obediently we scuffle in. Away goes the bus, rushing towards the sea.
Already one felt that peculiar glare in the half-way heavens, that
intensification of the light in the lower sky, which is caused by the
sea to sunward.
Away in front three girls in brown costume are walking along the side of
the white high-road, going with panniers towards a village up a slight
incline. They hear us, turn round, and instantly go off their heads,
exactly like chickens in the road. They fly towards us, crossing the
road, and swifter than any rabbits they scuttle, one after another, into
a deep side-track, like a deep ditch at right angles to the road. There,
as we roll past, they are all crouched, peering out at us fearfully,
like creatures from their hole. The bus mate salutes them with a shout,
and we roll on towards the village on the low summit.
* * * * *
It is a small, stony, hen-scratched place of poor people. We roll on to
a standstill. There is a group of poor people. The women wear the
dark-brown costume, and again the bolero has changed shape. It is a
rather fantastic low corset, curiously shapen; and originally,
apparently, made of wonderful elaborate brocade. But look at it now.
There is an altercation because a man wants to get into the bus with two
little black pigs, each of which is wrapped in a little sack, with its
face and ears appearing like a flower from a wrapped bouquet. He is told
that he must pay the fare for each pig as if it were a Christian.
_Cristo del mondo!_ A pig, a little pig, and paid for as if it were a
Christian. He dangles the pig-bouquets, one from each hand, and the
little pigs open their black mouths and squeal with self-conscious
appreciation of the excitement they are causing. _Dio benedetto!_ it is
a chorus. But the bus mate is inexorable. Every animal, even if it were
a mouse, must be paid for and have a ticket as if it were a Christian.
The pig-master recoils stupified with indignation, a pig-bouquet under
each arm. "How much do you charge for the fleas you carry?" asks a
sarcastic youth.
A woman sitting sewing a soldier's tunic into a little jacket for her
urchin, and thus beating the sword into a ploughshare, stitches
unconcernedly in the sun. Round-cheeked but rather slatternly damsels
giggle. The pig-master, speechless with fury, slings the pig-bouquets,
like two bottles one on either side the saddle of the ass whose halter
is held by a grinning but also malevolent girl: malevolent against
pig-prices, that is. The pigs, looking abroad from their new situation,
squeal the eternal pig-protest against an insufferable humanity.
"Andiamo! Andiamo!" says ginger Mr. Rochester in his quiet but intense
voice. The bus-mate scrambles up and we charge once more into the strong
light to seaward.
* * * * *
In we roll, into Orosei, a dilapidated, sun-smitten, god-forsaken little
town not far from the sea. We descend in piazza. There is a great, false
baroque facade to a church, up a wavering vast mass of steps: and at
the side a wonderful jumble of roundnesses with a jumble of round
tiled roofs, peaked in the centre. It must have been some sort of
convent. But it is eminently what they call a "painter's bit"--that
pallid, big baroque face, at the top of the slow incline, and the very
curious dark building at the side of it, with its several dark-tiled
round roofs, like pointed hats, at varying altitudes. The whole space
has a strange Spanish look, neglected, arid, yet with a bigness and a
dilapidated dignity and a stoniness which carry one back to the Middle
Ages, when life was violent and Orosei was no doubt a port and a
considerable place. Probably it had bishops.
[Illustration: NUORO ]
The sun came hot into the wide piazza; with its pallid heavy facade up
on the stony incline on one side, and arches and a dark great courtyard
and outer stair-ways of some unknown building away on the other, the
road entering down-hill from the inland, and dropping out below to the
sea-marshes, and with the impression that once some single power had had
the place in grip, had given this centre an architectural unity and
splendour, now lost and forgotten, Orosei was truly fascinating.
But the inhabitants were churlish. We went into a sort of bar-place,
very primitive, and asked for bread.
"Bread alone?" said the churl.
"If you please."
"There isn't any," he answered.
"Oh--where can we get some then?"
"You can't get any."
"Really!"
And we couldn't. People stood about glum, not friendly.
There was a second great automobile, ready to set off for Tortoli, far
to the south, on the east coast. Mandas is the railway junction both for
Sorgono and Tortoli. The two buses stood near and communed. We prowled
about the dead, almost extinct town--or call it village. Then Mr.
Rochester began to pip his horn peremptorily, so we scuffled in.
