conceivable sort of "woman" was there, broad shouldered and with rather
large feet. The most usual was the semi-peasant, with a very full bosom
and very full skirt and a very downright bearing. But one was a widow in
weeds, drooping on the arm of a robust daughter. And one was an ancient
crone in a crochet bed-cover. And one was in an old skirt and blouse and
apron, with a broom, wildly sweeping the street from end to end. He was
an animated rascal. He swept with very sarcastic assiduity in front of
two town-misses in fur coats, who minced very importantly along. He
swept their way very humbly, facing them and going backwards, sweeping
and bowing, whilst they advanced with their noses in the air. He made
his great bow, and they minced past, daughters of dog-fish, pesce-carne,
no doubt. Then he skipped with a bold, gambolling flurry behind them,
and with a perfectly mad frenzy began to sweep after them, as if to
sweep their tracks away. He swept so madly and so blindly with his besom
that he swept on to their heels and their ankles. They shrieked and
glowered round, but the blind sweeper saw them not. He swept and swept
and pricked their thin silk ankles. And they, scarlet with indignation
and rage, gave hot skips like cats on hot bricks, and fled discomfited
forwards. He bowed once more after them, and started mildly and
innocently to sweep the street. A pair of lovers of fifty years ago, she
in a half crinoline and poke bonnet and veil, hanging on his arm came
very coyly past, oh so simpering, and it took me a long time to be sure
that the "girl" was a youth. An old woman in a long nightdress prowled
up and down, holding out her candle and peering in the street as if for
burglars. She would approach the _real_ young women and put her candle
in their faces and peer so hard, as if she suspected them of something.
And they blushed and turned their faces away and protested confusedly.
This old woman searched so fearfully in the face of one strapping lass
in the pink and scarlet costume, who looked for all the world like a
bunch of red and rose-pink geraniums, with a bit of white,--a _real_
peasant lass--that the latter in a panic began to beat him with her
fist, furiously, quite aroused. And he made off, running comically in
his long white nightdress.
There were some really beautiful dresses of rich old brocade, and some
gleaming old shawls, a shimmer of lavender and silver, or of dark, rich
shot colours with deep borders of white silver and primrose gold, very
lovely. I believe two of them were actual women--but the q-b says no.
There was a Victorian gown of thick green silk, with a creamy blotched
cross-over shawl. About her we both were doubtful. There were two
wistful, drooping-lily sisters, all in white, with big feet. And there
was a very successful tall miss in a narrow hobble-skirt of black satin
and a toque with ospreys. The way she minced and wagged her posterior
and went on her toes and peered over her shoulder and kept her elbows in
was an admirable caricature. Especially the curious sagging heaving
movement of "bustle" region, a movement very characteristic of modern
feminism, was hit off with a bit of male exaggeration which rejoiced me.
At first she even took me in.
We stood outside our window, and leaned on the little balcony rail
looking down at this flow of life. Directly opposite was the chemist's
house: facing our window the best bedroom of the chemist, with a huge
white matrimonial bed and muslin curtains. In the balcony sat the
chemist's daughters, very elegant in high-heeled shoes and black hair
done in the fluffy fashion with a big sweep sideways. Oh very elegant!
They eyed us a little and we eyed them. But without interest. The river
of life was down below.
* * * * *
It was very cold and the day was declining. We too were cold. We decided
to go into the street and look for the cafe. In a moment we were out of
doors, walking as inconspicuously as possible near the wall. Of course
there was no pavement. These maskers were very gentle and whimsical, no
touch of brutality at all. Now we were level with them, how odd and
funny they were. One youth wore a thin white blouse and a pair of his
sister's wide, calico knickers with needlework frills near the ankle,
and white stockings. He walked artlessly, and looked almost pretty. Only
the q-b winced with pain: not because of the knickers, but because of
that awful length, coming well below the knee. Another young man was
wound into a sheet, and heavens knows if he could ever get out of it.
Another was involved in a complicated entanglement of white crochet
antimacassars, very troublesome to contemplate. I did not like him at
all, like a fish in a net. But he strode robustly about.
We came to the end of the street, where there is a wide, desolate sort
of gap. Here the little band stood braying away, there was a thick crowd
of people, and on a slanting place just above, a little circle where
youths and men, maskers and one or two girls were dancing, so crowded
together and such a small ring that they looked like a jiggly set of
upright rollers all turning rickettily against one another. They were
doing a sort of intense jigging waltz. Why do they look so intense?
