The very afternoon after Aaron's arrival in Florence the sky became
dark, the wind cold, and rain began steadily to fall. He sat in his big,
bleak room above the river, and watched the pale green water fused with
yellow, the many-threaded streams fuse into one, as swiftly the surface
flood came down from the hills. Across, the dark green hills looked
darker in the wet, the umbrella pines held up in vain above the villas.
But away below, on the Lungarno, traffic rattled as ever.
Aaron went down at five o'clock to tea, and found himself alone next a
group of women, mostly Swedes or Danish or Dutch, drinking a peculiar
brown herb-brew which tasted like nothing else on earth, and eating two
thick bits of darkish bread smeared with a brown smear which hoped
it was jam, but hoped in vain. Unhappily he sat in the gilt and red,
massively ornate room, while the foreign women eyed him. Oh, bitter to
be a male under such circumstances.
He escaped as soon as possible back to his far-off regions, lonely and
cheerless, away above. But he rather liked the far-off remoteness in
the big old Florentine house: he did not mind the peculiar dark, uncosy
dreariness. It was not really dreary: only indifferent. Indifferent
to comfort, indifferent to all homeliness and cosiness. The over-big
furniture trying to be impressive, but never to be pretty or bright
or cheerful. There it stood, ugly and apart. And there let it
stand.--Neither did he mind the lack of fire, the cold sombreness of his
big bedroom. At home, in England, the bright grate and the ruddy fire,
the thick hearth-rug and the man's arm-chair, these had been inevitable.
And now he was glad to get away from it all. He was glad not to have a
cosy hearth, and his own arm-chair. He was glad to feel the cold, and to
breathe the unwarmed air. He preferred the Italian way of no fires, no
heating. If the day was cold, he was willing to be cold too. If it was
dark, he was willing to be dark. The cosy brightness of a real home--it
had stifled him till he felt his lungs would burst. The horrors of real
domesticity. No, the Italian brutal way was better.
So he put his overcoat over his knee, and studied some music he had
bought in Milan: some Pergolesi and the Scarlatti he liked, and some
Corelli. He preferred frail, sensitive, abstract music, with not much
feeling in it, but a certain limpidity and purity. Night fell as he sat
reading the scores. He would have liked to try certain pieces on his
flute. But his flute was too sensitive, it winced from the new strange
surroundings, and would not blossom.
Dinner sounded at last--at eight o'clock, or something after. He had to
learn to expect the meals always forty minutes late. Down he went, down
the long, dark, lonely corridors and staircases. The dining room was
right downstairs. But he had a little table to himself near the door,
the elderly women were at some little distance. The only other men were
Agostmo, the unshapely waiter, and an Italian duke, with wife and child
and nurse, the family sitting all together at a table halfway down the
room, and utterly pre-occupied with a little yellow dog.
However, the food was good enough, and sufficient, and the waiter and
the maid-servant cheerful and bustling. Everything felt happy-go-lucky
and informal, there was no particular atmosphere. Nobody put on any
airs, because nobody in the Nardini took any notice if they did. The
little ducal dog yapped, the ducal son shouted, the waiter dropped half
a dozen spoons, the old women knitted during the waits, and all went
off so badly that it was quite pleasant. Yes, Aaron preferred it to
Bertolini's, which was trying to be efficient and correct: though not
making any strenuous effort. Still, Bertolini's was much more up to
the scratch, there was the tension of proper standards. Whereas here at
Nardini's, nothing mattered very much.
It was November. When he got up to his far-off room again, Aaron felt
almost as if he were in a castle with the drawbridge drawn up. Through
the open window came the sound of the swelling Arno, as it rushed and
rustled along over its gravel-shoals. Lights spangled the opposite side.
Traffic sounded deep below. The room was not really cold, for the summer
sun so soaks into these thick old buildings, that it takes a month or
two of winter to soak it out.--The rain still fell.
In the morning it was still November, and the dawn came slowly. And
through the open window was the sound of the river's rushing. But the
traffic started before dawn, with a bang and a rattle of carts, and
a bang and jingle of tram-cars over the not-distant bridge. Oh, noisy
Florence! At half-past seven Aaron rang for his coffee: and got it at a
few minutes past eight. The signorina had told him to take his coffee in
bed.
Rain was still falling. But towards nine o'clock it lifted, and he
decided to go out. A wet, wet world. Carriages going by, with huge wet
shiny umbrellas, black and with many points, erected to cover the driver
and the tail of the horse and the box-seat. The hood of the carriage
covered the fare. Clatter-clatter through the rain. Peasants with long
wagons and slow oxen, and pale-green huge umbrellas erected for the
driver to walk beneath. Men tripping along in cloaks, shawls, umbrellas,
anything, quite unconcerned. A man loading gravel in the river-bed, in
spite of the wet. And innumerable bells ringing: but innumerable bells.
The great soft trembling of the cathedral bell felt in all the air.
Anyhow it was a new world. Aaron went along close to the tall thick
houses, following his nose. And suddenly he caught sight of the long
slim neck of the Palazzo Vecchio up above, in the air. And in another
minute he was passing between massive buildings, out into the Piazza
della Signoria. There he stood still and looked round him in real
surprise, and real joy. The flat empty square with its stone paving was
all wet. The great buildings rose dark. The dark, sheer front of the
Palazzo Vecchio went up like a cliff, to the battlements, and the slim
tower soared dark and hawk-like, crested, high above. And at the foot
of the cliff stood the great naked David, white and stripped in the wet,
white against the dark, warm-dark cliff of the building--and near, the
heavy naked men of Bandinelli.
The first thing he had seen, as he turned into the square, was the back
of one of these Bandinelli statues: a great naked man of marble, with a
heavy back and strong naked flanks over which the water was trickling.
And then to come immediately upon the David, so much whiter, glistening
skin-white in the wet, standing a little forward, and shrinking.
