Mr. Heard was not prone to wax enthusiastic over the delights of
architecture or natural scenery. He called himself unexpansive and
unromantic; he confessed to small understanding, small veneration, for
artistic effects. The beauty of a man's character moved him more
strongly than the beauty of any picture or any landscape. Yet, on
arriving next afternoon at the upper plateau of Nepenthe he could not
help being struck by the strange and almost compelling charm of the
"Old Town." It was so different from the lower regions--so calm and
reposeful.
Down below, in that more accessible modern settlement, everything was
bright and many-tinted; there was movement and noise and colour; a
dazzling spot! The subtle influence of the sea, though it lay four
hundred feet lower down, was ever present; one felt oneself on an
island. On reaching these heights that feeling evaporated. You were
embowered in mighty trees, in the midst of which stood the Old Town.
Unlike that other one, it faced due North; it lay, moreover, a few
hundred feet higher up. That alone could not have explained the
difference in temperature, one might say in climate, between the two.
To begin with, there was on this tiny upland basin exceptionally deep
soil, borne down by the rains of unnumbered centuries from the heights
overhead and enabling those shady oaks, poplars, walnuts and apples to
shoot up to uncommon size and luxuriance and screen away the sunny
beams. From above, meanwhile, a perennial shower descended. The
moisture-laden sirocco, tearing itself to shreds against the riven
summits of the high southern cliffs, dripped ceaselessly upon this
verdant oasis in clouds of invisible dew. You could often enjoy the
luxury of a shiver, at night-time, in the Old Town.
It was a stronghold originally; built on these heights for the greater
security of the islanders against Saracenic inroads. When a more
peaceful era drew night the population began to decline; they found it
more convenient to establish themselves in the new settlement lower
down. Then came the Good Duke Alfred--that potentate who, as Mr. Eames
was wont to say, NIHIL QUOD TETIGIT NON ORNAVIT. He took a fancy to
this quaint old citadel which, before his day, could only be reached b
a rough mule-track easily defended against invaders. After constructing
a fine road of access with many twists and turnings, wide enough to
admit the passage of two of his roomy state carriages driving abreast,
he turned his mind to other improvements. Professing to be an admirer
of the good old times, he decided to keep up its traditional
character--it was to remain a fortress, in appearance if not reality. A
massive crenellated rampart, furnished with four gateways and
watch-towers at convenient intervals but serving no purpose in
particular, grew up around the place; every one of its houses which
failed to fit in with the design of this battlemented structure--and
there were a good many of them--was ruthlessly demolished. The Old Town
was enclosed in a ring.
Desirous, next, of putting an end to the annoying exodus of the
natives, he fixed by law the number of inhabitants; there were to be
five hundred souls, neither more nor less. If in any one year the
population exceeded that figure, the surplus was taken away, from among
the adult males, to work as galley-slaves in his fleet; a deficiency in
the requisite number was met by giving new husbands from the lower
town, often three or four at a time "with a view to ensuring good
results," to those of the native women who had hitherto failed to
produce offspring. The system worked well. With some trifling but
reprehensive fluctuations, the birth-rate and the death-rate remained
even; things were at a standstill; a fact which caused His Highness to
be compared, by a courtly panegyrist, to Joshua who bade the sun arrest
his march across the heavens. Another of these gentlemen calls the
Duke's action a "triumph of art over nature," adding, not without a
grain of malice, that "never have the generative capacities of mankind
adapted themselves with more conspicuous success to the shape of an
unnecessary wall." Monsignor Perrelli, unfortunately, has nothing
whatever to say on the subject. For reasons which will appear anon, he
is remarkably silent on all that concerns the reign of his great
contemporary.
Even so the Prince was not satisfied. The fastness was yet imperfect;
he disliked the variegated hues of the buildings--they reminded him of
the garish brilliance in the lower town. Something different had to be
contrived. He took thought and, being a man of taste and a decorist
where picturesque effects were concerned, decreed that the entire
place--walls, houses, the two convents (Benedictine and Carthusian), the
church, and even stables and pigsties--was to be painted a uniform pink:
"pink," he ordained, "without the slightest admixture of blue." He
desired, in fact, a kind of rose or flesh colour, a particular tint
which, he foresaw, would look well among the luscious verdure of the
surroundings. His behest, as usual, was obeyed without much loss of
time.