Perhaps because they were so tight all together, like too many fish in a
globe slipping through one another.
There was a cafe in this sort of piazza--not a piazza at all, a formless
gap. But young men were drinking little drinks, and I knew it would be
hopeless to ask for anything but cold drinks or black coffee: which we
did not want. So we continued forwards, up the slope of the village
street. These towns soon come to an end. Already we were wandering into
the open. On a ledge above, a peasant family was making a huge bonfire,
a tower of orange-coloured, rippling flame. Little, impish boys were
throwing on more rubbish. Everybody else was in town. Why were these
folk at the town-end making this fire alone?
We came to the end of the houses and looked over the road-wall at the
hollow, deep, interesting valley below. Away on the other side rose a
blue mountain, a steep but stumpy cone. High land reared up, dusky and
dark-blue, all around. Somewhere far off the sun was setting with a bit
of crimson. It was a wild, unusual landscape, of unusual shape. The
hills seemed so untouched, dark-blue, virgin-wild, the hollow cradle of
the valley was cultivated like a tapestry away below. And there seemed
so little outlying life: nothing. No castles even. In Italy and Sicily
castles perching everywhere. In Sardinia none--the remote, ungrappled
hills rising darkly, standing outside of life.
* * * * *
As we went back it was growing dark, and the little band was about to
leave off its brass noise. But the crowd still surged, the maskers still
jigged and frisked unweariedly. Oh the good old energy of the bygone
days, before men became so self-conscious. Here it was still on the hop.
We found no cafe that looked any good. Coming to the inn, we asked if
there was a fire anywhere. There wasn't. We went up to our room. The
chemist-daughters had lighted up opposite, one saw their bedroom as if
it were one's own. In the dusk of the street the maskers were still
jigging, all the youths still joyfully being women, but a little more
roughly now. Away over the house-tops the purple-red of a dying sunset.
And it was very cold.
There was nothing for it but just to lie in bed. The q-b made a little
tea on the spirit-lamp, and we sat in bed and sipped it. Then we covered
ourselves up and lay still, to get warm. Outside the noise of the
street came unabated. It grew quite dark, the lights reflected into the
room. There was the sound of an accordion across the hoarseness of the
many voices and movements in the street: and then a solid, strong
singing of men's voices, singing a soldier song.
"Quando torniamo in casa nostra--"
We got up to look. Under the small electric lights the narrow, cobbled
street was still running with a river of people, but fewer maskers. Two
maskers beating loudly at a heavy closed door. They beat and beat. At
last the door opens a crack. They rush to try to get in--but in vain. It
had shut the moment it saw them, they are foiled, on they go down the
street. The town is full of men, many peasants come in from the outlying
parts, the black and white costume now showing in the streets.
We retire to bed again out of the cold. Comes a knock, and Thumbelina
bursts in, in the darkness.
"Siamo qua!" says the q-b.
Thumbelina dashes at the window-doors and shuts them and shuts the
casement. Then she dashes to my bedhead and turns on the light, looking
down at me as if I were a rabbit in the grass. Then she flings a can of
water against the wash-bowls--cold water, icy, alas. After which, small
and explosive, she explodes her way out of the room again, and leaves
us in the glaring light, having replied that it is now a little after
six o'clock, and dinner is half past seven.
So we lie in bed, warm and in peace, but hungry, waiting for half past
seven.
* * * * *
When the q-b can stand it no more she flounces up, though the clock from
the Campanile has struck seven only a few minutes before. Dashing
downstairs to reconnoitre, she is back in a breath to say that people
are eating their heads off in the long dining room. In the next breath
we are downstairs too.
The room was brightly lighted, and at many white tables sat diners, all
men. It was quite city-like. Everyone was in convivial mood. The q-b
spied men opposite having chicken and salad--and she had hopes. But they
were brief. When the soup came, the girl announced that there was only
bistecca: which meant a bit of fried cow. So it did: a quite, quite
small bit of fried beef, a few potatoes and a bit of cauliflower.
Really, it was not enough for a child of twelve. But that was the end of
it. A few mandarini--tangerine oranges--rolled on a plate for dessert.
And there's the long and short of these infernal dinners. Was there any
cheese? No, there was no cheese. So we merely masticated bread.
There came in three peasants in the black and white costume, and sat at
the middle table. They kept on their stocking caps. And queer they
looked, coming in with slow, deliberate tread of these elderly men, and
sitting rather remote, with a gap of solitude around them. The peculiar
ancient loneliness of the Sardinian hills clings to them, and something
stiff, static, pre-world.
