curtly and disrespectfully, as if to say: "What's she up to?" Her airs
were finely thrown away. Still she showed off. What else was there to
eat? There was the meat that had been boiled for the soup. We knew what
that meant. I had as lief eat the foot of an old worsted stocking.
Nothing else, you sludge queen? No, what do you want anything else
for?--Beefsteak--what's the good of asking for beefsteak or any other
steak on a Monday. Go to the butcher's and see for yourself.
The Hamlet, the pony rider, and the porter had the faded and tired
chunks of boiled meat. The smart young man ordered eggs in padella--two
eggs fried with a little butter. We asked for the same. The smart young
man got his first--and of course they were warm and liquid. So he fell
upon them with a fork, and once he had got hold of one end of the eggs
he just sucked them up in a prolonged and violent suck, like a long,
thin, ropy drink being sucked upwards from the little pan. It was a
genuine exhibition. Then he fell upon the bread with loud chews.
What else was there? A miserable little common orange. So much for the
dinner. Was there cheese? No. But the sludge-queen--they are quite
good-natured really--held a conversation in dialect with the young men,
which I did not try to follow. Our pensive driver translated that there
_was_ cheese, but it wasn't good, so they wouldn't offer it us. And the
pony man interpolated that they didn't like to offer us anything that
was not of the best. He said it in all sincerity--after such a meal.
This roused my curiosity, so I asked for the cheese whether or not. And
it wasn't so bad after all.
This meal cost fifteen francs, for the pair of us.
* * * * *
We made our way back to the bus, through the uncouth men who stood
about. To tell the truth, strangers are not popular nowadays--not
anywhere. Everybody has a grudge against them at first sight. This
grudge may or may not wear off on acquaintance.
The afternoon had become hot--hot as an English June. And we had various
other passengers--for one a dark-eyed, long-nosed priest who showed his
teeth when he talked. There was not much room in the coupe, so the goods
were stowed upon the little rack.
With the strength of the sun, and the six or seven people in it, the
coupe became stifling. The q-b opened her window. But the priest, one of
the loudtalking sort, said that a draught was harmful, very harmful, so
he put it up again. He was one of the gregarious sort, a loud talker,
nervy really, very familiar with all the passengers. And everything did
one harm--_fa male, fa male_. A draught _fa male, fa molto male_. _Non e
vero?_ this to all the men from Siniscola. And they all said Yes--yes.
The bus-mate clambered into the _coupe_, to take the tickets of the
second-class passengers in the rotondo, through the little wicket. There
was great squeezing and shouting and reckoning change. And then we
stopped at a halt, and he dashed down with the post and the priest got
down for a drink with the other men. The Hamlet driver sat stiff in his
seat. He pipped the horn. He pipped again, with decision. Men came
clambering in. But it looked as if the offensive priest would be left
behind. The bus started venomously, the priest came running, his gown
flapping, wiping his lips.
He dropped into his seat with a cackling laugh, showing his long teeth.
And he said that it was as well to take a drink, to fortify the stomach.
To travel with the stomach uneasy did one harm: _fa male, fa male--non
e vero?_ Chorus of "yes."
The bus-mate resumed his taking the tickets through the little wicket,
thrusting his rear amongst us. As he stood like this, down fell his
sheepskin-lined military overcoat on the q-b's head. He was filled with
grief. He folded it and placed it on the seat, as a sort of cushion for
her, oh so gently! And how he would love to devote himself to a master
and mistress.
He sat beside me, facing the q-b, and offered us an acid drop. We took
the acid drop. He smiled with zealous yearning at the q-b, and resumed
his conversations. Then he offered us cigarettes--insisted on our taking
cigarettes.
The priest with the long teeth looked sideways at the q-b, seeing her
smoking. Then he fished out a long cigar, bit it, and spat. He was
offered a cigarette.--But no, cigarettes were harmful: _fanno male_. The
paper was bad for the health: oh, very bad. A pipe or a cigar. So he lit
his long cigar and spat large spits on the floor, continually.
Beside me sat a big, bright-eyed, rather good-looking but foolish man.
Hearing me speak to the q-b, he said in confidence to the priest: "Here
are two Germans--eh? Look at them. The woman smoking. These are a couple
of those that were interned here. Sardinia can do without them now."
