soul had been closed upon his inward life. Now, in this late autumn, it
was more necessary than ever. For three weeks together it had rained
incessantly. Then a gray pall of impenetrable mists had hung over the
valleys and towns of Switzerland, dripping and wet. His eyes had
forgotten the sunlight. To rediscover in himself its concentrated energy
he had to begin by clothing himself in night, and, with his eyes closed,
to descend to the depths of the mine, the subterranean galleries of his
dreams. There in the seams of coal slept the sun of days gone by. But as
the result of spending his life crouching there, digging, he came out
burned, stiff in back and knees, with limbs deformed, half petrified,
dazed eyes, that, like a bird's, could see keenly in the night. Many a
time Christophe had brought up from the mine the fire he had so
painfully extracted to warm the chill of heart. But the dreams of the
North smack of the warmth of the fireside and the closed room. No man
notices it while he lives in it: dear is that heavy air, dear the
half-light and the soul's dreams in the drowsy head. We love the things
we have. We must be satisfied with them!...
When, as he passed the barrier of the Alps, Christophe, dozing in a
corner of the carriage, saw the stainless sky and the limpid light
falling upon the slopes of the mountains, he thought he must be
dreaming. On the other side of the wall he had left a darkened sky and a
fading day. So sudden was the change that at first he felt more surprise
than joy. It was some time before his drowsy soul awoke and began slowly
to expand and burst the crust that was upon it, and his heart could free
itself from the shadows of the past. But as the day wore on, the mellow
light took his soul into its arms, and, wholly forgetting all that had
been, he drank greedily of the delight of seeing.
Through the plains of Milan. The eye of day mirrored in the blue canals,
a network of veins through the downy rice fields. Mountains of Vinci,
snowy Alps soft in their brilliance, ruggedly encircling the horizon,
fringed with red and orange and greeny gold and pale blue. Evening
falling on the Apennines. A winding descent by little sheer hills,
snakelike curving, in a repeating, involved rhythm like a
farandole.--And suddenly, at the bottom of the slope, like a kiss, the
breath of the sea and the smell of orange-trees. The sea, the Latin sea
and its opal light, whereon, swaying, were the sails of little boats
like wings folded back....
By the sea, at a fishing-village, the train stopped for a while. It was
explained to the passengers that there had been a landslip, as a result
of the heavy rains, in a tunnel between Genoa and Pisa: all the trains
were several hours late. Christophe, who was booked through to Rome,
was delighted by the accident which provoked the loud lamentations of
his fellow-passengers. He jumped down to the platform and made use of
the stoppage to go down to the sea, which drew him on and on. The sea
charmed him so that when, a few hours later, the engine whistled as it
moved on, Christophe was in a boat, and, as the train passed, shouted:
"Good-by!" In the luminous night, on the luminous sea, he sat rocking in
the boat, as it passed along the scented coast with its promontories
fringed with tiny cypress-trees. He put up at a village and spent there
five days of unbroken joy. He was like a man issuing from a long fast,
hungrily eating. With all his famished senses he gulped down the
splendid light.... Light, the blood of the world, that flows in space
like a river of life, and through our eyes, our lips, our nostrils,
every pore of our skins, filters through to the depths of our bodies,
light, more necessary to life than bread,--he who sees thee stripped of
thy northern veils, pure, burning, naked, marvels how ever he could have
lived without knowing thee, and deeply feels that he can never live more
without possessing thee....
For five days Christophe was drunk with the sun. For five days he
forgot--for the first time--that he was a musician. The music of his
soul was merged into light. The air, the sea, the earth: the brilliant
symphony played by the sun's orchestra. And with what innate art does
Italy know how to use that orchestra! Other peoples paint from Nature:
the Italians collaborate with her: they paint with sunlight. The music
of color. All is music, everything sings. A wall by the roadside, red,
fissured with gold: above it, two cypress-trees with their tufted
crests: and all around the eager blue of the sky. A marble staircase,
white, steep, narrow, climbing between pink walls against the blue front
of a church. Any one of their many-colored houses, apricot, lemon,
cedrate, shining among the olive-trees, has the effect of a marvelous
ripe fruit among the leaves. In Italy seeing is sensual: the eyes enjoy
color, as the palate and the tongue delight in a juicy, scented fruit.