He may be ugly, too naturalistic, too big, and anything else you like.
But the David in the Piazza della Signoria, there under the dark great
palace, in the position Michelangelo chose for him, there, standing
forward stripped and exposed and eternally half-shrinking, half--wishing
to expose himself, he is the genius of Florence. The adolescent, the
white, self-conscious, physical adolescent: enormous, in keeping with
the stark, grim, enormous palace, which is dark and bare as he is white
and bare. And behind, the big, lumpy Bandinelli men are in keeping too.
They may be ugly--but they are there in their place, and they have their
own lumpy reality. And this morning in the rain, standing unbroken, with
the water trickling down their flanks and along the inner side of their
great thighs, they were real enough, representing the undaunted physical
nature of the heavier Florentines.
Aaron looked and looked at the three great naked men. David so much
white, and standing forward, self-conscious: then at the great splendid
front of the Palazzo Vecchio: and at the fountain splashing water
upon its wet, wet figures; and the distant equestrian statue; and the
stone-flagged space of the grim square. And he felt that here he was in
one of the world's living centres, here, in the Piazza della Signoria.
The sense of having arrived--of having reached a perfect centre of the
human world: this he had.
And so, satisfied, he turned round to look at the bronze Perseus which
rose just above him. Benvenuto Cellini's dark hero looked female, with
his plump hips and his waist, female and rather insignificant: graceful,
and rather vulgar. The clownish Bandinellis were somehow more to the
point.--Then all the statuary in the Loggia! But that is a mistake. It
looks too much like the yard of a monumental mason.
The great, naked men in the rain, under the dark-grey November sky, in
the dark, strong inviolable square! The wonderful hawk-head of the old
palace. The physical, self-conscious adolescent, Michelangelo's David,
shrinking and exposing himself, with his white, slack limbs! Florence,
passionate, fearless Florence had spoken herself out.--Aaron was
fascinated by the Piazza della Signoria. He never went into the town,
nor returned from it to his lodging, without contriving to pass through
the square. And he never passed through it without satisfaction. Here
men had been at their intensest, most naked pitch, here, at the end of
the old world and the beginning of the new. Since then, always rather
puling and apologetic.
Aaron felt a new self, a new life-urge rising inside himself. Florence
seemed to start a new man in him. It was a town of men. On Friday
morning, so early, he heard the traffic. Early, he watched the rather
low, two-wheeled traps of the peasants spanking recklessly over the
bridge, coming in to town. And then, when he went out, he found the
Piazza della Signoria packed with men: but all, all men. And all
farmers, land-owners and land-workers. The curious, fine-nosed Tuscan
farmers, with their half-sardonic, amber-coloured eyes. Their curious
individuality, their clothes worn so easy and reckless, their hats with
the personal twist. Their curious full oval cheeks, their tendency to be
too fat, to have a belly and heavy limbs. Their close-sitting dark hair.
And above all, their sharp, almost acrid, mocking expression, the silent
curl of the nose, the eternal challenge, the rock-bottom unbelief,
and the subtle fearlessness. The dangerous, subtle, never-dying
fearlessness, and the acrid unbelief. But men! Men! A town of men, in
spite of everything. The one manly quality, undying, acrid fearlessness.
The eternal challenge of the un-quenched human soul. Perhaps too acrid
and challenging today, when there is nothing left to challenge. But
men--who existed without apology and without justification. Men who
would neither justify themselves nor apologize for themselves. Just men.
The rarest thing left in our sweet Christendom.
Altogether Aaron was pleased with himself, for being in Florence. Those
were early days after the war, when as yet very few foreigners had
returned, and the place had the native sombreness and intensity. So that
our friend did not mind being alone.
The third day, however, Francis called on him. There was a tap at the
bedroom door, and the young man entered, all eyes of curiosity.
“Oh, there you ARE!” he cried, flinging his hand and twisting his waist
and then laying his hand on his breast. “Such a LONG way up to you! But
miles--! Well, how are you? Are you quite all right here? You are?
I'm so glad--we've been so rushed, seeing people that we haven't had a
MINUTE. But not a MINUTE! People! People! People! Isn't it amazing how
many there are, and how many one knows, and gets to know! But amazing!
Endless acquaintances!--Oh, and such quaint people here! so ODD! So MORE
than odd! Oh, extraordinary--!” Francis chuckled to himself over the
extraordinariness. Then he seated himself gracefully at Aaron's table.
“Oh, MUSIC! What? Corelli! So interesting! So very CLEVER, these people,
weren't they!--Corelli and the younger Scarlatti and all that crowd.”
Here he closed the score again. “But now--LOOK! Do you want to know
anybody here, or don't you? I've told them about you, and of course
they're dying to meet you and hear you play. But I thought it best not
to mention anything about--about your being hard-up, and all that. I
said you were just here on a visit. You see with this kind of people I'm
sure it's much the best not to let them start off by thinking you will
need them at all--or that you MIGHT need them. Why give yourself away,
anyhow? Just meet them and take them for what they're worth--and then
you can see. If they like to give you an engagement to play at some
show or other--well, you can decide when the time comes whether you
will accept. Much better that these kind of people shouldn't get it into
their heads at once that they can hire your services. It doesn't do.
They haven't enough discrimination for that. Much best make rather
a favour of it, than sort of ask them to hire you.--Don't you agree?
Perhaps I'm wrong.”
Aaron sat and listened and wondered at the wisdom and the genuine
kindness of the young _beau_. And more still, he wondered at the
profound social disillusionment. This handsome collie dog was something
of a social wolf, half showing his fangs at the moment. But with genuine
kindheartedness for another wolf. Aaron was touched.
“Yes, I think that's the best way,” he said.