Then he surveyed his work, and saw that it was good. He had created a
gem. The Old Town was a symphony in emerald and coral.
So it remained. The inhabitants grew to be proud of their rosy citadel;
it was an unwritten law among them that every new house should adapt
itself to this tone. For the rest, there was not much building done
after his death, with the exception of a few isolated villas that
sprang up, despite his old commands, in the neighbourhood. And the
decline in population once more set in. Men forsook the place--all save
the peasantry who tilled the surrounding fields. Towers and battlements
crumbled to earth; roadways heaved uneasily with grassy tufts that
sprouted in the chinks of the old paving-blocks. Sometimes at decline
of day a creaking hay-waggon would lumber along, bending towards a
courtyard in whose moss-grown recesses you discerned stacks of golden
maize and pumpkins; apples and plum-trees, nodding drowsily over walls,
littered the streets with snowy blossoms or fallen leaves. Commercial
life was extinct. The few remaining shopkeepers wore an air of
slumberous benevolence. The very stones suggested peace. A mellow and
aristocratic flavour clung to those pink dwellings that nestled,
world--forgotten, in a green content....
One of those few modern houses was the Villa Mon Repos. There was a
curious history attached to the place. It had been built about a
century ago at the orders of an eccentric French lady, a lyric poetess,
who professed to be tired of life. She had heard that somewhere on
Nepenthe was a towering precipice, unique of its kind and convenient
for suicidal purposes. She thought she would like to live near that
precipice--it might come in handy. There was nothing of the right sort
in Paris, she declared; only five-storey hotels and suchlike; the
notion of casting herself down from one of those artificial eminences
did not appeal to her high-strung temperament; she craved to die like
Sappho, her ideal. An architect was despatched, the ground purchased,
the house built and furnished. That done, she settled up her affairs in
France and established herself at Mon Repos. On the evening of her
arrival she climbed the little height at the back of her domain and
looked southward, down a sheer wall of rock eight or nine hundred feet
high, over the wrinkled ocean. It made her feel queer. Further
familiarity with the precipice did not breed contempt; her visits to
the site became rarer and rarer. She died, at a patriarchal age, in her
bed, after writing a scholarly pamphlet to prove that the tale of
Sappho's leap over her famous silvery crag was a myth, the "purest
sensationalism," a fable of the grammarians "hopelessly irreconcilable
with what we know of that great woman's character."
This much the bishop had learnt from Mr. Keith. That gentleman liked
the Sappho story; he called it absolutely true to human nature and so
creditable to the old lady's intelligence that he would have insisted
upon paying his respects to her had she not expired a good many years
before his arrival on the island. And he, of course, got it from Eames
who, as annotator of Perrelli's ANTIQUITIES, was in the habit of
garnering old details anent private houses and so forth, and had
possessed himself, in the course of his researches, of this particular
pamphlet which he intended to reprint, together with others of its
kind, in an appendix entitled, "Contemporary Social History."
The driving road terminated at the Old Town. Mr. Heard, descending from
his carriage, followed a pathway which had been described to him by
Denis and soon found himself at the entrance of the Villa Mon Repos. It
was an inconspicuous little place, surrounded by three or four chestnut
trees and a rose garden. A steep incline at the back of the property
ended, abruptly, in air. He concluded that the precipice must be on the
other side of that slope and that, if so, it was rather too near the
house for his taste. Mr. Heard thoroughly understood the feelings of
the French poetess. He, too, was not fond of precipices. It was as much
as he could do to look down from a church tower without growing dizzy.
On the house-steps, beside an empty cradle, sat a shrivelled hag--a
gaunt, forbidding anatomy, with hooked nose and brown skin. Tousled
grey hair, like that of a Skye terrier, hung over her forehead, half
concealing a pair of coal-black eyes. She rose up, barred the entrance
with one claw-like hand, and scrutinized him distrustfully.