Christophe flung himself at this new repast with eager childlike greed:
he made up for the asceticism of the gray visions to which till then he
had been condemned. His abounding nature, stifled by Fate, suddenly
became conscious of powers of enjoyment which he had never used: they
pounced on the prey presented to them; scents, colors, the music of
voices, bells and the sea, the kisses of the air, the warm bath of light
in which his ageing, weary soul began to expand.... Christophe had no
thought of anything. He was in a state of beatific delight, and only
left it to share his joy with those he met: his boatman, an old
fisherman, with quick eyes all wrinkled round, who wore a red cap like
that of a Venetian senator;--his only fellow-boarder, a Milanese, who
ate macaroni and rolled his eyes like Othello: fierce black eyes filled
with a furious hatred; an apathetic, sleepy man;--the waiter in the
restaurant, who, when he carried a tray, bent his neck, and twisted his
arms and his body like an angel of Bernini;--the little Saint John, with
sly, winking eyes, who begged on the road, and offered the passers-by an
orange on a green branch. He would hail the carriage-drivers, sitting
huddled on their seats, who every now and then would, in a nasal,
droning, throaty voice, intone the thousand and one couplets. He was
amazed to find himself humming _Cavalleria Rusticana_. He had
entirely forgotten the end of his journey. Forgotten, too, was his haste
to reach the end and Grazia....
Forgotten altogether was she until the day when the beloved image rose
before him. Was it called up by a face seen on the road or a grave,
singing note in a voice? He did not know. But a time came when, from
everything about him, from the circling, olive-clad hills, from the
high, shining peaks of the Apennines, graven by the dense shadows and
the burning sun, and from the orange-groves heavy with flowers and
fruit, and the deep, heaving breath of the sea, there shone the smiling
face of the beloved. Through the countless eyes of the air, her eyes
were upon him. In that beloved earth she flowered, like a rose upon a
rose-tree.
Then he regained possession of himself. He took the train for Rome and
never stopped. He had no interest in the old memories of Italy, or the
cities of the art of past ages. He saw nothing of Rome, nor wanted to:
and what he did see at first, in passing, the styleless new districts,
the square blocks of buildings, gave him no desire to see more.
As soon as he arrived he went to see Grazia. She asked him:
"How did you come? Did you stop at Milan or Florence?"
"No," he said. "Why should I?"
She laughed.
"That's a fine thing to say! And what do you think of Rome?"
"Nothing," he said. "I haven't seen it!"
"Not yet?"
"Nothing. Not a single monument. I came straight to you from my hotel."
"You don't need to go far to see Rome.... Look at that wall opposite....
You only need to see its light."
"I only see you," he said.
"You are a barbarian. You only see your own ideas. When did you leave
Switzerland?"
"A week ago."
"What have you been doing since then?"
"I don't know. I stopped, by chance, at a place by the sea. I never
noticed its name. I slept for a week. Slept, with my eyes open. I do not
know what I have seen, or what I have dreamed. I think I was dreaming of
you. I know that it was very beautiful. But the most lovely part of it
all is that I forgot everything...."
"Thank you!" she said.
(He did not listen.)
"... Everything," he went on. "Everything that was then, everything that
had been before. I am a new man. I am beginning to live again."
"It is true," she said, looking into his laughing eyes. "You have
changed since we last met."
He looked at her, too, and found her no less different from his memory
of her. Not that she had changed in two months, but he was seeing her
with new eyes. Yonder, in Switzerland, the image of old days, the faint
shadow of the girl Grazia, had flitted between his gaze and this new
actual beloved. Now, in the sun of Italy, the dreams of the North had
melted away: in the clear light of day he saw her real soul and body.