Germans in Italy at the outbreak of the war were interned in Sardinia,
and as far as one hears, they were left very free and happy, and treated
very well, the Sardinians having been generous as all proud people are.
But now our bright-eyed fool made a great titter through the bus: quite
unaware that we understood. He said nothing offensive: but that sort of
tittering exultation of common people who think they have you at a
disadvantage annoyed me. However, I kept still to hear what they would
say. But it was only trivialities about the Germans having nearly all
gone now, their being free to travel, their coming back to Sardinia
because they liked it better than Germany. Oh yes--they all wanted to
come back. They all wanted to come back to Sardinia. Oh yes, they knew
where they were well off. They knew their own advantage. Sardinia was
this, that, and the other of advantageousness, and the Sardi were decent
people. It is just as well to put in a word on one's own behalf
occasionally. As for La Germania--she was down, down: bassa. What did
one pay for bread in Germany? Five francs a kilo, my boy.
* * * * *
The bus stopped again, and they trooped out into the hot sun. The priest
scuffled round the corner this time. Not to go round the corner was no
doubt harmful. We waited. A frown came between the bus Hamlet's brows.
He looked nerve-worn and tired. It was about three o'clock. We had to
wait for a man from a village, with the post. And he did not appear.
"I am going! I won't wait," said the driver.
"Wait--wait a minute," said the mate, pouring oil. And he went round to
look. But suddenly the bus started, with a vicious lurch. The mate came
flying and hung on to the footboard. He had really almost been left. The
driver glanced round sardonically to see if he were there. The bus flew
on. The mate shook his head in deprecation.
"He's a bit _nervoso_, the driver," said the q-b. "A bit out of temper!"
"Ah, poor chap!" said the good-looking young mate, leaning forward and
making such beseeching eyes of hot tolerance. "One has to be sorry for
him. Persons like him, they suffer so much from themselves, how should
one be angry with them! _Poverino._ We must have sympathy."
Never was such a language of sympathy as the Italian. _Poverino!
Poverino!_ They are never happy unless they are sympathising pityingly
with somebody. And I rather felt that I was thrown in with the
_poverini_ who had to be pitied for being _nervosi_. Which did not
improve my temper.
However, the bus-mate suddenly sat on the opposite seat between the
priest and the q-b. He turned over his official note book, and began to
write on the back cover very carefully, in the flourishing Italian hand.
Then he tore off what he had written, and with a very bright and zealous
look he handed me the paper saying: "You will find me a post in
England, when you go in the summer? You will find me a place in London
as a chauffeur--!"
"If I can," said I. "But it is not easy."
He nodded his head at me with the most complete bright confidence, quite
sure now that he had settled his case perfectly.
On the paper he had written his name and his address, and if anyone
would like him as chauffeur they have only to say so. On the back of the
scrap of paper the inevitable goodwill: _Auguri infiniti e buon
Viaggio_. Infinite good wishes and a good journey.
I folded the paper and put it in my waistcoat pocket, feeling a trifle
disconcerted by my new responsibility. He was such a dear fellow and
such bright trustful eyes.
* * * * *
This much achieved, there was a moment of silence. And the bus-mate
turned to take a ticket of a fat, comfortable man who had got in at the
last stop. There was a bit of flying conversation.
"Where are they from?" asked the good-looking stupid man next to me,
inclining his head in our direction.
"Londra," said our friend, with stern satisfaction: and they have said
so often to one another that London is the greatest city in the world,
that now the very word Londra conveys it all. You should have seen the
blank little-boy look come over the face of the big handsome fellow on
hearing that we were citizens of the greatest city in the world.
"And they understand Italian?" he asked, rather nipped.
"Sicuro!" said our friend scornfully. "How shouldn't they?"
"Ah!" My large neighbour left his mouth open for a few moments. And then
another sort of smile came on to his face. He began to peep at us
sideways from his brown eyes, brightly, and was henceforth itching to
get into conversation with the citizens of the world's mistress-city.
His look of semi-impudence was quite gone, replaced by a look of
ingratiating admiration.
