THE BREEZY HEIGHT
Catanzaro must be one of the healthiest spots in Southern Italy;
perhaps it has no rival in this respect among the towns south of Rome.
The furious winds, with which my acquaintances threatened me, did not
blow during my stay, but there was always more or less breeze, and the
kind of breeze that refreshes. I should like to visit Catanzaro in the
summer; probably one would have all the joy of glorious sunshine
without oppressive heat, and in the landscape in those glowing days
would be indescribably beautiful.
I remember with delight the public garden at Cosenza, its noble view
over the valley of the Crati to the heights of Sila; that of Catanzaro
is in itself more striking, and the prospect it affords has a sterner,
grander note. Here you wander amid groups of magnificent trees, an
astonishingly rich and varied vegetation; and from a skirting terrace
you look down upon the precipitous gorge, burnt into barenness save
where a cactus clings to some jutting rock. Here in summer-time would
be freshness amid noontide heat, with wondrous avenues of golden light
breaking the dusk beneath the boughs. I shall never see it; but the
desire often comes to me under northern skies, when I am weary of
labour and seek in fancy a paradise of idleness.
In the public gardens is a little museum, noticeable mostly for a fine
collection of ancient coins. There are Greek pots, too, and weapons,
found at Tiriolo, a village high up on the mountain above Catanzaro. As
at Taranto, a stranger who cares for this kind of thing can be sure of
having the museum all to himself. On my first visit Don Pasquale
accompanied me, and through him I made the acquaintance of the
custodian. But I was not in the museum mood; reviving health inclined
me to the open air, and the life of to-day; I saw these musty relics
with only a vague eye.
After living amid a malaria-stricken population, I rejoiced in the
healthy aspect of the mountain folk. Even a deformed beggar, who
dragged himself painfully along the pavement, had so ruddy a face that
it was hard to feel compassion for him. And the wayside children--it
was a pleasure to watch them at their games. Such children in Italy do
not, as a rule, seem happy; too often they look ill, cheerless,
burdened before their time; at Catanzaro they are as robust and lively
as heart could wish, and their voices ring delightfully upon the ear.
It is not only, I imagine, a result of the fine air they breathe; no
doubt they are exceptional among the poor children of the south in
getting enough to eat. The town has certain industries, especially the
manufacture of silk; one feels an atmosphere of well-being; mendicancy
is a rare thing.
Fruits abounded, and were very cheap; if one purchased from a stall the
difficulty was to carry away the abundance offered for one's smallest
coin. Excellent oranges cost about a penny the half-dozen. Any one who
is fond of the prickly fig should go to Catanzaro. I asked a man
sitting with a basket of them at a street corner to give me the worth
of a soldo (a half-penny); he began to fill my pocket, and when I cried
that it was enough, that I could carry no more, he held up one
particularly fine fruit, smiled as only an Italian can, and said, with
admirable politeness, "_Questo per complimento_!" I ought to have
shaken hands with him.
Even when I had grown accustomed to the place, its singular appearance
of incompleteness kept exciting my attention. I had never seen a town
so ragged at the edges. If there had recently been a great
conflagration and almost all the whole city were being rebuilt, it
would have looked much as it did at the time of my visit. To enter the
post-office one had to clamber over heaps of stone and plaster, to
stride over tumbled beams and jump across great puddles, entering at
last by shaky stairs a place which looked like the waiting-room of an
unfinished railway station. The style of building is peculiar, and
looks so temporary as to keep one constantly in mind of the threatening
earthquake. Most of the edifices, large and small, public and private,
are constructed of rubble set in cement, with an occasional big,
rough-squared stone to give an appearance of solidity, and perhaps a
few courses of bricks in the old Roman style. If the building is of
importance, this work is hidden beneath stucco; otherwise it remains
like the mere shell of a house, and is disfigured over all its surface
with great holes left by the scaffolding. Religion supplies something
of adornment; above many portals is a rudely painted Virgin and Child,
often, plainly enough, the effort of a hand accustomed to any tool
rather than that of the artist. On the dwellings of the very poor a
great Cross is scrawled in whitewash. These rickety houses often
exhibit another feature more picturesque and, to the earthly
imagination, more consoling; on the balcony one sees a great gourd,
some three feet long, so placed that its yellow plumpness may ripen in
sun and air. It is a sign of plenty: the warm spot of colour against
the rough masonry does good to eye and heart.
My hotel afforded me little amusement after the _Concordia_ at Cotrone,
yet it did not lack its characteristic features. I found, for instance,
in my bedroom a printed notice, making appeal in remarkable terms to
all who occupied the chamber. The proprietor--thus it ran--had learnt
with extreme regret that certain travellers who slept under his roof
were in the habit of taking their meals at other places of
entertainment. This practice, he desired it to be known, not only hurt
his personal feelings--_tocca il suo morale_--but did harm to the
reputation of his establishment. Assuring all and sundry that he would
do his utmost to maintain a high standard of culinary excellence, the
proprietor ended by begging his honourable clients that they would
bestow their kind favours on the restaurant of the house--_signora
pregare i suoi respettabili clienti perche vogliano benignarsi il
ristorante_; and therewith signed himself--Coriolano Paparazzo.