“You do! Yes, so do I. Oh, they are such queer people! Why is it, do
you think, that English people abroad go so very QUEER--so
ultra-English--INCREDIBLE!--and at the same time so perfectly
impossible? But impossible! Pathological, I assure you.--And as for
their sexual behaviour--oh, dear, don't mention it. I assure you it
doesn't bear mention.--And all quite flagrant, quite unabashed--under
the cover of this fanatical Englishness. But I couldn't begin to TELL
you all the things. It's just incredible.”
Aaron wondered how on earth Francis had been able to discover and bear
witness to so much that was incredible, in a bare two days. But a little
gossip, and an addition of lurid imagination will carry you anywhere.
“Well now,” said Francis. “What are you doing today?”
Aaron was not doing anything in particular.
“Then will you come and have dinner with us--?”
Francis fixed up the time and the place--a small restaurant at the other
end of the town. Then he leaned out of the window.
“Fascinating place! Oh, fascinating place!” he said, soliloquy. “And
you've got a superb view. Almost better than ours, I think.--Well then,
half-past seven. We're meeting a few other people, mostly residents or
people staying some time. We're not inviting them. Just dropping in,
you know--a little restaurant. We shall see you then! Well then, _a
rivederci_ till this evening.--So glad you like Florence! I'm simply
loving it--revelling. And the pictures!--Oh--”
The party that evening consisted all of men: Francis and Angus, and a
writer, James Argyle, and little Algy Constable, and tiny Louis Mee, and
deaf Walter Rosen. They all snapped and rattled at one another, and
were rather spiteful but rather amusing. Francis and Angus had to leave
early. They had another appointment. And James Argyle got quite tipsy,
and said to Aaron:
“But, my boy, don't let yourself be led astray by the talk of such
people as Algy. Beware of them, my boy, if you've a soul to save. If
you've a soul to save!” And he swallowed the remains of his litre.
Algy's nose trembled a little, and his eyes blinked. “And if you've
a soul to LOSE,” he said, “I would warn you very earnestly against
Argyle.” Whereupon Algy shut one eye and opened the other so wide, that
Aaron was almost scared. “Quite right, my boy. Ha! Ha! Never a truer
thing said! Ha-ha-ha.” Argyle laughed his Mephistophelian tipsy laugh.
“They'll teach you to save. Never was such a lot of ripe old savers!
Save their old trouser-buttons! Go to them if you want to learn to
save. Oh, yes, I advise it seriously. You'll lose nothing--not even a
reputation.--You may lose a SOUL, of course. But that's a detail, among
such a hoard of banknotes and trouser-buttons. Ha-ha! What's a soul, to
them--?”
“What is it to you, is perhaps the more pertinent question,” said Algy,
flapping his eyelids like some crazy owl. “It is you who specialise in
the matter of soul, and we who are in need of enlightenment--”
“Yes, very true, you ARE! You ARE in need of enlightenment. A set of
benighted wise virgins. Ha-ha-ha! That's good, that--benighted wise
virgins! What--” Argyle put his red face near to Aaron's, and made a
_moue_, narrowing his eyes quizzically as he peered up from under his
level grey eyebrows. “Sit in the dark to save the lamp-oil--And all no
good to them.--When the bridegroom cometh--! Ha-ha! Good that! Good,
my boy!--The bridegroom--” he giggled to himself. “What about the
bridegroom, Algy, my boy? Eh? What about him? Better trim your wick, old
man, if it's not too late--”
“We were talking of souls, not wicks, Argyle,” said Algy.
“Same thing. Upon my soul it all amounts to the same thing. Where's the
soul in a man that hasn't got a bedfellow--eh?--answer me that! Can't be
done you know. Might as well ask a virgin chicken to lay you an egg.”
“Then there ought to be a good deal of it about,” said Algy.
“Of what? Of soul? There ought to be a good deal of soul about?--Ah,
because there's a good deal of--, you mean.--Ah, I wish it were so. I
wish it were so. But, believe me, there's far more damned chastity in
the world, than anything else. Even in this town.--Call it chastity, if
you like. I see nothing in it but sterility. It takes a rat to praise
long tails. Impotence set up the praise of chastity--believe me
or not--but that's the bottom of it. The virtue is made out of the
necessity.--Ha-ha-ha!--Like them! Like them! Ha-ha! Saving their souls!
Why they'd save the waste matter of their bodies if they could. Grieves
them to part with it.--Ha! ha!--ha!”
There was a pause. Argyle was in his cups, which left no more to be
said. Algy, quivering and angry, looked disconcertingly round the
room as if he were quite calm and collected. The deaf Jewish Rosen was
smiling down his nose and saying: “What was that last? I didn't catch
that last,” cupping his ear with his hand in the frantic hope that
someone would answer. No one paid any heed.
“I shall be going,” said Algy, looking round. Then to Aaron he said,
“You play the flute, I hear. May we hear you some time?”
“Yes,” said Aaron, non-committal.
“Well, look here--come to tea tomorrow. I shall have some friends, and
Del Torre will play the piano. Come to tea tomorrow, will you?”
“Thank you, I will.”
“And perhaps you'll bring your flute along.”
“Don't you do any such thing, my boy. Make them entertain YOU, for
once.--They're always squeezing an entertainment out of somebody--”
and Argyle desperately emptied the remains of Algy's wine into his
own glass: whilst Algy stood as if listening to something far off, and
blinking terribly.
“Anyhow,” he said at length, “you'll come, won't you? And bring the
flute if you feel like it.”
“Don't you take that flute, my boy,” persisted Argyle. “Don't think of
such a thing. If they want a concert, let them buy their tickets and go
to the Teatro Diana. Or to Marchesa del Torre's Saturday morning. She
can afford to treat them.” Algy looked at Argyle, and blinked. “Well,”
he said. “I hope you'll get home all right, Argyle.”
“Thank you for your courtesy, Algy. Won't you lend me your arm?”
As Algy was small and frail, somewhat shaky, and as Argyle was a finely
built, heavy man of fifty or more, the slap was unkind.