How far removed she was from the little, wild, imprisoned girl of Paris,
how far from the woman with the smile like Saint John, whom he had met
one evening, shortly after her marriage, only to lose her again! Out of
the little Umbrian Madonna had flowered a lovely Roman lady:
_Color verus, corpus solidum et succi plenum._
Her figure had taken on an harmonious fullness: her body was bathed in a
proud languor. The very genius of tranquillity hovered in her presence.
She had that greed of sunny silence, and still contemplation, the
delightful joy in the peace of living which the people of the North will
never really know. What especially she had preserved out of the past was
her great kindness which inspired all her other feelings. But in her
luminous smile many new things were to be read: a melancholy indulgence,
a little weariness, much knowledge of the ways of men, a fine irony, and
tranquil common sense. The years had veiled her with a certain coldness,
which protected her against the illusions of the heart; rarely could she
surrender herself; and her tenderness was ever on the alert, with a
smile that seemed to know and tell everything, against the passionate
impulses that Christophe found it hard to suppress. She had her
weaknesses, moments of abandonment to the caprice of the minute, a
coquetry at which she herself mocked but never fought against. She was
never in revolt against things, nor against herself: she had come to a
gentle fatalism, and she was altogether kind, but a little weary.
* * * * *
She entertained a great deal, and--at least, in appearance--not very
selectively: but as, for the most part, her intimates belonged to the
same world, breathed the same atmosphere, had been fashioned by the same
habits, they were homogeneous and harmonious enough, and very different
from the polite assemblages that Christophe had known in France and
Germany. The majority were of old Italian families, vivified here and
there by foreign marriages; they all had a superficial cosmopolitanism
and a comfortable mixture of the four chief languages, and the
intellectual baggage of the four great nations of the West. Each nation
brought into the pool its personal characteristic, the Jews their
restlessness and the Anglo-Saxons their phlegm, but everything was
quickly absorbed in the Italian melting-pot. When centuries of great
plundering barons have impressed on a race the haughty and rapacious
profile of a bird of prey, the metal may change, but the imprint remains
the same. Many of the faces that seemed the most pronouncedly Italian,
with a Luini smile, or the voluptuous, calm gaze of a Titian, flowers of
the Adriatic, or the plains of Lombardy, had blossomed on the shrubs of
the North transplanted to the old Latin soil. Whatever colors be spread
on the palette of Rome, the color which stands out is always Roman.
Christophe could not analyze his impressions, but he admired the perfume
of an age-old culture, an ancient civilization exhaled by these people,
who were often mediocre, and, in some cases, less than mediocre. It was
a subtle perfume, springing from the smallest trifles. A graceful
courtesy, a gentleness of manners that could be charming and
affectionate, and at the same time malicious and consciously superior,
an elegant finesse in the use of the eyes, the smile, the alert,
nonchalant, skeptical, diverse, and easy intelligence. There was nothing
either stiff or familiar. Nothing literary. Here there was no fear of
meeting the psychologues of a Parisian drawing-room, ensconced behind
their eyeglasses, or the corporalism of a German pedant. They were men,
quite simply, and very human men, such as were the friends of Terence
and Scipio the Æmilian....
_Homo sum_....
It was fine to see. It was a life more of appearance than reality.
Beneath it lay an incurable frivolity which is common to the polite
society of every country. But what made this society characteristic of
its race was its indolence. The frivolity of the French is accompanied
by a fever of the nerves--a perpetual agitation of the mind, even when
it is empty. The brain of the Italian knows how to rest. It knows it
only too well. It is sweet to sleep in the warm shadows, on the soft
pillow of a padded Epicureanism, and a very supple, fairly curious, and,
at bottom, prodigiously indifferent intelligence.
All the men of this society were entirely lacking in decided opinions.