Now I ask you, is this to be borne? Here I sit, and he talks
half-impudently and patronisingly about me. And here I sit, and he is
glegging at me as if he saw signs of an aureole under my grey hat. All
in ten minutes. And just because, instead of _la Germania_ I turn out to
be _l'Inghilterra_. I might as well be a place on a map, or a piece of
goods with a trade-mark. So little perception of the actual me! so much
going by labels! I now could have kicked him harder. I would have liked
to say I was ten times German, to see the fool change his smirk again.
* * * * *
The priest now chimed up, that he had been to America. He had been to
America and hence he dreaded not the crossing from Terranuova di
Sardegna to Civita Vecchia. For he had crossed the great Atlantic.
Apparently, however, the natives had all heard this song of the raven
before, so he spat largely on the floor. Whereupon the new fat neighbour
asked him was it true that the Catholic Church was now becoming the one
Church in the United States? And the priest said there was no doubt
about it.
* * * * *
The hot afternoon wore on. The coast was rather more inhabited, but we
saw practically no villages. The view was rather desolate. From time to
time we stopped at a sordid-looking canteen house. From time to time we
passed natives riding on their ponies, and sometimes there was an
equestrian exhibition as the rough, strong little beasts reared and
travelled rapidly backwards, away from the horrors of our great
automobile. But the male riders sat heavy and unshakeable, with
Sardinian male force. Everybody in the bus laughed, and we passed,
looking back to see the pony still corkscrewing, but in vain, in the
middle of the lonely, grass-bordered high-road.
* * * * *
The bus-mate climbed in and out, coming in to sit near us. He was like a
dove which has at last found an olive bough to nest in. And we were the
olive bough in this world of waste waters. Alas, I felt a broken reed.
But he sat so serenely near us, now, like a dog that has found a master.
The afternoon was declining, the bus pelted on at a great rate. Ahead we
saw the big lump of the island of Tavolara, a magnificient mass of rock
which fascinated me by its splendid, weighty form. It looks like a
headland, for it apparently touches the land. There it rests at the
sea's edge, in this lost afternoon world. Strange how this coast-country
does not belong to our present-day world. As we rushed along we saw
steamers, two steamers, steering south, and one sailing ship coming from
Italy. And instantly, the steamers seemed like our own familiar world.
But still this coast-country was forsaken, forgotten, not included. It
just is not included.
* * * * *
How tired one gets of these long, long rides! It seemed we should never
come up to Tavolara. But we did. We came right near to it, and saw the
beach with the waves rippling undisturbed, saw the narrow waters
between the rock-lump and the beach. For now the road was down at
sea-level. And we were not very far from Terranova. Yet all seemed still
forsaken, outside of the world's life.
The sun was going down, very red and strong, away inland. In the bus all
were silent, subsiding into the pale travel-sleep. We charged along the
flat road, down on a plain now. And dusk was gathering heavily over the
land.
We saw the high-road curve flat upon the plain. It was the harbour head.
We saw a magic, land-locked harbour, with masts and dark land encircling
a glowing basin. We even saw a steamer lying at the end of a long, thin
bank of land, in the shallow, shining, wide harbour, as if wrecked
there. And this was our steamer. But no, it looked in the powerful glow
of the sunset like some lonely steamer laid up in some land-locked bay
away at Spitzbergen, towards the North Pole: a solemn, mysterious,
blue-landed bay, lost, lost to mankind.
* * * * *
Our bus-mate came and told us we were to sit in the bus till the
post-work was done, then we should be driven to the hotel where we could
eat, and then he would accompany us on the town omnibus to the boat. We
need not be on board till eight o'clock: and now it was something after
five. So we sat still while the bus rushed and the road curved and the
view of the weird, land-locked harbour changed, though the bare masts of
ships in a bunch still pricked the upper glow, and the steamer lay away
out, as if wrecked on a sand-bank, and dark, mysterious land with bunchy
hills circled round, dark blue and wintry in a golden after-light, while
the great, shallow-seeming bay of water shone like a mirror.
In we charged, past a railway, along the flat darkening road into a flat
God-lost town of dark houses, on the marshy bay-head. It felt more like
a settlement than a town. But it was Terranova-Pausanias. And after
bumping and rattling down a sombre uncouth, barren-seeming street, we
came up with a jerk at a doorway--which was the post-office. Urchins,
mudlarks, were screaming for the luggage. Everybody got out and set off
towards the sea, the urchins carrying luggage. We sat still.
