over the tall uncanny vines with their brown thongs in the intensely
cultivated black earth. It was night by the time we were in that vast
and thievish station. About half-past five. We were not very late.
Should we sit on in our present carriage, and go down in it to the port,
along with the schoolmistress, and risk it? But first look at the coach
which was going on to Sicily. So we got down and ran along the train to
the Syracuse coach. Hubbub, confusion, a wedge in the corridor, and for
sure no room. Certainly no room to lie down a bit. We _could_ not sit
tight for twenty-four hours more.
So we decided to go to the port--and to walk. Heaven knows when the
railway carriage would be shunted down. Back we went therefore for the
sack, told the schoolmistress our intention.
"You can but try," she said frostily.
* * * * *
So there we are, with the sack over my shoulder and the kitchenino in
the q-b's hand, bursting out of that thrice-damned and annoying station,
and running through the black wet gulf of a Naples night, in a slow
rain. Cabmen look at us. But my sack saved me. I am weary of that
boa-constrictor, a Naples cabman after dark. By day there is
more-or-less a tariff.
It is about a mile from the station to the quay where the ship lies. We
make our way through the deep, gulf-like streets, over the slippery
black cobbles. The black houses rise massive to a great height on either
side, but the streets are not in this part very narrow. We plunge
forwards in the unearthly half-darkness of this great uncontrolled city.
There are no lights at all from the buildings--only the small electric
lamps of the streets.
So we emerge on the harbour front, and hurry past the great storehouses
in the rainy night, to where the actual entrances begin. The tram bangs
past us. We scuffle along that pavement-ridge which lies like an isthmus
down the vast black quicksands of that harbour road. One feels peril all
round. But at length we come to a gate by the harbour railway. No, not
that. On to the next iron gate of the railway crossing. And so we run
out past the great sheds and the buildings of the port station, till we
see a ship rearing in front, and the sea all black. But now where is
that little hole where one gets the tickets? We are at the back of
everywhere in this desert jungle of the harbour darkness.
* * * * *
A man directs us round the corner--and actually does not demand money.
It is the sack again. So--there, I see the knot of men, soldiers
chiefly, fighting in a bare room round a tiny wicket. I recognise the
place where I have fought before.
So while the q-b stands guard over sack and bag, I plunge into the fray.
It literally is a fight. Some thirty men all at once want to get at a
tiny wicket in a blank wall. There are no queue-rails, there is no
order: just a hole in a blank wall, and thirty fellows, mostly military,
pressing at it in a mass. But I have done this before. The way is to
insert the thin end of oneself, and without any violence, by deadly
pressure and pertinacity come at the goal. One hand must be kept fast
over the money pocket, and one must be free to clutch the wicket-side
when one gets there. And thus one is ground small in those mills of God,
Demos struggling for tickets. It isn't very nice--so close, so
incomparably crushed. And never for a second must one be off one's guard
for one's watch and money and even hanky. When I first came to Italy
after the war I was robbed twice in three weeks, floating round in the
sweet old innocent confidence in mankind. Since then I have never ceased
to be on my guard. Somehow or other, waking and sleeping one's spirit
must be on its guard nowadays. Which is really what I prefer, now I have
learnt it. Confidence in the goodness of mankind is a very thin
protection indeed. _Integer vitae scelerisque purus_ will do nothing for
you when it comes to humanity, however efficacious it may be with lions
and wolves. Therefore, tight on my guard, like a screw biting into a bit
of wood, I bite my way through that knot of fellows, to the wicket, and
shout for two first-class. The clerk inside ignores me for some time,
serving soldiers. But if you stand like Doomsday you get your way. Two
firsts, says the clerk. Husband and wife, say I, in case there is a
two-berth cabin. Jokes behind. But I get my tickets. Impossible to put
my hand to my pocket. The tickets cost about a hundred and five francs
each. Clutching paper change and the green slips, with a last gasp I get
out of the knot. So--we've done it. As I sort my money and stow away, I
hear another ask for one first-class. Nothing left, says the clerk. So
you see how one must fight.