The post was stowed away. A native in black broad-cloth came running and
sweating, carrying an ox-blood suit-case, and said we must wait for his
brother-in-law, who was a dozen yards away. Ginger Mr. Rochester sat on
his driver's throne and glared in the direction whence the
brother-in-law must come. His brow knitted irritably, his long, sharp
nose did not promise much patience. He made the horn roar like a
sea-cow. But no brother-in-law.
"I'm going to wait no longer," said he.
"Oh, a minute, a minute! That won't do us any harm," expostulated his
mate. No answer from the long faced, long-nosed ginger Hamlet. He sat
statuesque, but with black eyes looking daggers down the still void
road.
"_Eh va bene_", he murmured through closed lips, and leaned forward
grimly for the starting handle.
"Patience--patience--patience a moment--why--" cried the mate.
"Per l'amor' di Dio!" cried the black broad-cloth man, simply sizzling
and dancing in anguish on the road, round the suit-case, which stood in
the dust. "Don't go! God's love, don't start. He's got to catch the
boat. He's got to be in Rome tomorrow. He won't be a second. He's here,
he's here, he's here!"
This startled the fate-fixed, sharp-nosed driver. He released the handle
and looked round, with dark and glowering eyes. No one in sight. The few
glum natives stood round unmoved. Thunder came into the gloomy dark eyes
of the Rochester. Absolutely nobody in sight. Click! went his face into
a look of almost seraphic peace, as he pulled off the brakes. We were on
an incline, and insidiously, oh most subtly the great bus started to
lean forwards and steal into motion.
"Oh _ma che!_--what a will you've got!" cried the mate, clambering in
to the side of the now seraphic-looking Rochester.
"Love of God--God!" yelled the broad-cloth, seeing the bus melt forwards
and gather momentum. He put his hands up as if to arrest it, and yelled
in a wild howl: "O Beppin'! Bepp_in_--O!"
But in vain. Already we had left the little groups of onlookers behind.
We were rolling downwards out of the piazza. Broad-cloth had seized the
bag and was running beside us in agony. Out of the piazza we rolled,
Rochester had not put on the engines and we were just simply rolling
down the gentle incline by the will of God. Into the dark outlet-street
we melted, towards the still invisible sea.
Suddenly a yell--"OO--ahh!!"
"E qua! E qua! E qua! E qua!" gasped broad-cloth four times. "He's
here!" And then: "Beppin'--she's going, she's going!"
Beppin' appeared, a middle-aged man also in black broad-cloth, with a
very scrubby chin and a bundle, running _towards_ us on fat legs. He was
perspiring, but his face was expressionless and innocent-looking. With a
sardonic flicker of a grin, half of spite, half of relief, Rochester put
on the brakes again, and we stopped in the street. A woman tottered up
panting and holding her breast. Now for farewells.
"Andiamo!" said Rochester curtly, looking over his shoulder and making
his fine nose curl with malice. And instantly he took off the brakes
again. The fat woman shoved Beppin' in, gasping farewells, the
brother-in-law handed in the ox-blood-red suit-case, tottering behind,
and the bus surged savagely out of Orosei.
* * * * *
Almost in a moment we had left the town on its slope, and there below us
was a river winding through marshy flats to the sea, to where small
white surf broke on a flat, isolated beach, a quarter of a mile away.
The river ran rapidly between stones and then between belts of high sere
reeds, high as a man. These tall reeds advanced almost into the slow,
horizontal sea, from which stood up a white glare of light, massive
light over the low Mediterranean.
Quickly we came down to the river-level, and rolled over a bridge.
Before us, between us and the sea rose another hill, almost like a wall
with a flat top, running horizontal, perfectly flat, parallel with the
sea-edge, a sort of narrow long plateau. For a moment we were in the
wide scoop of the river-bed. Orosei stood on the bluff behind us.
Away to the right the flat river-marshes with the thick dead reeds met
the flat and shining sea, river and sea were one water, the waves
rippled tiny and soft-foot into the stream. To the left there was great
loveliness. The bed of the river curved upwards and inland, and there
was cultivation: but particularly, there were noble almond trees in full
blossom. How beautiful they were, their pure, silvery pink gleaming so
nobly, like a transfiguration, tall and perfect in that strange cradled
river-bed parallel with the sea. Almond trees were in flower beneath
grey Orosei, almond trees came near the road, and we could see the hot
eyes of the individual blossoms, almond trees stood on the upward slope
before us. And they had flowered in such noble beauty there, in that
trough where the sun fell magnificent and the sea-glare whitened all the
air as with a sort of God-presence, they gleamed in their incandescent
sky-rosiness. One could hardly see their iron trunks, in this weird
valley.