* * * * *
Till I couldn't bear it. I did not want to stay in the automobile
another moment, and I did not, I did not want to be accompanied by our
new-found friend to the steamer. So I burst out, and the q-b followed.
She too was relieved to escape the new attachment, though she had a
great _tendre_ for him. But in the end one runs away from one's
_tendres_ much harder and more precipitately than from one's _durs_.
The mudlarking urchins fell upon us. Had we any more luggage--were we
going to the steamer? I asked how one went to the steamer--did one walk?
I thought perhaps it would be necessary to row out. You go on foot, or
in a carriage, or in an aeroplane, said an impudent brat. How far? Ten
minutes. Could one go on board at once? Yes, certainly.
So, in spite of the q-b's protests, I handed the sack to a wicked
urchin, to be led. She wanted us to go alone--but I did not know the
way, and am wary of stumbling into entanglements in these parts.
I told the bus-Hamlet, who was abstract with nerve fatigue, please to
tell his comrade that I would not forget the commission: and I tapped my
waistcoat pocket, where the paper lay over my heart. He briefly
promised--and we escaped. We escaped any further friendship.
* * * * *
I bade the mud-lark lead me to the telegraph office: which of course was
quite remote from the post-office. Shouldering the sack, and clamouring
for the kitchenino which the q-b stuck to, he marched forward. By his
height he was ten years old: by his face with its evil mud-lark pallor
and good-looks, he was forty. He wore a cut-down soldier's tunic which
came nearly to his knees, was barefoot, and sprightly with that alert
mudlarking quickness which has its advantages.
So we went down a passage and climbed a stair and came to an office
where one would expect to register births and deaths. But the urchin
said it was the telegraph-office. No sign of life. Peering through the
wicket I saw a fat individual seated writing in the distance. Feeble
lights relieved the big, barren, official spaces--I wonder the fat
official wasn't afraid to be up here alone.
He made no move. I banged the shutter and demanded a telegraph blank.
His shoulders went up to his ears, and he plainly intimated his
intention to let us wait. But I said loudly to the urchin: "Is _that_
the telegraph official?" and the urchin said: "Si signore"--so the fat
individual had to come.
* * * * *
After which considerable delay, we set off again. The bus, thank heaven,
had gone, the savage dark street was empty of friends. We turned away to
the harbour front. It was dark now. I saw a railway near at hand--a
bunch of dark masts--the steamer showing a few lights, far down at the
tip of a long spit of land, remote in mid-harbour. And so off we went,
the barefoot urchin twinkling a few yards ahead, on the road that
followed the spit of land. The spit was wide enough to carry this road,
and the railway. On the right was a silent house apparently built on
piles in the harbour. Away far down in front leaned our glimmering
steamer, and a little train was shunting trucks among the low sheds
beside it. Night had fallen, and the great stars flashed. Orion was in
the air, and his dog-star after him. We followed on down the dark bar
between the silent, lustrous water. The harbour was smooth as glass, and
gleaming like a mirror. Hills came round encircling it entirely--dark
land ridging up and lying away out, even to seaward. One was not sure
which was exactly seaward. The dark encircling of the land seemed
stealthy, the hills had a remoteness, guarding the waters in the
silence. Perhaps the great mass away beyond was Tavolara again. It
seemed like some lumpish berg guarding an arctic, locked-up bay where
ships lay dead.
[Illustration: TERRANOVA]
On and on we followed the urchin, till the town was left behind, until
it also twinkled a few meagre lights out of its low, confused blackness
at the bay-head, across the waters. We lad left the ship-masts and the
settlement. The urchin padded on, only turning now and again and
extending a thin, eager hand toward the kitchenino. Especially when some
men were advancing down the railway he wanted it: the q-b's carrying
it was a slur on his prowess. So the kitchenino was relinquished, and
the lark strode on satisfied.
* * * * *
Till at last we came to the low sheds that squatted between the steamer
and the railway-end. The lark led me into one, where a red-cap was
writing. The cap let me wait some minutes before informing me that this
was the goods office--the ticket office was further on. The lark flew at
him and said "Then you've changed it, have you?" And he led me on to
another shed, which was just going to shut up. Here they finally had the
condescension to give me two tickets--a hundred and fifty francs the
two. So we followed the lark who strode like Scipio Africanus up the
gangway with the sack.