I must say for these dense and struggling crowds, they are only intense,
not violent, and not in the least brutal. I always feel a certain
sympathy with the men in them.
* * * * *
Bolt through the pouring rain to the ship. And in two minutes we are
aboard. And behold, each of us has a deck cabin, I one to myself, the
q-b to herself next door. Palatial--not a cabin at all, but a proper
little bedroom with a curtained bed under the porthole windows, a
comfortable sofa, chairs, table, carpets, big wash-bowls with silver
taps--a whole _de luxe_. I dropped the sack on the sofa with a gasp,
drew back the yellow curtains of the bed, looked out of the porthole at
the lights of Naples, and sighed with relief. One could wash thoroughly,
refreshingly, and change one's linen. Wonderful!
* * * * *
The state-room is like a hotel lounge, many little tables with flowers
and periodicals, arm-chairs, warm carpet, bright but soft lights, and
people sitting about chatting. A loud group of English people in one
corner, very assured: two quiet English ladies: various Italians seeming
quite modest. Here one could sit in peace and rest, pretending to look
at an illustrated magazine. So we rested. After about an hour there
entered a young Englishman and his wife, whom we had seen on our train.
So, at last the coach had been shunted down to the port. Where should we
have been had we waited!
* * * * *
The waiters began to flap the white table-cloths and spread the tables
nearest the walls. Dinner would begin at half-past seven, immediately
the boat started. We sat in silence, till eight or nine tables were
spread. Then we let the other people take their choice. After which we
chose a table by ourselves, neither of us wanting company. So we sat
before the plates and the wine-bottles and sighed in the hopes of a
decent meal. Food by the way is not included in the hundred-and-five
francs.
Alas, we were not to be alone: two young Neapolitans, pleasant, quiet,
blond, or semi-blond. They were well-bred, and evidently of northern
extraction. Afterwards we found out they were jewellers. But I liked
their quiet, gentle manners. The dinner began, and we were through the
soup, when up pranced another young fellow, rather strapping and loud, a
commercial traveller, for sure. He had those cocky assured manners of
one who is not sure of his manners. He had a rather high forehead, and
black hair brushed up in a showy wing, and a large ring on his finger.
Not that a ring signifies anything. Here most of the men wear several,
all massively jewelled. If one believed in all the jewels, why Italy
would be more fabulous than fabled India. But our friend the bounder was
smart, and smelled of cash. Not money, but cash.
I had an inkling of what to expect when he handed the salt and said in
English "Salt, thenk you." But I ignored the advance. However, he did
not wait long. Through the windows across the room the q-b saw the
lights of the harbour slowly moving. "Oh," she cried, "are we going?"
And also in Italian: "Partiamo?" All watched the lights, the bounder
screwing round. He had one of the fine, bounderish backs.
"Yes," he said. "We--_going_."
"Oh," cried she. "Do you speak English?"
"Ye-es. Some English--I speak."
As a matter of fact he spoke about forty disconnected words. But his
accent was so good for these forty. He did not speak English, he
imitated an English voice making sounds. And the effect was startling.
He had served on the Italian front with the Scots Guards--so he told us
in Italian. He was Milanese. Oh, he had had a time with the Scots
Guards. Wheesky--eh? Wheesky.
"Come along _bhoys_!" he shouted.
And it was such a Scotch voice shouting, so loud-mouthed and actual, I
nearly went under the table. It struck us both like a blow.
Afterwards he rattled away without misgiving. He was a traveller for a
certain type of machine, and was doing Sicily. Shortly he was going to
England--and he asked largely about first-class hotels. Then he asked
was the q-b French?--Was she Italian?--No, she was German. Ah--German.
And immediately out he came with the German word: "Deutsch! Deutsch, eh?