But already we had crossed, and were charging up the great road that was
cut straight, slant-wise along the side of the sea-hill, like a stairway
outside the side of the house. So the bus turned southward to run up
this stairway slant, to get to the top of the sea's long table-land. So,
we emerged: and there was the Mediterranean rippling against the black
rocks not so very far away below on our right. For, once on the long
table-land the road turned due north, a long white dead-straight road
running between strips of moorland, wild and bushy. The sea was in the
near distance, blue, blue, and beating with light. It seemed more light
than watery. And on the left was the wide trough of the valley, where
almond trees like clouds in a wind seemed to poise sky-rosy upon the
pale, sun-pale land, and beyond which Orosei clustered its lost grey
houses on the bluff. Oh wonderful Orosei with your almonds and your
reedy river, throbbing, throbbing with light and the sea's nearness, and
all so lost, in a world long gone by, lingering as legends linger on. It
is hard to believe that it is real. It seems so long since life left it
and memory transfigured it into pure glamour, lost away like a lost
pearl on the east Sardinian coast. Yet there it is, with a few grumpy
inhabitants who won't even give you a crust of bread. And probably there
is malaria--almost sure. And it would be hell to have to live there for
a month. Yet for a moment, that January morning, how wonderful, oh, the
timeless glamour of those Middle Ages when men were lordly and violent
and shadowed with death.
"Timor mortis conturbat me."
The road ran along by the sea, above the sea, swinging gently up and
down, and running on to a sea-encroaching hilly promontory in the
distance. There were no high lands. The valley was left behind, and
moors surrounded us, wild, desolate, uninhabited and uninhabitable moors
sweeping up gently on the left, and finishing where the land dropped low
and clifflike to the sea on the right. No life was now in sight: even no
ship upon the pale blue sea. The great globe of the sky was unblemished
and royal in its blueness and its ringing cerulean light. Over the moors
a great hawk hovered. Rocks cropped out. It was a savage, dark-bushed,
sky-exposed land, forsaken to the sea and the sun.
* * * * *
We were alone in the _coupe_. The bus-mate had made one or two sets at
us, but he rather confused us. He was young--about twenty-two or three.
He was quite good-looking, with his rakish military cap and his
well-knitted figure in military clothes. But he had dark eyes that
seemed to ask too much, and his manner of approach was abrupt,
persistent, and disconcerting. Already he had asked us where we were
going, where we lived, whence we came, of what nationality we were, and
was I a painter. Already he knew so much. Further we rather fought shy
of him. We ate those pale Nuoro pastries--they were just flaky pastry,
good, but with nothing inside but a breath of air. And we gnawed slices
of very highly-flavoured Nuoro sausage. And we drank the tea. And we
were very hungry, for it was past noon, and we had eaten as good as
nothing. The sun was magnificent in heaven, we rushed at a great,
purring speed along that moorland road just above the sea.
And then the bus-mate climbed in to share the coupe with us. He put his
dark, beseeching and yet persistent eyes on us, sat plumb in front of
us, his knees squared, and began to shout awkward questions in a strong
curious voice. Of course it was very difficult to hear, for the great
rushing bus made much noise. We had to try to yell in our Italian--and
he was as awkward as we were.
However, although it said "Smoking Forbidden" he offered us both
cigarettes, and insisted we should smoke with him. Easiest to submit. He
tried to point us out features in the landscape: but there were none to
point, except that, where the hill ran to sea out of the moor, and
formed a cape, he said there was a house away under the cliffs where
coastguards lived. Nothing else.
Then, however, he launched. He asked once more was I English and
was the q-b German. We said it was so. And then he started the
old story. Nations popped up and down again like Punch and Judy.
Italy--l'Italia--she had no quarrel with La Germania--never had
had--no--no, good friends the two nations. But once the war was started,
Italy had to come in. For why. Germany would beat France, occupy her
lands, march down and invade Italy. Best then join the war whilst the
enemy was only invading somebody else's territory.
They are perfectly naive about it. That's what I like. He went on to say
that he was a soldier: he had served eight years in the Italian cavalry.