“Afraid I can't tonight. Good-night--”
Algy departed, so did little Mee, who had sat with a little delighted
disapproval on his tiny, bird-like face, without saying anything. And
even the Jew Rosen put away his deaf-machine and began awkwardly to take
his leave. His long nose was smiling to itself complacently at all the
things Argyle had been saying.
When he, too, had gone, Argyle arched his brows at Aaron, saying:
“Oh, my dear fellow, what a lot they are!--Little Mee--looking like an
innocent little boy. He's over seventy if he's a day. Well over seventy.
Well, you don't believe me. Ask his mother--ask his mother. She's
ninety-five. Old lady of ninety-five--” Argyle even laughed himself at
his own preposterousness.
“And then Algy--Algy's not a fool, you know. Oh, he can be most
entertaining, most witty, and amusing. But he's out of place here. He
should be in Kensington, dandling round the ladies' drawing rooms and
making his _mots_. They're rich, you know, the pair of them. Little Mee
used to boast that he lived on eleven-and-three-pence a week. Had to,
poor chap. But then what does a white mouse like that need? Makes a
heavy meal on a cheese-paring. Luck, you know--but of course he's
come into money as well. Rich as Croesus, and still lives on
nineteen-and-two-pence a week. Though it's nearly double, of course,
what it used to be. No wonder he looks anxious. They disapprove of
me--oh, quite right, quite right from their own point of view. Where
would their money be otherwise? It wouldn't last long if I laid hands
on it--” he made a devilish quizzing face. “But you know, they get on
my nerves. Little old maids, you know, little old maids. I'm sure I'm
surprised at their patience with me.--But when people are patient
with you, you want to spit gall at them. Don't you? Ha-ha-ha! Poor old
Algy.--Did I lay it on him tonight, or did I miss him?”
“I think you got him,” said Aaron.
“He'll never forgive me. Depend on it, he'll never forgive me. Ha-ha! I
like to be unforgiven. It adds ZEST to one's intercourse with people, to
know that they'll never forgive one. Ha-ha-ha! Little old maids, who do
their knitting with their tongues. Poor old Algy--he drops his stitches
now. Ha-ha-ha!--Must be eighty, I should say.”
Aaron laughed. He had never met a man like Argyle before--and he could
not help being charmed. The other man had a certain wicked whimsicality
that was very attractive, when levelled against someone else, and not
against oneself. He must have been very handsome in his day, with his
natural dignity, and his clean-shaven strong square face. But now his
face was all red and softened and inflamed, his eyes had gone small and
wicked under his bushy grey brows. Still he had a presence. And his grey
hair, almost gone white, was still handsome.
“And what are you going to do in Florence?” asked Argyle.
Aaron explained.
“Well,” said Argyle. “Make what you can out of them, and then go. Go
before they have time to do the dirty on you. If they think you want
anything from them, they'll treat you like a dog, like a dog. Oh,
they're very frightened of anybody who wants anything of them:
frightened to death. I see nothing of them.--Live by myself--see nobody.
Can't stand it, you know: their silly little teaparties--simply can't
stand it. No, I live alone--and shall die alone.--At least, I sincerely
hope so. I should be sorry to have any of them hanging round.”
The restaurant was empty, the pale, malarial waiter--he had of course
contracted malaria during the war--was looking purple round the eyes.
But Argyle callously sat on. Aaron therefore rose to his feet.
“Oh, I'm coming, I'm coming,” said Argyle.
He got unsteadily to his feet. The waiter helped him on with his coat:
and he put a disreputable-looking little curly hat on his head. Then he
took his stick.
“Don't look at my appearance, my dear fellow,” said Argyle. “I am frayed
at the wrists--look here!” He showed the cuffs of his overcoat, just
frayed through. “I've got a trunkful of clothes in London, if only
somebody would bring it out to me.--Ready then! _Avanti!_”
And so they passed out into the still rainy street. Argyle lived in the
very centre of the town: in the Cathedral Square. Aaron left him at his
hotel door.
“But come and see me,” said Argyle. “Call for me at twelve o'clock--or
just before twelve--and let us have luncheon together. What! Is that
all right?--Yes, come just before twelve.--When?--Tomorrow? Tomorrow
morning? Will you come tomorrow?”
Aaron said he would on Monday.
“Monday, eh! You say Monday! Very well then. Don't you forget now. Don't
you forget. For I've a memory like a vice. _I_ shan't forget.--Just
before twelve then. And come right up. I'm right under the roof. In
Paradise, as the porter always says. _Siamo nel paradiso_. But he's
a _cretin_. As near Paradise as I care for, for it's devilish hot in
summer, and damned cold in winter. Don't you forget now--Monday, twelve
o'clock.”
And Argyle pinched Aaron's arm fast, then went unsteadily up the steps
to his hotel door.
The next day at Algy's there was a crowd Algy had a very pleasant flat
indeed, kept more scrupulously neat and finicking than ever any woman's
flat was kept. So today, with its bowls of flowers and its pictures and
books and old furniture, and Algy, very nicely dressed, fluttering and
blinking and making really a charming host, it was all very delightful
to the little mob of visitors. They were a curious lot, it is true:
everybody rather exceptional. Which though it may be startling, is so
very much better fun than everybody all alike. Aaron talked to an old,
old Italian elegant in side-curls, who peeled off his grey gloves and
studied his formalities with a delightful Mid-Victorian dash, and told
stories about a _plaint_ which Lady Surry had against Lord Marsh, and
was quite incomprehensible. Out rolled the English words, like plums out
of a burst bag, and all completely unintelligible. But the old _beau_
was supremely satisfied. He loved talking English, and holding his
listeners spell-bound.