* * * * *
All the men at our end of the room were citizens--employees of some
sort--and they were all acquaintances. A large dog, very large indeed,
with a great muzzle, padded slowly from table to table, and looked at us
with big wistful topaz eyes. When the meal was almost over our
bus-driver and conductor came in--looking faint with hunger and cold and
fatigue. They were quartered at this house. They had eaten nothing since
the boar-broth at Gavoi.
In a very short time they were through their portions: and was there
nothing else? Nothing! But they were half starved. They ordered two eggs
each, in padella. I ordered coffee--and asked them to come and take it
with us, and a brandy. So they came when their eggs were finished.
A diversion was now created at the other side of the room. The red wine,
which is good in Sardinia, had been drunk freely. Directly facing us
sat a rather stout man with pleasant blue eyes and a nicely shaped head:
dressed like any other town man on a Sunday. The dog had waddled up to
him and sat down statuesque in front of him. And the fat man, being
mellow, began to play with the big, gentle, brindled animal. He took a
piece of bread and held it before the dog's nose--and the dog tried to
take it. But the man, like a boy now he was ripe with wine, put the
mastiff back with a restraining finger, and told him not to snatch. Then
he proceeded with a little conversation with the animal. The dog again
tried to snatch, gently, and again the man started, saved the bread, and
startled the dog, which backed and gave a sharp, sad yelp, as if to say:
"Why do you tease me!"
"Now," said the man, "you are not to snatch. Come here. Come here. Vieni
qua!" And he held up the piece of bread. The animal came near. "Now,"
said the man, "I put this bread on your nose, and you don't move,
un--Ha!!"
The dog had tried to snatch the bread, the man had shouted and jerked it
away, the animal had recoiled and given another expostulating yelp.
The game continued. All the room was watching, smiling. The dog did not
understand at all. It came forward again, troubled. The man held the
bread near its nose, and held up a warning finger. The beast dropped
its head mournfully, cocking up its eye at the bread with varied
feelings.
"Now--!" said the man, "not until I say three--_Uno--due--_" the dog
could bear it no longer, the man in jerking let go the bread and yelled
at the top of his voice--"_e tre!_" The dog gulped the piece of bread
with a resigned pleasure, and the man pretended it had all happened
properly on the word "three."
So he started again. "Vieni qua! Vieni qua!" The dog, which had backed
away with the bread, came hesitating, cringing forward, dropping its
hind-quarters in doubt, as dogs do, advancing towards the new nugget of
bread. The man preached it a little sermon.
"You sit there and look at this bread. I sit here and look at you, and I
hold this bread. And you stop still, and I stop still, while I count
three. Now then--uno--" the dog couldn't bear these numerals, with their
awful slowness. He snatched desperately. The man yelled and lost the
bread, the dog, gulping, turned to creep away.
Then it began again.
"Come here! Come here! Didn't I tell thee I would count three? Gia! I
said I would count three. Not one, but three. And to count three you
need three numbers. Ha! Steady! Three numbers. Uno--due E TRE!" The
last syllables were yelled so that the room rang again. The dog gave a
mournful howl of excitement, missed the bread, groped for it, and fled.
The man was red with excitement, his eyes shining. He addressed the
company at large. "I had a dog," he said, "ah, a dog! And I would put a
piece of bread on his nose, and say a verse. And he looked at me so!"
The man put his face sideways. "And he looked at me _so_!" He gazed up
under his brows. "And he talked to me so--o: Zieu! Zieu!--But he never
moved. No, he never moved. If he sat with that bread on his nose for
half an hour, and if tears ran down his face, he never moved--not till I
said _three_! Then--ah!" The man tossed up his face, snapped the air
with his mouth, and gulped an imaginary crust. "AH, that dog was
trained...." The man of forty shook his head.
"Vieni qua! Come here! Tweet! Come here!"
He patted his fat knee, and the dog crept forward. The man held another
piece of bread.
"Now," he said to the dog, "listen! Listen. I am going to tell you
something.
Il soldato va alla guerra--
No--no, Not yet. When I say _three_!
Il soldato va alla guerra
Mangia male, dorme in terra--
Listen. Be still. Quiet now. UNO--DUE--E--TRE!"
It came out in one simultaneous yell from the man, the dog in sheer
bewilderment opened his jaws and let the bread go down his throat, and
wagged his tail in agitated misery.