Yes, he was a cavalryman, and had been all through the war. But he had
not therefore any quarrel with Germany. No--war was war, and it was
over. So let it be over.
But France--_ma la Francia!_ Here he sat forward on his seat, with his
face near ours, and his pleading-dog's eyes suddenly took a look of
quite irrational blazing rage. France! There wasn't a man in Italy who
wasn't dying to get at the throat of France. France! Let there be war,
and every Italian would leap to arms, even the old. Even the old--_anche
i vecchi_. Yes, there must be war--with France. It was coming: it was
bound to come. Every Italian was waiting for it. Waiting to fly at the
French throat. For why? Why? He had served two years on the French
front, and he knew why. Ah, the French! For arrogance, for insolence,
Dio!--they were not to be borne. The French--they thought themselves
lords of the world--_signori del mondo!_ Lords of the world, and masters
of the world. Yes. They thought themselves no less--and what are they?
Monkeys! Monkeys! Not better than monkeys. But let there be war, and
Italy would show them. Italy would give them _signori del mondo_! Italy
was pining for war--all, all, pining for war. With no one, with no one
but France. Ah, with no one--Italy loved everybody else--but France!
France!
We let him shout it all out, till he was at the end of it. The passion
and energy of him was amazing. He was like one possessed. I could only
wonder. And wonder again. For it is curious what fearful passions these
pleading, wistful souls fall into when they feel they have been
insulted. It was evident he felt he had been insulted, and he went just
beside himself. But dear chap, he shouldn't speak so loudly for all
Italy--even the old. The bulk of Italian men are only too anxious to
beat their bayonets into cigarette-holders, and smoke the cigarette of
eternal and everlasting peace, to coincide at all with our friend. Yet
there he was--raging at me in the bus as we dashed along the coast.
And then, after a space of silence, he became sad again, wistful, and
looked at us once more with those pleading brown eyes, beseeching,
beseeching--he knew not what: and I'm sure I didn't know. Perhaps what
he really wants is to be back on a horse in a cavalry regiment: even at
war.
But no, it comes out, what he thinks he wants.
When are we going to London? And are there many motor-cars in
England?--many, many? In America too? Do they want men in America? I say
no, they have unemployment out there: they are going to stop immigration
in April: or at least cut it down. Why? he asks sharply. Because they
have their own unemployment problem. And the q-b quotes how many
millions of Europeans want to emigrate to the United States. His eye
becomes gloomy. Are all nations of Europe going to be forbidden? he
asks. Yes--and already the Italian Government will give no more
passports for America--to emigrants. No passports? then you can't go?
You can't go, say I.
By this time his hot-souled eagerness and his hot, beseeching eyes have
touched the q-b. She asks him what he wants. And from his gloomy face it
comes out in a rap. "_Andare fuori dell'Italia._" To go out of Italy. To
go out--away--to go away--to go away. It has become a craving, a
neurasthenia with them.
Where is his home? His home is at a village a few miles ahead--here on
this coast. We are coming to it soon. There is his home. And a few miles
inland from the village he also has a property: he also has land. But he
doesn't want to work it. He doesn't want it. In fact he won't bother
with it. He hates the land, he detests looking after vines. He can't
even bring himself to try any more.
What does he want then?
He wants to leave Italy, to go abroad--as a chauffeur. Again the long
beseeching look, as of a distraught, pleading animal. He would prefer to
be the chauffeur of a gentleman. But he would drive a bus, he would do
anything--in England.
Now he has launched it. Yes, I say, but in England also we have more men
than jobs. Still he looks at me with his beseeching eyes--so desperate
too--and so young--and so full of energy--and so longing to _devote_
himself--to devote himself: or else to go off in an unreasonable
paroxysm against the French. To my horror I feel he is believing in my
goodness of heart. And as for motor-cars, it is all I can do to own a
pair of boots, so how am I to set about employing a _chauffeur_?
* * * * *
We have all gone quiet again. So at last he climbs back and takes his
seat with the driver once more. The road is still straight, swinging on
through the moorland strip by the sea. And he leans to the silent,
nerve-tense Mr. Rochester, pleading again. And at length Mr. Rochester
edges aside, and lets him take the driving wheel. And so now we are all
in the hands of our friend the bus-mate. He drives--not very well. It is
evident he is learning. The bus can't quite keep in the grooves of this
wild bare road. And he shuts off when we slip down a hill--and there is
a great muddle on the upslope when he tries to change gear. But Mr.