They dabbled in politics and art in the same dilettante fashion. Among
them were charming natures, handsome, fine-featured patrician, Italian
faces, with soft, intelligent eyes, men with gentle, quiet manners, who,
with exquisite taste and affectionate hearts, loved Nature, the old
masters, flowers, women, books, good food, their country, music.... They
loved everything. They preferred nothing. Sometimes one felt that they
loved nothing. Love played so large a part in their lives, but only on
condition that it never disturbed them. Their love was indolent and
lazy, like themselves; even in their passion it was apt to take on a
domestic character. Their solid, harmonious intelligence was fitted with
an inertia in which all the opposites of thought met without collision,
were tranquilly yoked together, smiling, cushioned, and rendered
harmless. They were afraid of any thorough belief, of taking sides, and
were at their ease in semi-solutions and half-thoughts. They were
conservative-liberal in temper of mind. They needed politics and art
half-way up the hill, like those health resorts where there is no danger
of asthma or palpitations. They recognized themselves in the lazy plays
of Goldoni, or the equally diffused light of Manzoni. Their amiable
indifference was never disturbed. Never could they have said like their
great ancestors: _"Primum vivere ..."_ but rather _"Dapprima,
quieto vivere."_
To live in peace. That was the secret vow, the aim of even the most
energetic of those who controlled politics. A little Machiavelli, master
of himself and others, with a heart as cold as his head, a lucid, bored
intelligence, knowing how and daring to use all means to gain his ends,
ready to sacrifice all his friends to his ambition, would be capable of
sacrificing his ambition to one thing only: his _quieto vivere_.
They needed long periods of absolute lassitude. When they issued from
them, as from a good sleep, they were fresh and ready: these grave men,
these tranquil Madonnas would be taken with a sudden desire to talk, to
be gay, to plunge into social life; then they would break out into a
profusion of gestures and words, paradoxical sallies, burlesque humor:
they were always playing an _opera bouffe_. In that gallery of
Italian portraits rarely would you find the marks of thought, the
metallic brilliance of the eyes, faces stained with the perpetual labor
of the mind, such as are to be found in the North. And yet, here, as
elsewhere, there was no lack of souls turned in upon themselves, to feed
upon themselves, concealing their woes, and desires and cares seething
beneath the mask of indifference, and, voluptuously, drawing on a cloak
of torpor. And, in certain faces there would peep out, queerly,
disconcertingly, indications of some obscure malady of the spirit
peculiar to very ancient races--like the excavations in the Roman
Campagna.
There was great charm in the enigmatic indifference of these people, and
their calm, mocking eyes, wherein there slumbered hidden tragedy. But
Christophe was in no humor to recognize it. He was furious at seeing
Grazia surrounded by worldly people with their courteous, witty, and
empty manners. He hated them for it, and he was angry with her. He
sulked at her just as he sulked at Rome. His visits to her became less
and less frequent, and he began to make up his mind to go.
* * * * *
He did not go. Unknown to himself, he was beginning to feel the
attraction of Italian society, though it irritated him so much.
For the time being, he isolated himself and lounged about Rome and the
environment. The Roman light, the hanging gardens, the Campagna,
encircled, as by a golden scarf, by the sunlit sea, little by little
delivered up to him the secret of the enchanted land. He had sworn not
to move a step to see the monuments of the dead, which he affected to
despise: he used grumblingly to declare that he would wait until they
came to look for him. They came; he happened on them by chance on his
rambling through the City of many hills. Without having looked for it,
he saw the Forum red under the setting sun, and the half-ruined arches
of the Palatine and behind them the deep azure vault of heaven, a gulf
of blue light. He wandered in the vast Campagna, near the ruddy Tiber,
thick with mud, like moving earth,--and along the ruined aqueducts, like
the gigantic vertebrae of antediluvian monsters. Thick masses of black
clouds rolled across the blue sky. Peasants on horseback goaded across
the desert great herds of pearly-gray cattle with long horns; and along
the ancient road, straight, dusty, and bare, goat-footed shepherds, clad
in thick skins, walked in silence. On the far horizon, the Sabine Chain,
with its Olympian lines, unfolded its hills; and on the other edge of
the cup of the sky the old walls of the city, the front of Saint John's
Church, surmounted with statues which danced in black silhouette....