"A Cerberus!" he thought. "This must be the old lady who understands
Hindustani. Now I wonder if she knows English?"
She seemed to understand that language too; or perhaps his kindly face
disposed her in his favour. He was allowed to pass within.
The house was empty. Mrs. Meadows had presumably gone out for a ramble,
taking the child with her. He sat down and waited, glancing round the
premises. It was a peaceful sort of abode, pervaded by a strong sense
of home. It appealed to the bishop, who had domestic instincts and,
despite his youth, was already a little weary of tossing about the
world. He envied his cousin's happy married life. Would such an
existence ever fall to his own lot? Although, like himself, she was
only a bird of passage on Nepenthe, she had succeeded in impressing her
personality upon those rather scantily furnished rooms and filling them
with an atmosphere of England. Heavy bowls of fresh roses were ranged
about. But what was she like, after all these years? Would she
recognize him? Had she heard of his arrival on the island?
Mrs. Meadows failed to return. Perhaps she had met some friend of
neighbour who was keeping her to dinner together with the child. The
old woman seemed unwilling or unable to give him any information as to
her whereabouts. After waiting an hour, he scribbled a short note, left
it on the writing-table, and took his leave. The eyes of that fierce
creature followed him right out of the garden. So did the scent of
roses....
The afternoon was drawing to its close as Mr. Heard, in a placid,
contemplative frame of mind, once more drew nigh the pink ramparts of
the Old Town, purposing to find his way home on foot.
He entered the most westerly of its four gateways. There were stone
seats within the structure on either side of the road, convenient for
sheltering from sun or rain. Passing under the vaulted roof he met
Count Caloveglia, that handsome soldier-like personality, who instantly
recognized him and greeted him in friendliest fashion.
"Will you do me the pleasure of coming to my house, and allow me to
offer you a cup of tea? It is visible from here--that rounded portal, do
you see? with the fig tree leaning over the street. Only a hundred
yards. Or perhaps we can rest awhile under this archway and converse.
It is always pleasant to watch the movements of the country-folk, and
there is a peculiar charm in this evening light. Well, let us sit down
then. I observe you are interested in those people. A singular
illusion, is it not?"
He referred to a group of men and boys who, stripped to the waist, were
bearing aloft immense masses of some argent-coloured rock.
"You've guessed my thoughts," replied the bishop. "How on earth are
they able to support such a weight? They remind me of Atlas with the
world on his shoulders."
"It is pumice-stone--one of the old industries of the place. They
excavate it on the hill-side yonder. Volcanic stuff. There are several
suchlike indications of subterranean fires; a hot spring, for instance,
which the people regard with a kind of superstitious awe. It is
dedicated to Saint Elias and believed to stand in mysterious sympathy
with the volcano on the mainland. You will observe too, sooner or
later, something fiery and incalculable in the temperament of the
natives. Perhaps it is due to the wine grown on these scorching slopes.
If geologists are right, we are sitting at this moment on the crater of
a volcano--"
"Dear me! That might be rather awkward. I suppose this pumice is very
light?"
"Light as foam. But who can believe it? The bearers move within a few
feet of us, and yet it resembles the most ponderous limestone or
granite. Then you ask yourself: How is it possible? If their burden
were what it seems to be, they would be crushed to earth instead of
striding proudly along. Admirable figures! As you say, the spectacle
takes one back into mythological times. Would you not call it a
procession of Titans, children of the Gods, storing up mountain-blocks
for some earth-convulsing battle? Your eyes deceive you. Like Thomas,
the doubting apostle, you must touch with your hands. And even then you
are not wholly convinced. To me, who knows the capacity of human bone
and muscle, these men are a daily miracle. They mock my notions of what
is permissible. How hard it is, sometimes, to trust the evidence of
one's senses! How reluctantly the mind consents to reality! The
industry is decaying," he added, "but I hope it will outlive my time."
"Everything seems to decay up here in sober and gracious fashion. I am
delighted, Count, with your Old Town. There is an autumnal flavour
about the place. It is a poet's dream. Some philosopher might dwell
here--some sage who has grown weary of disentangling life's threads."