Rochester sits squeezed and silently attentive in his corner. He puts
out his hand and swings the levers. There is no fear that he will let
anything go wrong. I would trust him to drive me down the bottomless pit
and up the other side. But still the beseeching mate holds the steering
wheel. And on we rush, rather uncertainly and hesitatingly now. And thus
we come to the bottom of a hill where the road gives a sudden curve. My
heart rises an inch in my breast. I know he can't do it. And he can't,
oh Lord--but the quiet hand of the freckled Rochester takes the wheel,
we swerve on. And the bus-mate gives up, and the nerve-silent driver
resumes control.
* * * * *
But the bus-mate now feels at home with us. He clambers back into the
coupe, and when it is too painfully noisy to talk, he simply sits and
looks at us with brown, pleading eyes. Miles and miles and miles goes
this coast road, and never a village. Once or twice a sort of lonely
watch-house and soldiers lying about by the road. But never a halt.
Everywhere moorland and desert, uninhabited.
And we are faint with fatigue and hunger and this relentless travelling.
When, oh when shall we come to Siniscola, where we are due to eat our
midday meal? Oh yes, says the mate. There is an inn at Siniscola where
we can eat what we like. Siniscola--Siniscola! We feel we must get down,
we must eat, it is past one o'clock and the glaring light and the
rushing loneliness are still about us.
* * * * *
But it is behind the hill in front. We see the hill? Yes. Behind it is
Siniscola. And down there on the beach are the Bagni di Siniscola, where
many forestieri, strangers, come in the summer. Therefore we set high
hopes on Siniscola. From the town to the sea, two miles, the bathers
ride on asses. Sweet place. And it is coming near--really near. There
are stone-fenced fields--even stretches of moor fenced off. There are
vegetables in a little field with a stone wall--there is a strange white
track through the moor to a forsaken sea-coast. We are near.
Over the brow of the low hill--and there it is, a grey huddle of a
village with two towers. There it is, we are there. Over the cobbles we
bump, and pull up at the side of the street. This is Siniscola, and here
we eat.
We drop out of the weary bus. The mate asks a man to show us the
inn--the man says he won't, muttering. So a boy is deputed--and he
consents. This is the welcome.
And I can't say much for Siniscola. It is just a narrow, crude, stony
place, hot in the sun, cold in the shade. In a minute or two we were at
the inn, where a fat, young man was just dismounting from his brown pony
and fastening it to a ring beside the door.
The inn did not look promising--the usual cold room opening gloomily on
the gloomy street. The usual long table, with this time a foully
blotched table-cloth. And two young peasant madams in charge, in the
brown costume, rather sordid, and with folded white cloths on their
heads. The younger was in attendance. She was a full-bosomed young
hussy, and would be very queenly and cocky. She held her nose in the
air, and seemed ready to jibe at any order. It takes one some time to
get used to this cocky, assertive behaviour of the young damsels, the
who'll-tread-on-the-tail-of-my-skirt bearing of the hussies. But it is
partly a sort of crude defensiveness and shyness, partly it is barbaric
_mefiance_ or mistrust, and partly, without doubt, it is a tradition
with Sardinian women that they must hold their own and be ready to hit
first. This young sludge-queen was all hit. She flounced her posterior
round the table, planking down the lumps of bread on the foul cloth with
an air of take-it-as-a-condescension-that-I-wait-on-you, a subdued grin
lurking somewhere on her face. It is not meant to be offensive: yet it
is so. Truly, it is just uncouthness. But when one is tired and
hungry....
We were not the only feeders. There was the man off the pony, and a sort
of workman or porter or dazio official with him--and a smart young man:
and later our Hamlet driver. Bit by bit the young damsel planked down
bread, plates, spoons, glasses, bottles of black wine, whilst we sat at
the dirty table in uncouth constraint and looked at the hideous portrait
of His reigning Majesty of Italy. And at length came the inevitable
soup. And with it the sucking chorus. The little _maialino_ at Mandas
had been a good one. But the smart young man in the country beat him. As
water clutters and slavers down a choky gutter, so did his soup travel
upwards into his mouth with one long sucking stream of noise,
intensified as the bits of cabbage, etc., found their way through the
orifice.