Silence.... A fiery sun.... The wind passed over the plain.... On a
headless, armless statue, almost inundated by the waving grass, a
lizard, with its heart beating tranquilly, lay motionless, absorbed,
drinking in its fill of light. And Christophe, with his head buzzing
with the sunshine (sometimes also with the _Castelli_ wine), sitting on
the black earth near the broken statue, smiling, sleepy, lost
in forgetfulness, breathed in the calm, tremendous force of Rome.--Until
nightfall.--Then, with his heart full of a sudden anguish, he fled from
the gloomy solitude in which the tragic light was sinking.... O earth,
burning earth, earth passionate and dumb! Beneath thy fevered peace I
still can hear the trumpeting of the legions. What a fury of life is
shining in thy bosom! What a mighty desire for an awakening!
Christophe found men in whose souls there burned brands of the age-old
fire. Beneath the ruse of the dead they had been preserved. It might
be thought that the fire had died down with the closing of Mazzini's
eyes. It was springing to life again. It was the same. Very few
wished to see it. It troubled the quiet of those who were asleep. It
gave a clear and brutal light. Those who bore it aloft,--young men (the
eldest was not thirty-five), a little band of the elect come from every
point of the horizon, men of free intellect who were all different in
temperament, education, opinions, and faith--were all united in worship
of this flame of the new life. The etiquette of parties, systems of
thought, mattered not to them: the great thing was to "think with
courage." To be frank, to be brave, in mind and deed. Rudely they
disturbed the sleep of their race. After the political resurrection of
Italy, awakened from death by the summons of her heroes, after her
recent economic resurrection, they had set themselves to pluck Italian
thought from the grave. They suffered, as from an insult, from the
indolent and timid indifference of the elect, their cowardice of mind
and verbolatry. Their _Voices_ rang hollow in the midst of
rhetoric and the moral slavery which for centuries had been gathering
into a crust upon the soul of their country. They breathed into it their
merciless realism and their uncompromising loyalty. Though upon occasion
they were capable of sacrificing their own personal intellectual
preferences to the duty of discipline which national life imposes on the
individual, yet they reserved their highest altar and their purest ardor
for the truth. They loved truth with fiery, pious hearts. Insulted by
his adversaries, defamed, threatened, one of the leaders of these young
men replied, with grand, calm dignity:
_"Respect the truth. I speak to you now, from my heart, with no shade
of bitterness. I forget the ill I have received at your hands and the
evil that I may have done you. Be true. There is no conscience, there is
no noble life, there is no capacity for sacrifice where there is not a
religious, a rigid, and a rigorous respect for truth. Strive, then, to
fulfil this difficult duty. Untruth corrupts whoever makes use of it
before it overcomes him against whom it is used. What does it matter
that you gain an immediate success? The roots of your soul will remain
withered in the air above the soil that is crumbled away with untruth.
We are on a plane superior to our disagreements, even though on your
lips your passion brings the name of our country. There is one thing
greater than a man's country, and that is the human conscience. There
are laws which you must not violate on pain of being bad Italians. You
see before you now only a man who is a seeker after truth: you must hear
his cry. You have before you now only a man who ardently desires to see
you great and pure, and to work with you. For, whether you will or no,
we all work in common with all those who in this world work truthfully.
That which comes out of our labors (and we cannot foresee what it will
be) will bear our common mark, the mark of us all, if we have labored
with truth. The essence of man lies in this, in his marvelous faculty
for seeking truth, seeing it, loving it, and sacrificing himself to
it.--Truth, that over all who possess it spends the magic breath of its
puissant health!..."_ [Footnote: The hymn to Truth here introduced is
an abridgment of an article by Giuseppe Prezzolini (_La Voce_,
April 13, 1911).]
The first time Christophe heard these words they seemed to him like an
echo of his own voice: and he felt that these men and he were brothers.
The chances of the conflict of the nations and ideas might one day fling
them into the position of adversaries in the mêlée; but, friends or
enemies, they were, and would always be, members of the same human
family. They knew it, even as he. They knew it, before he did. They knew
him before he knew them, for they had been friends of Olivier's.
Christophe discovered that his friend's writings--(a few volumes of
verse and critical essays)--which had only been read by a very few in
Paris, had been translated by these Italians, and were as familiar to
them as to himself.