"Ah," said the man, "you are learning. Come! Come here! Come! Now then!
Now you know. So! So! Look at me so!"
The stout, good-looking man of forty bent forward. His face was flushed,
the veins in his neck stood out. He talked to the dog, and imitated the
dog. And very well indeed he reproduced something of the big, gentle,
wistful subservience of the animal. The dog was his totem--the
affectionate, self-mistrustful, warm-hearted hound.
So he started the rigmarole again. We put it into English.
"Listen now. Listen! Let me tell it you--
So the soldier goes to the war!
His food is rotten, he sleeps on the floor--
"Now! Now! No, you are not keeping quiet. Now! Now!
Il soldate va alla guerra
Mangia male, dorme in terra--"
The verses, known to every Italian, were sung out in a sing-song
fashion. The audience listened as one man--or as one child--the rhyme
chiming in every heart. They waited with excitement for the
One--Two--and Three! The last two words were always ripped out with a
tearing yell. I shall never forget the force of those syllables--E TRE!
But the dog made a poor show--He only gobbled the bread and was uneasy.
This game lasted us a full hour: a full hour by the clock sat the whole
room in intense silence, watching the man and the dog.
* * * * *
Our friends told us the man was the bus-inspector--their inspector. But
they liked him. "Un brav' uomo! Un bravo uomo! Eh si!" Perhaps they were
a little uneasy, seeing him in his cups and hearing him yell so nakedly:
AND THREE!
We talked rather sadly, wistfully. Young people, especially nice ones
like the driver, are too sad and serious these days. The little
conductor made big brown eyes at us, wistful too, and sad we were going.
For in the morning they were driving back again to Sorgono, over the old
road, and we were going on, to Terranova, the port. But we promised to
come back in the summer, when it was warmer. Then we should all meet
again.
"Perhaps you will find us on the same course still. Who knows!" said the
driver sadly.
VII.
TO TERRANOVA AND THE STEAMER.
The morning was very clear and blue. We were up betimes. The old dame of
the inn very friendly this morning. We were going already! Oh, but we
hadn't stayed long in Nuoro. Didn't we like it?
Yes, we like it. We would come back in the summer when it was warmer.
Ah yes, she said, artists came in the summer. Yes, she agreed, Nuoro was
a nice place--_simpatico, molto simpatico_. And really it is. And really
she was an awfully nice, capable, human old woman: and I had thought her
a beldame when I saw her ironing.
She gave us good coffee and milk and bread, and we went out into the
town. There was the real Monday morning atmosphere of an old,
same-as-ever provincial town: the vacant feeling of work resumed after
Sunday, rather reluctantly; nobody buying anything, nobody quite at
grips with anything. The doors of the old-fashioned shops stood open: in
Nuoro they have hardly reached the stage of window-displays. One must
go inside, into the dark caves, to see what the goods are. Near the
doorways of the drapers' shops stood rolls of that fine scarlet cloth,
for the women's costumes. In a large tailor's window four women sat
sewing, tailoring, and looking out of the window with eyes still
Sunday-emancipate and mischievous. Detached men, some in the black and
white, stood at the street corners, as if obstinately avoiding the
current of work. Having had a day off, the salt taste of liberty still
lingering on their lips, they were not going to be dragged so easily
back into harness. I always sympathise with these rather sulky, forlorn
males who insist on making another day of it. It shows a spark of
spirit, still holding out against our over-harnessed world.
There is nothing to see in Nuoro: which, to tell the truth, is always a
relief. Sights are an irritating bore. Thank heaven there isn't a bit of
Perugino or anything Pisan in the place: that I know of. Happy is the
town that has nothing to show. What a lot of stunts and affectations it
saves! Life is then life, not museum-stuffing. One could saunter along
the rather inert, narrow, Monday-morning street, and see the women
having a bit of a gossip, and see an old crone with a basket of bread on
her head, and see the unwilling ones hanging back from work, and the
whole current of industry disinclined to flow. Life is life and things
are things. I am sick of gaping _things_, even Peruginos. I have had my
thrills from Carpaccio and Botticelli. But now I've had enough. But I
can always look at an old, grey-bearded peasant in his earthy white
drawers and his black waist-frill, wearing no coat or over-garment, but
just crooking along beside his little ox-wagon. I am sick of "things,"
even Perugino.
* * * * *
The sight of the woman with the basket of bread reminded us that we
wanted some food. So we searched for bread. None, if you please. It was
Monday morning, eaten out. There would be bread at the forno, the oven.