Next to Aaron on the sofa sat the Marchesa del Torre, an American woman
from the Southern States, who had lived most of her life in Europe. She
was about forty years of age, handsome, well-dressed, and quiet in the
buzz of the tea-party. It was evident she was one of Algy's lionesses.
Now she sat by Aaron, eating nothing, but taking a cup of tea and
keeping still. She seemed sad--or not well perhaps. Her eyes were
heavy. But she was very carefully made up, and very well dressed, though
simply: and sitting there, full-bosomed, rather sad, remote-seeming, she
suggested to Aaron a modern Cleopatra brooding, Anthony-less.
Her husband, the Marchese, was a little intense Italian in a colonel's
grey uniform, cavalry, leather gaiters. He had blue eyes, his hair was
cut very short, his head looked hard and rather military: he would have
been taken for an Austrian officer, or even a German, had it not been
for the peculiar Italian sprightliness and touch of grimace in his
mobile countenance. He was rather like a gnome--not ugly, but odd.
Now he came and stood opposite to Signor di Lanti, and quizzed him
in Italian. But it was evident, in quizzing the old buck, the little
Marchese was hovering near his wife, in ear-shot. Algy came up with
cigarettes, and she at once began to smoke, with that peculiar heavy
intensity of a nervous woman.
Aaron did not say anything--did not know what to say. He was peculiarly
conscious of the woman sitting next to him, her arm near his. She smoked
heavily, in silence, as if abstracted, a sort of cloud on her level,
dark brows. Her hair was dark, but a softish brown, not black, and her
skin was fair. Her bosom would be white.--Why Aaron should have had this
thought, he could not for the life of him say.
Manfredi, her husband, rolled his blue eyes and grimaced as he laughed
at old Lanti. But it was obvious that his attention was diverted
sideways, towards his wife. Aaron, who was tired of nursing a tea-cup,
placed in on a table and resumed his seat in silence. But suddenly the
little Marchese whipped out his cigarette-case, and making a little bow,
presented it to Aaron, saying:
“Won't you smoke?”
“Thank you,” said Aaron.
“Turkish that side--Virginia there--you see.”
“Thank you, Turkish,” said Aaron.
The little officer in his dove-grey and yellow uniform snapped his box
shut again, and presented a light.
“You are new in Florence?” he said, as he presented the match.
“Four days,” said Aaron.
“And I hear you are musical.”
“I play the flute--no more.”
“Ah, yes--but then you play it as an artist, not as an accomplishment.”
“But how do you know?” laughed Aaron.
“I was told so--and I believe it.”
“That's nice of you, anyhow--But you are a musician too.”
“Yes--we are both musicians--my wife and I.”
Manfredi looked at his wife. She flicked the ash off her cigarette.
“What sort?” said Aaron.
“Why, how do you mean, what sort? We are dilettanti, I suppose.”
“No--what is your instrument? The piano?”
“Yes--the pianoforte. And my wife sings. But we are very much out of
practice. I have been at the war four years, and we have had our home
in Paris. My wife was in Paris, she did not wish to stay in Italy alone.
And so--you see--everything goes--”
“But you will begin again?”
“Yes. We have begun already. We have music on Saturday mornings. Next
Saturday a string quartette, and violin solos by a young Florentine
woman--a friend--very good indeed, daughter of our Professor Tortoli,
who composes--as you may know--”
“Yes,” said Aaron.
“Would you care to come and hear--?”
“Awfully nice if you would--” suddenly said the wife, quite simply, as
if she had merely been tired, and not talking before.
“I should like to very much--”
“Do come then.”
While they were making the arrangements, Algy came up in his blandest
manner.
“Now Marchesa--might we hope for a song?”
“No--I don't sing any more,” came the slow, contralto reply.
“Oh, but you can't mean you say that deliberately--”
“Yes, quite deliberately--” She threw away her cigarette and opened her
little gold case to take another.
“But what can have brought you to such a disastrous decision?”
“I can't say,” she replied, with a little laugh. “The war, probably.”
“Oh, but don't let the war deprive us of this, as of everything else.”
“Can't be helped,” she said. “I have no choice in the matter. The bird
has flown--” She spoke with a certain heavy languor.
“You mean the bird of your voice? Oh, but that is quite impossible. One
can hear it calling out of the leaves every time you speak.”
“I'm afraid you can't get him to do any more than call out of the
leaves.”
“But--but--pardon me--is it because you don't intend there should be any
more song? Is that your intention?”
“That I couldn't say,” said the Marchesa, smoking, smoking.
“Yes,” said Manfredi. “At the present time it is because she WILL
not--not because she cannot. It is her will, as you say.”
“Dear me! Dear me!” said Algy. “But this is really another disaster
added to the war list.--But--but--will none of us ever be able to
persuade you?” He smiled half cajoling, half pathetic, with a prodigious
flapping of his eyes.
“I don't know,” said she. “That will be as it must be.”
“Then can't we say it must be SONG once more?”
To this sally she merely laughed, and pressed out her half-smoked
cigarette.
“How very disappointing! How very cruel of--of fate--and the
war--and--and all the sum total of evils,” said Algy.
“Perhaps--” here the little and piquant host turned to Aaron.
“Perhaps Mr. Sisson, your flute might call out the bird of song. As
thrushes call each other into challenge, you know. Don't you think that
is very probable?”
“I have no idea,” said Aaron.
“But you, Marchesa. Won't you give us hope that it might be so?”
“I've no idea, either,” said she. “But I should very much like to hear
Mr. Sisson's flute. It's an instrument I like extremely.”
“There now. You see you may work the miracle, Mr. Sisson. Won't you play
to us?”
“I'm afraid I didn't bring my flute along,” said Aaron “I didn't want to
arrive with a little bag.”
“Quite!” said Algy. “What a pity it wouldn't go in your pocket.”
“Not music and all,” said Aaron.