Rarely did Mr. Heard use florid and sentimental language like this. The
soft light, the reposeful surroundings, the homelike influence of the
Villa Mon Repos--all had conspired to put him into an uncommonly idyllic
mood of mind. He felt disposed to linger with the kindly stranger who
seemed so much more communicative and affable than on the occasion of
those theatricals. He lit a cigarette and watched, for a while, the
flow of life through that gateway. Its passage was pierced, like the
eye of a needle, with a slender shaft of light from the westering sun.
Fine particles of dust, suspended overhead, enveloped the homeward
moving peasantry in a tender mist of gold.
"Yes," replied the Count. "This citadel is a microcosm of what the
world might be, if men were reasonable. Not all men! A great proportion
must be good enough to remain what they are. We could not live without
those whose business it is to bring the reasonableness of the few into
its proper relief. Were it otherwise, there would be no more
reasonableness on earth, would there?"
"And that would be a pity," observed Mr. Heard. "I was much interested,
Count, in what you said yesterday. You spoke of the Mediterranean
becoming once more the center of human activity. There is an attraction
in the idea to one who, like myself, has been brought up on the
classics and has never forgotten his spiritual debt to antiquity. But I
question whether the majority of my countrymen would be moved by such
considerations."
The old man replied:
"I think we need not trouble about majorities. No one can expect a
majority to be stirred by motives other than ignoble. Your English
majority, in particular, is quite unaware of its debt to us: why should
it turn eyes in our direction? But as for other Northern men, the
enlightened ones--I cannot help thinking that they will come to their
senses again one of these days. Oh yes! They will recover their sanity.
They will perceive under what artificial and cramping conditions, under
what false standards, they have been living; they will realize the
advantages of a climate where nature meets you half-way. I know little
of England, but the United States are pretty familiar to me; the two
climates, I imagine, cannot be very dissimilar. That a man should wear
himself to the bone in the acquisition of material gain is not pretty.
But what else can he do in lands adapted only for wolves and bears?
Without a degree of comfort which would be superfluous hereabouts, he
would feel humiliated. He must become strenuous if he wishes to rise
superior to his inhospitable surroundings."
"We think a good deal of strenuousness," objected the bishop.
"Have you not noticed that whenever anything, however fantastic, is
imposed upon men by physical forces, they straightway make a god of it?
That is why you deify strenuousness. You dare not forgo it. The Eskimo
doubtless deifies seal-blubber; he could not survive without it. Yet
nobody would be an Eskimo if he had a chance of bettering his
condition. By all means let us take life seriously. But let us be
serious about things that matter."
"Things that matter, Count! Is it not creditable for a man to support
his wife and family in the best conditions possible?"
"Assuredly. But chosen spirits will do this in regions where the same
results can be obtained with a smaller outlay of vital force. We have
only a certain amount of energy at our disposal. It is not seemly to
consume every ounce of it in a contest with brute nature. Man is made
for better things. Whatever fails to elevate the mind is not truly
profitable. Tell me, sir, how shall the mind be elevated if the body be
exhausted with material preoccupations? Consider the complex conditions
under which a Northern family is obliged to live. Think of the labour
expended upon that unceasing duel with the elements--the extra clothing
and footwear and mufflers and mantles, the carpets, the rugs, the
abundant and costly food required to keep the body in sound working
condition, the plumbing, the gas, the woodwork, the paintings and
repaintings, the tons of fuel, the lighting in winter, the contrivances
against frost and rain, the never-ending repairs to houses, the daily
polishings and dustings and scrubbings and those thousand other
impediments to the life of the spirit! Half of them are non-existent in
these latitudes; half the vitality expended upon them could therefore
be directed to other ends. At close of day, your Northerner is pleased
with himself. He has survived; he has even prospered. His family is
adequately housed and clothed. He feels 'presentable,' as he calls it,
in the eyes of those who share his illusions. He fancies he has
attained the aim and object of existence. He is too dazed with the
struggle to perceive how incongruous his efforts have been. What has he
done? He has sacrificed himself on the altar of a false ideal. He has
not touched the fringe of a reasonable life. He has performed certain
social and political duties--he knows nothing of the duties towards
himself. I am speaking of men from whom better things might have been
expected. As for the majority, the crowd, the herd--they do not exist,
neither here nor anywhere else. They leave a purely physiological mark
upon posterity; they propagate the species and protect their offspring.