Where was the oven? Up the road and down a passage. I thought we should
smell it. But no. We wandered back. Our friends had told us to take
tickets early, for perhaps the bus would be crowded. So we bought
yesterday's pastry and little cakes, and slices of native sausage. And
still no bread. I went and asked our old hostess.
"There is no fresh bread. It hasn't come in yet," she said.
"Never mind, give me stale."
So she went and rummaged in a drawer.
"Oh dear, Oh dear, the women have eaten it all! But perhaps over
there--" she pointed down the street--"they can give you some."
They couldn't.
I paid the bill--about twenty-eight francs, I think--and went out to
look for the bus. There it was. In a dark little hole they gave me the
long ticket-strips, first-class to Terranova. They cost some seventy
francs the two. The q-b was still vainly, aimlessly looking along the
street for bread.
"Ready when you are," said our new driver rather snappily. He was a
pale, cross-looking young man with brown eyes and fair "ginger" hair. So
in we clambered, waved farewell to our old friends, whose bus was ready
to roll away in the opposite direction. As we bumped past the "piazza" I
saw Velveteens standing there, isolate, and still, apparently, scowling
with unabated irritation.
I am sure he has money: why the first class, yesterday, otherwise. And
I'm sure _she_ married him because he is a townsman with property.
* * * * *
Out we rolled, on our last Sardinian drive. The morning was of a
bell-like beauty, blue and very lovely. Below on the right stretched the
concave valley, tapestried with cultivation. Up into the morning light
rose the high, humanless hills, with wild, treeless moor-slopes.
But there was no glass in the left window of the _coupe_, and the wind
came howling in, cold enough. I stretched myself on the front seat, the
q-b screwed herself into a corner, and we watched the land flash by. How
well this new man drove! the long-nosed, freckled one with his gloomy
brown eyes. How cleverly he changed gear, so that the automobile mewed
and purred comfortably, like a live thing enjoying itself. And how dead
he was to the rest of the world, wrapped in his gloom like a young
bus-driving Hamlet. His answers to his mate were monosyllabic--or just
no answers at all. He was one of those responsible, capable, morose
souls, who do their work with silent perfection and look as if they were
driving along the brink of doom, say a word to them and they'll go over
the edge. But gentle _au fond_, of course. Fiction used to be fond of
them: a sort of ginger-haired, young, mechanic Mr. Rochester who has
even lost the Jane illusion.
Perhaps it was not fair to watch him so closely from behind.
His mate was a bit of a bounder, with one of those rakish military caps
whose soft tops cock sideways or backwards. He was in Italian khaki,
riding-breeches and puttees. He smoked his cigarette bounderishly: but
at the same time, with peculiar gentleness, he handed one to the ginger
Hamlet. Hamlet accepted it, and his mate held him a light as the bus
swung on. They were like man and wife. The mate was the alert and
wide-eyed Jane Eyre whom the ginger Mr. Rochester was not going to spoil
in a hurry.
* * * * *
The landscape was different from yesterday's. As we dropped down the
shallow, winding road from Nuoro, quite quickly the moors seemed to
spread on either side, treeless, bushy, rocky, desert. How hot they must
be in summer! One knows from Grazia Deledda's books.
A pony with a low trap was prancing unhappily in the road-side. We
slowed down and slid harmlessly past. Then again, on we whizzed down the
looped road, which turned back on itself as sharply as a snake that has
been wounded. Hamlet darted the bus at the curves; then softly padded
round like an angel: then off again for the next parabola.
We came out into wide, rather desolate, moorland valley spaces, with low
rocks away to the left, and steep slopes, rocky-bushy, on the right.
Sometimes groups of black-and-white men were working in the forlorn
distances. A woman in the madder costume led a panniered ass along the
wastes. The sun shone magnificently, already it was hotter here. The
landscape had quite changed. These slopes looked east and south to the
sea, they were sun-wild and sea-wild.
The first stop was where a wild, rough lane came down the hill to our
road. At the corner stood a lonely house--and in the road-side the most
battered, life-weary old carriage I have ever seen. The jaunty mate
sorted out the post--the boy with the tattered-battered brown carriage
and brown pony signed the book as we all stood in the roadway. There was
a little wait for a man who was fetching up another parcel. The post-bag
and parcels from the tattered carriage were received and stowed and
signed for. We walked up and down in the sun to get warm. The landscape
was wild and open round about.