“Dear me! What a _comble_ of disappointment. I never felt so strongly,
Marchesa, that the old life and the old world had collapsed.--Really--I
shall soon have to try to give up being cheerful at all.”
“Don't do that,” said the Marchesa. “It isn't worth the effort.”
“Ah! I'm glad you find it so. Then I have hope.”
She merely smiled, indifferent.
The teaparty began to break up--Aaron found himself going down the
stairs with the Marchesa and her husband. They descended all three in
silence, husband and wife in front. Once outside the door, the husband
asked:
“How shall we go home, dear? Tram or carriage--?” It was evident he was
economical.
“Walk,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Aaron. “We are all going
the same way, I believe.”
Aaron said where he lived. They were just across the river. And so all
three proceeded to walk through the town.
“You are sure it won't be too much for you--too far?” said the little
officer, taking his wife's arm solicitously. She was taller than he. But
he was a spirited fellow.
“No, I feel like walking.”
“So long as you don't have to pay for it afterwards.”
Aaron gathered that she was not well. Yet she did not look ill--unless
it were nerves. She had that peculiar heavy remote quality of
pre-occupation and neurosis.
The streets of Florence were very full this Sunday evening, almost
impassable, crowded particularly with gangs of grey-green soldiers. The
three made their way brokenly, and with difficulty. The Italian was in a
constant state of returning salutes. The grey-green, sturdy, unsoldierly
soldiers looked at the woman as she passed.
“I am sure you had better take a carriage,” said Manfredi.
“No--I don't mind it.”
“Do you feel at home in Florence?” Aaron asked her.
“Yes--as much as anywhere. Oh, yes--quite at home.”
“Do you like it as well as anywhere?” he asked.
“Yes--for a time. Paris for the most part.”
“Never America?”
“No, never America. I came when I was quite a little girl to
Europe--Madrid--Constantinople--Paris. I hardly knew America at all.”
Aaron remembered that Francis had told him, the Marchesa's father had
been ambassador to Paris.
“So you feel you have no country of your own?”
“I have Italy. I am Italian now, you know.”
Aaron wondered why she spoke so muted, so numbed. Manfredi seemed really
attached to her--and she to him. They were so simple with one another.
They came towards the bridge where they should part.
“Won't you come and have a cocktail?” she said.
“Now?” said Aaron.
“Yes. This is the right time for a cocktail. What time is it, Manfredi?”
“Half past six. Do come and have one with us,” said the Italian. “We
always take one about this time.”
Aaron continued with them over the bridge. They had the first floor of
an old palazzo opposite, a little way up the hill. A man-servant opened
the door.
“If only it will be warm,” she said. “The apartment is almost impossible
to keep warm. We will sit in the little room.”
Aaron found himself in a quite warm room with shaded lights and a
mixture of old Italian stiffness and deep soft modern comfort. The
Marchesa went away to take off her wraps, and the Marchese chatted with
Aaron. The little officer was amiable and kind, and it was evident he
liked his guest.
“Would you like to see the room where we have music?” he said. “It is
a fine room for the purpose--we used before the war to have music
every Saturday morning, from ten to twelve: and all friends might come.
Usually we had fifteen or twenty people. Now we are starting again. I
myself enjoy it so much. I am afraid my wife isn't so enthusiastic as
she used to be. I wish something would rouse her up, you know. The war
seemed to take her life away. Here in Florence are so many amateurs.
Very good indeed. We can have very good chamber-music indeed. I hope it
will cheer her up and make her quite herself again. I was away for such
long periods, at the front.--And it was not good for her to be alone.--I
am hoping now all will be better.”
So saying, the little, odd officer switched on the lights of the
long salon. It was a handsome room in the Italian mode of the Empire
period--beautiful old faded tapestry panels--reddish--and some ormolu
furniture--and other things mixed in--rather conglomerate, but pleasing,
all the more pleasing. It was big, not too empty, and seemed to belong
to human life, not to show and shut-upedness. The host was happy showing
it.
“Of course the flat in Paris is more luxurious than this,” he said. “But
I prefer this. I prefer it here.” There was a certain wistfulness as he
looked round, then began to switch off the lights.
They returned to the little salotta. The Marchesa was seated in a low
chair. She wore a very thin white blouse, that showed her arms and her
throat. She was a full-breasted, soft-skinned woman, though not stout.
“Make the cocktails then, Manfredi,” she said. “Do you find this room
very cold?” she asked of Aaron.
“Not a bit cold,” he said.
“The stove goes all the time,” she said, “but without much effect.”
“You wear such thin clothes,” he said.
“Ah, no, the stove should give heat enough. Do sit down. Will you smoke?
There are cigarettes--and cigars, if you prefer them.”
“No, I've got my own, thanks.”
She took her own cigarette from her gold case.
“It is a fine room, for music, the big room,” said he.
“Yes, quite. Would you like to play for us some time, do you think?”
“Do you want me to? I mean does it interest you?”
“What--the flute?”
“No--music altogether--”
“Music altogether--! Well! I used to love it. Now--I'm not sure.
Manfredi lives for it, almost.”
“For that and nothing else?” asked Aaron.
“No, no! No, no! Other things as well.”
“But you don't like it much any more?”
“I don't know. Perhaps I don't. I'm not sure.”
“You don't look forward to the Saturday mornings?” he asked.
“Perhaps I don't--but for Manfredi's sake, of course, I do. But for his
sake more than my own, I admit. And I think he knows it.”
“A crowd of people in one's house--” said Aaron.
“Yes, the people. But it's not only that. It's the music itself--I think
I can't stand it any more. I don't know.”
“Too emotional? Too much feeling for you?”
“Yes, perhaps. But no. What I can't stand is chords, you know:
harmonies. A number of sounds all sounding together. It just makes me
ill. It makes me feel so sick.”
“What--do you want discords?--dissonances?”