So do foxes. It is not enough for us. Living in our lands, men would
have leisure to cultivate nobler aspects of their nature. They would be
accessible to purer aspirations, worthier delights. They would enjoy
the happiness of sages. What other happiness deserves the name? In the
Mediterranean, Mr. Heard, lies the hope of humanity."
The bishop was thoughtful. There occurred to him various objections to
this rather fanciful argument. Still, he said nothing. He was naturally
chary of words; it was so interesting to listen to other people! And at
this particular period he was more than usually reflective and
absorbent.
Happiness--an honourable, justifiable happiness--how was it to be
attained? Not otherwise, he used to think, than through the twofold
agency of Christianity and civilization. That was his old College
attitude. Imperceptibly his outlook had shifted since then. Something
had been stirring within him; new points of view had floated into his
ken. He was no longer so sure about things. The structure of his mind
had lost that old stability; its elements seemed to be held in
solution, ready to form new combinations. China had taught him that men
can be happy and virtuous while lacking, and even scorning the first of
these twin blessings. Then had come Africa, where his notions had been
further dislocated by those natives who derided both the one and the
other--such fine healthy animals, all the same! A candid soul, he
allowed his natural shrewdness and logic to play freely with memories
of his earlier experiences among the London poor. Those experiences now
became fraught with a new meaning. The solemn doctrines he had preached
in those days: were they really a panacea for all the ills of the
flesh? He thought upon the gaunt bodies, starved souls, and white
faces--the dirt, the squalor of it! Was that Christianity, civilization?
The Count, pursuing some other line of thought, broke out into a kind
of Delphic rhapsody:
"Folly of men! The wits of our people have been blunted, their habits
bestialized, their very climate and landscape ruined. The alert genius
of the Greeks is clogged by a barbaric, leaden-hued religion--the
fertile plains of Asia Minor and Spain converted into deserts! We
begin, at last, to apprehend the mischief; we know who is to blame; we
are turning the corner. Enclosed within the soft imagination of the
HOMO MEDITERRANEUS lies a kernel of hard reason. We have reached that
kernel. The Northerner's hardness is on the surface; his core, his
inner being, is apt to quaver in a state of fluid irresponsibility. Yet
there must be reasonable men everywhere; men who refuse to wear away
their faculties in a degrading effort to plunder one another, men who
are tired of hustle and strife. What, sir, would you call the
phenomenon of to-day? What is the outstanding feature of modern life?
The bankruptcy, the proven fatuity, of everything that is bound up
under the name of Western civilization. Men are perceiving, I think,
the baseness of mercantile and military ideals, the loftiness of those
older ones. They will band together, the elect of every nation, in
god-favoured regions round the Inland Sea, thee to lead serener lives.
To those how have hitherto preached indecorous maxims of conduct they
will say: 'What is all this ferocious nonsense about strenuousness? An
unbecoming fluster. And who are you, to dictate how we shall order our
day? Go! Shiver and struggle in your hyperborean dens. Trample about
those misty rain-sodden fields, and hack each other's eyes out with
antideluvian bayonets. Or career up and down the ocean, in your absurd
ships, to pick the pockets of men better than yourselves. That is you
mode of self-expression. It is not ours.' And Mediterranean people will
lead the way. They have suffered more than all from the imbecilities of
kinds and priests and soldiers and politicians. They now make an end of
this neurasthenic gadding and getting. They focus themselves anew and
regain their lost dignity. That ancient individualistic tone reasserts
itself. Man becomes a personality once more--"
He continued for some time in this prophetic strain, the bishop
listening with considerable approbation though, at a certain point of
the discourse, he would have liked to drop a word about Thermopylae and
Marathon. He also knew something of the evils of Northern
industrialism--how it stunts the body and warps the mind.
"What a charming dreamer!" he thought.
It was rather convenient for the Count to be able to pass, just then,
for a dreamer.
As a matter of fact, he was an extremely practical old gentleman.