For my own part I was not tempted to such a breach of decorum; the fare
provided by Signor Paparazzo suited me well enough, and the wine of the
country was so good that it would have covered many defects of cookery.
Of my fellow-guests in the spacious dining-room I can recall only two.
They were military men of a certain age, grizzled officers, who walked
rather stiffly and seated themselves with circumspection. Evidently old
friends, they always dined at the same time, entering one a few minutes
after the other; but by some freak of habit they took places at
different tables, so that the conversation which they kept up all
through the meal had to be carried on by an exchange of shouts. Nothing
whatever prevented them from being near each other; the room never
contained more than half a dozen persons; yet thus they sat, evening
after evening, many yards apart, straining their voices to be mutually
audible. Me they delighted; to the other guests, more familiar with
them and their talk, they must have been a serious nuisance. But I
should have liked to see the civilian who dared to manifest his
disapproval of these fine old warriors.
They sat interminably, evidently having no idea how otherwise to pass
the evening. In the matter of public amusements Catanzaro is not
progressive; I only once saw an announcement of a theatrical
performance, and it did not smack of modern enterprise. On the
dining-room table one evening lay a little printed bill, which made
known that a dramatic company was then in the town. Their entertainment
consisted of two parts, the first entitled: "The Death of Agolante and
the Madness of Count Orlando"; the second: "A Delightful Comedy, the
Devil's Castle with Pulcinella as the Timorous Soldier." In addition
were promised "new duets and Neapolitan songs." The theatre would
comfortably seat three hundred persons, and the performance would be
given twice, at half-past eighteen and half-past twenty-one o'clock. It
was unpardonable in me that I did not seek out the Teatro delle
Varieta; I might easily have been in my seat (with thirty, more likely
than three hundred, other spectators) by half-past twenty-one. But the
night was forbidding; a cold rain fell heavily. Moreover, just as I had
thought that it was perhaps worth while to run the risk of another
illness--one cannot see the Madness of Count Orlando every day--there
came into the room a peddler laden with some fifty volumes of fiction
and a fine assortment of combs and shirt-studs. The books tempted me; I
looked them through. Most, of course, were translations from the
vulgarest French _feuilletonistes_; the Italian reader of novels,
whether in newspaper or volume, knows, as a rule, nothing but this
imported rubbish. However, a real Italian work was discoverable, and,
together with the unfriendly sky, it kept me at home. I am sorry now,
as for many another omission on my wanderings, when lack of energy or a
passing mood of dullness has caused me to miss what would be so
pleasant in the retrospect.
I spent an hour one evening at the principal cafe, where a pianist of
great pretensions and small achievement made rather painful music.
Watching and listening to the company (all men, of course, though the
Oriental system regarding women is not so strict at Catanzaro as
elsewhere in the south), I could not but fall into a comparison of this
scene with any similar gathering of middle-class English folk. The
contrast was very greatly in favour of the Italians. One has had the
same thought a hundred times in the same circumstances, but it is worth
dwelling upon. Among these representative men, young and old, of
Catanzaro, the tone of conversation was incomparably better than that
which would rule in a cluster of English provincials met to enjoy their
evening leisure. They did, in fact, converse--a word rarely applicable
to English talk under such conditions; mere personal gossip was the
exception; they exchanged genuine thoughts, reasoned lucidly on the
surface of abstract subjects. I say on the surface; no remark that I
heard could be called original or striking; but the choice of topics
and the mode of viewing them was distinctly intellectual. Phrases often
occurred such as have no equivalent on the lips of everyday people in
our own country. For instance, a young fellow in no way distinguished
from his companions, fell to talking about a leading townsman, and
praised him for his _ingenio simpatico, his bella intelligenza_, with
exclamations of approval from those who listened. No, it is not merely
the difference between homely Anglo-Saxon and a language of classic
origin; there is a radical distinction of thought. These people have an
innate respect for things of the mind, which is wholly lacking to a
typical Englishman. One need not dwell upon the point that their
animation was supported by a tiny cup of coffee or a glass of lemonade;
this is a matter of climate and racial constitution; but I noticed the
entire absence of a certain kind of jocoseness which is so naturally
associated with spirituous liquors; no talk could have been less
offensive. From many a bar-parlour in English country towns I have gone
away heavy with tedium and disgust; the cafe at Catanzaro seemed, in
comparison, a place of assembly for wits and philosophers.
Meanwhile a season of rain had begun; heavy skies warned me that I must
not hope for a renewal of sunny idleness on this mountain top; it would
be well if intervals of cheerful weather lighted my further course by
the Ionian Sea. Reluctantly, I made ready to depart.