During some days the main interest of the people in the hotel was the
growing intimacy established between the Marchesa Sciacca, who was the
lady from Malta, and the Neapolitan with the Pulcinella air, Signor
Carminatti.
The Maltese must have been haughty and exclusive, to judge from the
queenly air she assumed. Only with the handsome Neapolitan did she
behave amiably.
In the dining-room the Maltese sat with her two children, a boy and a
girl, at the other end from where Cæsar and Laura were accustomed
to sit. At her side, at a table close by, chattered and jested the
diplomatic Carminatti.
The Marquis of Sciacca was ill with diabetes; he had come to Rome
to take a treatment, and during these days he did not come to the
dining-room.
The Marchesa was one of those mixed types, unharmonious, common among
mongrel races. Her black hair shone like jet, her lips looked like an
Egyptian’s, and her eyes of a very light blue showed off in a curious
way in her bronzed face. She powdered her face, she painted her lips,
she shaded her eyes with kohl. Her appearance was that of a proud,
revengeful woman.
She ate with much nicety, opening her mouth so little that she could put
no more than the tip of her spoon between her lips; with her children
she talked English and Italian in equal perfection, and when she heard
young Carminatti’s facetious remarks she laughed with marked impudence.
Signer Carminatti was tall, with a black moustache, a hooked nose,
well-formed languid eyes, lively and somewhat clownish gestures; he was
at the same time sad and merry, melancholy and smiling, he changed his
expression every moment. He was in the habit of appearing in the salon
in a dinner-jacket, with a large flower in his button-hole and two or
three fat diamonds on his chest. He would come along dragging his feet,
would bow, make a joke, stand mournful; and this fluency of expression,
and these gesticulations, gave him a manner halfway between woman and
child.
When he grew petulant, especially, he seemed like a woman. “Macché!”
he would say continually, with an acrid voice and the disgusted air of
an hysterical dame.
In spite of his frequent petulant fits, he was the person most esteemed
by the ladies of the hotel, both young and married.
“He is the darling of the ladies,” the Countess Brenda said of him,
mockingly.
Laura had not the least use for him.
“I know that type by heart,” she asserted with disdain.
During lunch and dinner Signor Carminatti did not leave off talking for
a moment with the Maltese. The Marchesa Sciacca’s children often wanted
to tell their mother something; but she hushed them so as to be able to
hear the bright sayings of the handsome Neapolitan.
The San Martino young ladies and the Countess Brenda’s daughter kept
trying to find a way to steal Carminatti for their group; but he always
went back to the Maltese, doubtless because her conversation was more
diverting and spicy.
_THE CONTESSINA BRENDA_
The Countess Brenda’s daughter, Beatrice Brenda, in spite of her pea-hen
air, was always endeavouring to stir up the Neapolitan and to start a
conversation with him; but Carminatti in his light-hearted way would
reply with a jest or a fatuous remark and betake himself again to the
Marchesa Sciacca, who would make her disturbing children hush because
they often prevented her from catching what the Neapolitan was saying.
She was not to be despised, not by a long shot, was Signorina Bice, not
in any respect; besides being very rich, she was a beautiful girl and
promised to be more beautiful; she had the type of Titian’s women, an
opaline white skin, as though made of mother-of-pearl, plump milky arms,
and dark eyes. The one thing lacking in her was expression.
She used frequently to go about in the company of an aristocratic
old maid, very ugly, with red hair and a face like a horse, but very
distinguished, who ate at the next table to Laura and Cæsar.
One day Carminatti brought another Neapolitan home to dinner with him,
a fat grotesque person, whom he instigated to emit a series of
improprieties about women and matrimony. Hearing the scandalous sallies
of the rustic, the ladies said, with an amiable smile:
“He is a _benedetto_.”
The Contessina Brenda, fascinated by the Neapolitan, went to the
Marchesa Sciacca’s table. As she passed, Carminatti arose with his
napkin in one hand, and gesticulating with the other, said:
“Contessina. Allow me to present to you Signor Cappagutti, a merchant
from Naples.”
Signor Cappagutti remained leaning back tranquilly in his chair, and the
Contessina burst out laughing and began to move her arms as if somebody
had put a horse-fly on her skirt. Then she raised her hand to her face,
to hide her laughter, and suddenly sat down.
_DANCING_
As it rained a great deal the majority of the guests preferred not to go
out. In the evenings they had dances. Cæsar did not appear at the first
one; but his sister told him he ought to go. Cæsar was at the second
dance, so as not to seem too much of an ogre. As he had no intention of
dancing, he installed himself in a corner; and while the dance went on he
kept talking with the Countesses Brenda and San Martino.
Various young men had arrived in the room. They exhibited that Southern
vivacity which is a trifle tiresome to the onlooker, and they all
listened to themselves while they spoke. The Neapolitan and two or three
of his friends were introduced to Cæsar; but they showed him a certain
rather ostentatious and impertinent coolness.
Signor Carminatti exchanged a few words with the Countess Brenda, and
purposely acted as if he did not notice Cæsar’s presence.
The Neapolitan’s chatter did not irritate Cæsar in the slightest, and
as he had no intention of being his rival, he listened to him quite
entertained.
Cæsar noted that the San Martino ladies and some friends of theirs
had a predilection for types like Carminatti, swarthy, prattling, and
boastful South Italians.
The ladies showed an affectionate familiarity with the girls; they
caressed them and kissed them effusively.