“No--they are nearly as bad. No, it's just when any number of musical
notes, different notes, come together, harmonies or discords. Even a
single chord struck on the piano. It makes me feel sick. I just feel as
if I should retch. Isn't it strange? Of course, I don't tell Manfredi.
It would be too cruel to him. It would cut his life in two.”
“But then why do you have the music--the Saturdays--then?”
“Oh, I just keep out of the way as much as possible. I'm sure you feel
there is something wrong with me, that I take it as I do,” she added, as
if anxious: but half ironical.
“No--I was just wondering--I believe I feel something the same myself. I
know orchestra makes me blind with hate or I don't know what. But I want
to throw bombs.”
“There now. It does that to me, too. Only now it has fairly got me down,
and I feel nothing but helpless nausea. You know, like when you are
seasick.”
Her dark-blue, heavy, haunted-looking eyes were resting on him as if
she hoped for something. He watched her face steadily, a curious
intelligence flickering on his own.
“Yes,” he said. “I understand it. And I know, at the bottom, I'm like
that. But I keep myself from realising, don't you know? Else perhaps,
where should I be? Because I make my life and my living at it, as well.”
“At music! Do you! But how bad for you. But perhaps the flute is
different. I have a feeling that it is. I can think of one single
pipe-note--yes, I can think of it quite, quite calmly. And I can't even
think of the piano, or of the violin with its tremolo, or of orchestra,
or of a string quartette--or even a military band--I can't think of
it without a shudder. I can only bear drum-and-fife. Isn't it crazy of
me--but from the other, from what we call music proper, I've endured too
much. But bring your flute one day. Bring it, will you? And let me hear
it quite alone. Quite, quite alone. I think it might do me an awful lot
of good. I do, really. I can imagine it.” She closed her eyes and her
strange, sing-song lapsing voice came to an end. She spoke almost like
one in a trance--or a sleep-walker.
“I've got it now in my overcoat pocket,” he said, “if you like.”
“Have you? Yes!” She was never hurried: always slow and resonant, so
that the echoes of her voice seemed to linger. “Yes--do get it. Do get
it. And play in the other room--quite--quite without accompaniment.
Do--and try me.”
“And you will tell me what you feel?”
“Yes.”
Aaron went out to his overcoat. When he returned with his flute, which
he was screwing together, Manfredi had come with the tray and the three
cocktails. The Marchesa took her glass.
“Listen, Manfredi,” she said. “Mr. Sisson is going to play, quite alone
in the sala. And I am going to sit here and listen.”
“Very well,” said Manfredi. “Drink your cocktail first. Are you going to
play without music?”
“Yes,” said Aaron.
“I'll just put on the lights for you.”
“No--leave it dark. Enough light will come in from here.”
“Sure?” said Manfredi.
“Yes.”
The little soldier was an intruder at the moment. Both the others felt
it so. But they bore him no grudge. They knew it was they who were
exceptional, not he. Aaron swallowed his drink, and looked towards the
door.
“Sit down, Manfredi. Sit still,” said the Marchesa.
“Won't you let me try some accompaniment?” said the soldier.
“No. I shall just play a little thing from memory,” said Aaron.
“Sit down, dear. Sit down,” said the Marchesa to her husband.
He seated himself obediently. The flash of bright yellow on the grey of
his uniform seemed to make him like a chaffinch or a gnome.
Aaron retired to the other room, and waited awhile, to get back the
spell which connected him with the woman, and gave the two of them this
strange isolation, beyond the bounds of life, as it seemed.
He caught it again. And there, in the darkness of the big room, he put
his flute to his lips, and began to play. It was a clear, sharp, lilted
run-and-fall of notes, not a tune in any sense of the word, and yet
a melody, a bright, quick sound of pure animation, a bright, quick,
animate noise, running and pausing. It was like a bird's singing, in
that it had no human emotion or passion or intention or meaning--a
ripple and poise of animate sound. But it was unlike a bird's singing,
in that the notes followed clear and single one after the other, in
their subtle gallop. A nightingale is rather like that--a wild sound.
To read all the human pathos into nightingales' singing is nonsense.
A wild, savage, non-human lurch and squander of sound, beautiful, but
entirely unaesthetic.
What Aaron was playing was not of his own invention. It was a bit of
mediaeval phrasing written for the pipe and the viol. It made the piano
seem a ponderous, nerve-wracking steam-roller of noise, and the violin,
as we know it, a hateful wire-drawn nerve-torturer.
After a little while, when he entered the smaller room again, the
Marchesa looked full into his face.
“Good!” she said. “Good!”
And a gleam almost of happiness seemed to light her up. She seemed like
one who had been kept in a horrible enchanted castle--for years and
years. Oh, a horrible enchanted castle, with wet walls of emotions and
ponderous chains of feelings and a ghastly atmosphere of must-be. She
felt she had seen through the opening door a crack of sunshine, and
thin, pure, light outside air, outside, beyond this dank and
beastly dungeon of feelings and moral necessity. Ugh!--she shuddered
convulsively at what had been. She looked at her little husband. Chains
of necessity all round him: a little jailor. Yet she was fond of him.
If only he would throw away the castle keys. He was a little gnome. What
did he clutch the castle-keys so tight for?
Aaron looked at her. He knew that they understood one another, he and
she. Without any moral necessity or any other necessity. Outside--they
had got outside the castle of so-called human life. Outside the
horrible, stinking human castle Of life. A bit of true, limpid freedom.
Just a glimpse.
“Charming!” said the Marchese. “Truly charming! But what was it you
played?”
Aaron told him.
“But truly delightful. I say, won't you play for us one of these
Saturdays? And won't you let me take the accompaniment? I should be
charmed, charmed if you would.”
“All right,” said Aaron.
“Do drink another cocktail,” said his hostess.
He did so. And then he rose to leave.
“Will you stay to dinner?” said the Marchesa. “We have two people
coming--two Italian relatives of my husband. But--”
No, Aaron declined to stay to dinner.
