing in a shallow pool or chasing each other naked on
the sands, with an abandon enviable alike for its disregard of nature
and of man. Beyond, where a rivulet of the shrunken stream made some
pretence of motion, a row of women knelt above their wash-boards. They
beat their hapless linen with a vehemence which at such a temperature
would have been preternatural had their chatter not made it miraculous.
The theatrical vivacity of the people, their unaccustomed faces, their
foreign speech, weighed again on Martin’s humour. He rose impatiently
and turned his back to the river.
The quay was hardly more engaging in the pitiless morning glare.
White pavement and stucco façades danced together in the quivering
silence. Scarcely a living creature was visible. A man passed with
a panier-laden donkey, uttering a harsh unintelligible cry. The
straw hat on the beast’s head, through which two long ears protruded
comically, provided a fleeting object of interest. In the distance
a woman approached. She was dressed in white, and Martin felt a
personal resentment against her for not affording some contrast to
the intolerable monotony of light. Had she come forth in sky-blue or
bottle-green, she would have been a public benefactress, worthy the
freedom of the city.
Wondering miserably what he should do with himself, Martin cast an
indifferent glance at the building in front of him. It was one of the
high dark-browed Tuscan _palazzi_, broad-eaved and strong-barred like
the great houses of Florence. The entrance was open, giving a glimpse
of a shady courtyard within. Above the massive archway was a device
that attracted the young man’s attention. A fragment of chain hung
there, from a bolt projecting above the keystone; and between the chain
and a high stone escutcheon ran the legend, in letters of tarnished
brass let into the weathered marble:
_ALLA GIORNATA_
Martin’s interest was caught. The three links of chain, the heraldic
lion, the enigmatic inscription--what did they signify? He studied
the open gate, the marble benches beside it, the forbidding windows,
the iron torch-sconces, as if for a clue. As he did so the sound of
steps intruded lightly upon his survey. Glancing about he remarked the
offensive person in white. He noted, furthermore, that her offence
extended to and included her shoes, but not her hair--which was dark;
that she twirled a white parasol over her shoulder in the most obvious
and irritating satisfaction; and that her eyes were upon him, with an
expression which closely resembled amusement. At his look she turned
them to the palace gate.
A moment later his resumed inspection of the writing in the stone was
interrupted by the transit of the parasol. Something of the butterfly
assurance with which that cloud of lace and chiffon blotted out the
dusty inscription prompted Martin to wonder whether it had a secret
which was denied himself. From a sudden whimsical impulse he demanded
aloud:
“What does it mean?”
To his intense astonishment and no small dismay the parasol slowly
turned, revealing a pair of eyes which no longer dissembled amusement.
Yet it was not the parasol nor the eyes, but the owner of them who
answered:
“It means everything. It means the whole of life.”
Then the parasol resumed its rotatory orbit up the _Lungarno Regio_.
Martin stared after it, not knowing whether to be more astounded at
his own temerity or at the sound of his native tongue. But everything
in him cried out against the solitude of that sun-smitten quay; and he
called, desperately:
“Thank you, but I wish you would be a little more explicit--considering
that I have been after that formula a good many years, and don’t happen
to have my phrase-book about me.”
The parasol hesitated, came gradually to a stand-still, and once more
performed an axial revolution of forty-five degrees. This time--had
Martin not been too eager to perceive it--the amusement in the eyes was
mingled with curiosity:
“They don’t put it in phrase-books. People have to translate it for
themselves.”
“But I don’t know Italian!” protested Martin, hastily, taking off his
hat: “_Giornata_--Is it like _journée_? The day? That which happens
between dark and dark?”
The lady still faced the river, looking back at him over her shoulder:
“Yes.”
“And the chain!” pursued Martin: “Is it a whole chain or a broken one?”
“That depends!”
“‘To the day’--and a chain! Why is that the whole of life?”
“Why is it not the whole of life?”
“Because it’s only a part. And it’s not the best part: the part that
gets things done, the part that one likes to remember.”
The parasol eddied lightly in the scorching sun:
“You have been reading phrase-books too much. That is exactly what it
is: the best part, the part that gets things done--if things ever are
done--the only part that one likes to remember. The rest is merely
padding.”
“But that chops things up so!” objected Martin, polemically: “And it
makes too much of the chain.”
“O! I beg your pardon,” responded the lady bowing slightly: “I thought
it was information you wanted.” She turned a little toward the _Ponte
di Mezzo_.
“I suppose you are right,” admitted Martin precipitately, “in a way.
But would you really have people live just for the day?” As he stood
there with his back against the baking stone of the parapet, his head
uncovered to the sun, he became aware that the point of his interest
had somehow shifted from the writing above the gate to its interpreter
with the parasol. She was not so young, he observed, but neither--on
the other hand--was she so old. He felt that he would gladly suffer a
sunstroke if he could succeed in prolonging the interpretation.
The lady laughed outright:
“They do! I’m not responsible for it! But what have you against me? An
inoffensive person walks down the street, at peace with all the world,
when she is suddenly waylaid by a defiant young man whom she has never
seen and is forced into the heat of argument--as if the sun were not
bad enough already!”
Martin laughed too, albeit not so lightly, for he perceived that the
interpretation was at an end:
“I beg pardon for waylaying you. I can only offer you my word that it
is not my habit to go about distressing and destroying all ladies, like
Sir Breuse Saunce Pitie. I suppose I fancied myself the sole person
cognizant of the English language in this town, which I have never seen
and which I already hate.”
To his relief the lady did not take instant departure, but laughed
again:
“If it comes to apologies we shall be quits. I can only beg you to
believe that it is not my habit to stop and chaffer with strange
gentlemen. I suppose it was the novelty of your attack that undid me.
If you had begun with so harmless a remark as ‘Good morning’ I would
have known you at once for an objectionable character; but since you
immediately engaged me in the ultimate problems of existence you
surprised me out of my conventions!”
“I will offer you any reparation in my power--even to the point of a
card!” eagerly rejoined Martin, who detected signs of unrest in the
parasol.
“I will not exact that proof of you,” said the lady: “Names are
necessary in complex societies only--of three or more.” Although she
said it lightly, she said it in a way that made Martin put back his
card-case and hastily button his coat. “But you mustn’t hate Pisa,” she
went on: “There are charming river curves in it, and narrow streets
with overhanging eaves. And, if you don’t mind my mentioning things
which are so ordinary as to be starred by Baedeker, I know a cloister
in a quiet corner of the city wall where the Middle Ages are buried. Or
I could even show you the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them
from the top of a tower.”
“I wish you would!” burst out Martin, before he knew what he was about.
The next instant, remembering the card-case, he damned himself.
But after looking across her shoulder at him for a moment she gave her
parasol a jerk of decision.
“I will!” she smiled, facing him at last: “Now that I have hopelessly
compromised myself it is too late to assume a forgotten dignity and
sweep away with an outraged stare! Why should I not practise what I
preach? _Alla giornata!_ I was just wondering what to do with this long
hot morning. And do put your hat on. I am already smouldering, even
under my parasol.”