_YOU ARE AN INQUISITOR_
Laura, who was dancing with an officer, approached her brother, who was
wedged into a corner, behind two rows of chairs.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him, stopping and informing her
partner that she was going to sit down a moment.
“Nothing,” answered Cæsar, “I am waiting for this waltz to finish, so
that I can get away.”
“You are not enjoying yourself?”
“Pish!”
“Nevertheless, there are amusing things about it.”
“Ah, surely. Do you know what happened to me with the Countess Brenda?”
“What did happen?”
“When she came in and gave me her hand, she said: ‘How hot your hands
are; mine are frozen.’ And she held my hands between hers. That was
comical.”
“Comical! Why?”
“How do I know?”
“It is comical to you, because you see only evil motives. She held your
hand. Who knows what she may be after? Who knows if she wants to get
something out of you? She has an income of eighty or ninety thousand
lire, perhaps she wants to borrow money from you.”
“No, I know she doesn’t.”
“Then, what are you afraid of?”
“Afraid! Afraid of nothing! Only it surprised me.”
“That’s because you look at everything with the eye of an inquisitor.
One must be suspicious: be always on one’s guard, always on the watch.
It’s the attitude of a savage.”
“I don’t deny it. I have no desire to be civilized like these people.
But what does come to me is that the husband of our illustrious and
wealthy friend wears in his breast that porte-bonheur, which I believe
is called horns.”
“Of course; and you haven’t discovered that his family is a family of
assassins? How Spanish! What a savage Spaniard I have for a brother!”
Cæsar burst into laughter, and taking advantage of the moment when
everybody was going to the buffet, left the room. In the corridor, one
of the San Martino girls, the more sweet and angelic of the two, was in
a corner with one of the dancers, and there was a sound like a kiss.
The little blonde made an exclamation of fright; Cæsar behaved as if he
had noticed nothing and kept on his way.
“The devil!” exclaimed Cæsar, “that angelic little princess hides in
corners with one of these _briganti_. And their mother has the face to
say that they don’t know how to bait a hook! I don’t know what more she
could wish. Although it is possible that this is the educational scheme
of the future for marriageable girls.”
In the entrance-hall of the hotel were the Marchesa Sciacca’s two
children, attended by a sleeping maid; the little girl, seated on a
sofa, was watching her brother, who walked from one side to the other
with a roll of paper in his hand. In the entrance hall, opposite the
hotel door, there was a bulletin, which was changed every day, to
announce the different performances that were to be given that night at
the theatres of Rome.
The small boy walked back and forth in front of the poster, and
addressing himself to a public consisting of the sleeping maid and the
little girl, cried:
“Step up, gentlemen! Step up! Now is the time. We are about to perform
_La Geisha_, the magnificent English operetta. Walk right in! Walk right
in!”
While the mother was dancing with the Neapolitan in the ball-room, the
children were amusing themselves thus alone.
“The truth is that our civilization is an absurdity. Even the children
go mad,” thought Cæsar, and took refuge in his room.
During the whole night he heard from his bed the notes of the waltzes
and two-steps, and dancers’ laughter and shouts and shuffling feet.
_THEY ARE JUST CHILDREN_
The next day, Laura, before going out to make a call, appeared at
lunch-time most elegantly dressed, with a gown and a hat from Paris, in
which she was truly most charming.
She had a great success: the San Martinos, the Countess Brenda, the
other ladies congratulated her. The hat, above all, seemed ideal to
them.
Carminatti was in raptures.
“_E bello, bellissimo_,” he said, with great enthusiasm, and all the
ladies agreed that it was _bellissimo_, lengthening the “s” and nodding
their heads with a gesture of admiration.
“And you don’t say anything to me, _bambino_?” Laura inquired of Cæsar.
“I say you are all right.”
“And nothing more?”
“If you want me to pay you a compliment, I will tell you that you are
pretty enough to make incest legitimate.” “What a barbarian!” murmured
Laura, half laughing, half blushing.
“What has he been saying to you?” two or three people inquired.
Laura translated his words into Italian, and Carminatti found them
admirable.
“Very appropriate! Very witty!” he exclaimed, laughing, and gave Cæsar
a friendly slap on the shoulder.
The Marchesa Sciacca looked at Laura several times with reflective
glances and a rancorous smile.
“The truth is that these Southern people are just children,” thought
Cæsar, mockingly. “What an inveterate preoccupation they have in the
beautiful.”
The Neapolitan was one of those most preoccupied with esthetics.
Cæsar had a room opposite Signor Carminatti’s, and the first few days
he had thought it was a woman’s room. Toilet flasks, sprays, boxes of
powder; the room looked like a perfumery shop.
“It is curious,” Cæsar used to think, “how these people from famous
historic towns can combine powder and the _maffia_, opoponax and
daggers.”
Almost every night after dinner there was an improvised dance in the
salon. Somebody played the languorous waltzes of the Tzigane orchestras
on the piano. The Maltese and Carminatti used to sing romantic songs, of
the kind whose words and music seem to be always the same, and in which
there invariably is question of panting, refulgent, love, and other
suggestive words.
One Sunday evening, when it was raining, Cæsar stayed in the hotel.
In the salon Carminatti was doing sleight-of-hand to entertain the
ladies. Afterwards the Neapolitan was seen pursuing the Marchesa Sciacca
and the two San Martino girls in the corridors. They shrieked shrilly
when he grabbed them around the waist. The devil of a Neapolitan was an
expert at sleight-of-hand.