* * * * *
It was quite a small ship. The steward put me in number one cabin--the
q-b in number seven. Each cabin had four berths. Consequently man and
woman must separate rigorously on this ship. Here was a blow for the
q-b, who knows what Italian female fellow-passengers can be. However,
there we were. All the cabins were down below, and all, for some
mysterious reason, inside--no portholes outside. It was hot and close
down below already. I pitched the sack on my berth, and there stood the
lark on the red carpet at the door.
I gave him three francs. He looked at it as if it were my death-warrant.
He peered at the paper in the light of the lamp. Then he extended his
arm with a gesture of superb insolence, flinging me back my gold without
a word.
"How!" said I. "Three francs are quite enough."
"Three francs--two kilometers--and three pieces of luggage! No signore.
No! Five francs. Cinque franchi!" And averting his pallid, old
mudlarking face, and flinging his hand out at me, he stood the image of
indignant repudiation. And truly, he was no taller than my upper
waistcoat pocket. The brat! The brat! He was such an actor, and so
impudent, that I wavered between wonder and amusement and a great
inclination to kick him up the steps. I decided not to waste my energy
being angry.
"What a beastly little boy! What a horrid little boy! What a _horrid_
little boy! Really--a little thief. A little swindler!" I mused aloud.
"Swindler!" he quavered after me. And he was beaten. "Swindler" doubled
him up: that and the quiet mildness of my tone of invocation. Now he
would have gone with his three francs. And now, in final contempt, I
gave him the other two.
He disappeared like a streak of lightning up the gangway, terrified lest
the steward should come and catch him at his tricks. For later on I saw
the steward send other larks flying for demanding more than one-fifty.
The brat.
* * * * *
The question was now the cabin: for the q-b simply refused to entertain
the idea of sharing a cabin with three Italian women, who would all be
sick simply for the fuss of it, though the sea was smooth as glass. We
hunted up the steward. He said all the first-class cabins had four
berths--the second had three, but much smaller. How that was possible I
don't know. However, if no one came, he would give us a cabin to
ourselves.
The ship was clean and civilised, though very poky. And there we were.
* * * * *
We went on deck. Would we eat on board, asked another person. No, we
wouldn't. We went out to a fourth little shed, which was a refreshment
stall, and bought bread and sardines and chocolate and apples. Then we
went on the upper deck to make our meal. In a sheltered place I lit the
spirit lamp, and put on water to boil. The water we had taken from the
cabin. Then we sat down alone in the darkness, on a seat which had its
back against the deck cabins, now appropriated by the staff. A thin,
cold wind was travelling. We wrapped the one plaid round us both and
snugged together, waiting for the tea to boil. I could just see the
point of the spirit-flame licking up, from where we sat.
* * * * *
The stars were marvellous in the soundless sky, so big, that one could
see them hanging orb-like and alone in their own space, yet all the
myriads. Particularly bright the evening-star. And he hung flashing in
the lower night with a power that made me hold my breath. Grand and
powerful he sent out his flashes, so sparkling that he seemed more
intense than any sun or moon. And from the dark, uprising land he sent
his way of light to us across the water, a marvellous star-road. So all
above us the stars soared and pulsed, over that silent, night-dark,
land-locked harbour.
* * * * *
After a long time the water boiled, and we drank our hot tea and ate our
sardines and bread and bits of remaining Nuoro sausage, sitting there
alone in the intense starry darkness of that upper deck. I said alone:
but no, two ghoulish ship's cats came howling at us for the bits. And
even when everything was eaten, and the sardine-tin thrown in the sea,
still they circled and prowled and howled.
We sat on, resting under the magnificent deep heavens, wrapped together
in the old shepherd's shawl for which I have blessed so often a Scottish
friend, half sheltered from the cold night wind, and recovering somewhat
from the sixty miles bus-ride we had done that day.
As yet there was nobody on the ship--we were the very first, at least in
the first class. Above, all was silent and deserted. Below, all was
lit-up and deserted. But it was a little ship, with accommodation for
some thirty first-class and forty second-class passengers.