“Then won't you come on--let me see--on Wednesday? Do come on Wednesday.
We are alone. And do bring the flute. Come at half-past six, as today,
will you? Yes?”
Aaron promised--and then he found himself in the street. It was
half-past seven. Instead of returning straight home, he crossed the
Ponte Vecchio and walked straight into the crowd. The night was fine
now. He had his overcoat over his arm, and in a sort of trance or
frenzy, whirled away by his evening's experience, and by the woman, he
strode swiftly forward, hardly heeding anything, but rushing blindly on
through all the crowd, carried away by his own feelings, as much as if
he had been alone, and all these many people merely trees.
Leaving the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele a gang of soldiers suddenly rushed
round him, buffeting him in one direction, whilst another gang, swinging
round the corner, threw him back helpless again into the midst of the
first gang. For some moments he struggled among the rude, brutal little
mob of grey-green coarse uniforms that smelt so strong of soldiers.
Then, irritated, he found himself free again, shaking himself and
passing on towards the cathedral. Irritated, he now put on his overcoat
and buttoned it to the throat, closing himself in, as it were, from the
brutal insolence of the Sunday night mob of men. Before, he had been
walking through them in a rush of naked feeling, all exposed to their
tender mercies. He now gathered himself together.
As he was going home, suddenly, just as he was passing the Bargello,
he stopped. He stopped, and put his hand to his breast pocket. His
letter-case was gone. He had been robbed. It was as if lightning ran
through him at that moment, as if a fluid electricity rushed down his
limbs, through the sluice of his knees, and out at his feet, leaving
him standing there almost unconscious. For a moment unconscious and
superconscious he stood there. He had been robbed. They had put their
hand in his breast and robbed him. If they had stabbed him, it could
hardly have had a greater effect on him.
And he had known it. He had known it. When the soldiers jostled him so
evilly they robbed him. And he knew it. He had known it as if it were
fate. Even as if it were fated beforehand.
Feeling quite weak and faint, as if he had really been struck by some
evil electric fluid, he walked on. And as soon as he began to walk, he
began to reason. Perhaps his letter-case was in his other coat. Perhaps
he had not had it with him at all. Perhaps he was feeling all this, just
for nothing. Perhaps it was all folly.
He hurried forward. He wanted to make sure. He wanted relief. It was
as if the power of evil had suddenly seized him and thrown him, and he
wanted to say it was not so, that he had imagined it all, conjured it
up. He did not want to admit the power of evil--particularly at that
moment. For surely a very ugly evil spirit had struck him, in the midst
of that gang of Italian soldiers. He knew it--it had pierced him. It had
_got_ him.
But he wanted to say it was not so. Reaching the house, he hastened
upwards to his far-off, lonely room, through the dark corridors. Once
in his own apartment, he shut the door and switched on the light, a
sensation like fear at his heart. Then he searched his other pockets. He
looked everywhere. In vain.
In vain, truly enough. For he _knew_ the thing was stolen. He had known
it all along. The soldiers had deliberately plotted, had deliberately
rushed him and taken his purse. They must have watched him previously.
They must have grinned, and jeered at him.
He sat down in a chair, to recover from the shock. The pocket-book
contained four hundred francs, three one-pound notes, and various
letters and private effects. Well, these were lost. But it was not so
much the loss as the assault on his person that caused him to feel
so stricken. He felt the jeering, gibing blows they had given as they
jostled him.
And now he sat, weak in every limb, and said to himself: “Yes--and if I
hadn't rushed along so full of feeling: if I hadn't exposed myself: if
I hadn't got worked up with the Marchesa, and then rushed all kindled
through the streets, without reserve, it would never have happened. I
gave myself away: and there was someone ready to snatch what I gave. I
gave myself away. It is my own fault. I should have been on my guard.
I should be always on my guard: always, always. With God and the devil
both, I should be on my guard. Godly or devilish, I should hold fast to
my reserve and keep on the watch. And if I don't, I deserve what I get.”
But still he sat in his chair in his bedroom, dazed. One part of his
soul was saying emphatically: It serves you right. It is nothing but
right. It serves everybody right who rushes enkindled through the
street, and trusts implicitly in mankind and in the life-spirit, as if
mankind and the life-spirit were a playground for enkindled individuals.
It serves you right. You have paid about twelve pounds sterling for your
lesson. Fool, you might have known beforehand, and then you needn't have
paid at all. You can ill afford twelve pounds sterling, you fool. But
since paid you have, then mind, mind the lesson is learned. Never
again. Never expose yourself again. Never again absolute trust. It is
a blasphemy against life, is absolute trust. Has a wild creature ever
absolute trust? It minds itself. Sleeping or waking it is on its guard.
And so must you be, or you'll go under. Sleeping or waking, man or
woman, God or the devil, keep your guard over yourself. Keep your guard
over yourself, lest worse befall you. No man is robbed unless he incites
a robber. No man is murdered unless he attracts a murderer. Then be not
robbed: it lies within your own power. And be not murdered. Or if you
are, you deserve it. Keep your guard over yourself, now, always and
forever. Yes, against God quite as hard as against the devil. He's fully
as dangerous to you....
Thus thinking, not in his mind but in his soul, his active, living soul,
he gathered his equanimity once more, and accepted the fact. So he rose
and tidied himself for dinner. His face was now set, and still. His
heart also was still--and fearless. Because its sentinel was stationed.
Stationed, stationed for ever.
And Aaron never forgot. After this, it became essential to him to feel
that the sentinel stood guard in his own heart. He felt a strange unease
the moment he was off his guard. Asleep or awake, in the midst of the
deepest passion or the suddenest love, or in the throes of greatest
excitement or bewilderment, somewhere, some corner of himself was awake
to the fact that the sentinel of the soul must not sleep, no, never, not
for one instant.