From Deutschland. Oh yes! Deutschland ueber alles! Ah, I know. No
more--what? Deutschland unter alles now? Deutschland unter alles." And
he bounced on his seat with gratification of the words. Of German as of
English he knew half a dozen phrases.
"No," said the q-b, "Not Deutschland unter alles. Not for long,
anyhow."
"How? Not for long? You think so? I think so too," said the bounder.
Then in Italian: "La Germania won't stand under all for long. No, no. At
present it is England ueber alles. _England ueber alles._ But Germany will
rise up again."
"Of course," said the q-b. "How shouldn't she?"
"Ah," said the bounder, "while England keeps the money in her pocket, we
shall none of us rise up. Italy won the war, and Germany lost it. And
Italy and Germany they both are down, and England is up. They both are
down, and England is up. England and France. Strange, isn't it? Ah, the
allies. What are the allies for? To keep England up, and France half
way, and Germany and Italy down."
"Ah, they won't stay down for ever," said the q-b.
"You think not? Ah! We will see. We will see how England goes on now."
"England is not going on so marvellously, after all," say I.
"How not? You mean Ireland?"
"No, not only Ireland. Industry altogether. England is as near to ruin
as other countries."
"Ma! With all the money, and we others with no money? How will she be
ruined?"
"And what good would it be to you if she were?"
"Oh well--who knows. If England were ruined--" a slow smile of
anticipation spread over his face. How he would love it--how they would
all love it, if England were ruined. That is, the business part of them,
perhaps, would not love it. But the human part would. The human part
fairly licks its lips at the thought of England's ruin. The commercial
part, however, quite violently disclaims the anticipations of the human
part. And there it is. The newspapers chiefly speak with the commercial
voice. But individually, when you are got at in a railway carriage or as
now on a ship, up speaks the human voice, and you know how they love
you. This is no doubt inevitable. When the exchange stands at a hundred
and six men go humanly blind, I suppose, however much they may keep the
commercial eye open. And having gone humanly blind they bump into one's
human self nastily: a nasty jar. You know then how they hate you.
Underneath, they hate us, and as human beings we are objects of envy and
malice. They hate us, with envy, and despise us, with jealousy. Which
perhaps doesn't hurt commercially. Humanly it is to me unpleasant.
The dinner was over, and the bounder was lavishing cigarettes--Murattis,
if you please. We had all drunk two bottles of wine. Two other
commercial travellers had joined the bounder at our table--two smart
young fellows, one a bounder and one gentle and nice. Our two jewellers
remained quiet, talking their share, but quietly and so sensitively. One
could not help liking them. So we were seven people, six men.
"Wheesky! Will you drink Wheesky, Mister?" said our original bounder.
"Yes, one small Scotch! One Scotch Wheesky." All this in a perfect
Scotty voice of a man standing at a bar calling for a drink. It was
comical, one could not but laugh: and very impertinent. He called for
the waiter, took him by the button-hole, and with a breast-to-breast
intimacy asked if there was whisky. The waiter, with the same tone of
you-and-I-are-men-who-have-the-same-feelings, said he didn't think there
was whisky, but he would look. Our bounder went round the table inviting
us all to whiskies, and pressing on us his expensive English cigarettes
with great aplomb.
The whisky came--and five persons partook. It was fiery, oily stuff from
heaven knows where. The bounder rattled away, spouting his bits of
English and his four words of German. He was in high feather, wriggling
his large haunches on his chair and waving his hands. He had a peculiar
manner of wriggling from the bottom of his back, with fussy
self-assertiveness. It was my turn to offer whisky.
I was able in a moment's lull to peer through the windows and see the
dim lights of Capri--the glimmer of Anacapri up on the black
shadow--the lighthouse. We had passed the island. In the midst of the
babel I sent out a few thoughts to a few people on the island. Then I
had to come back.
The bounder had once more resumed his theme of l'Inghilterra, l'Italia,
la Germania. He swanked England as hard as he could. Of course England
was the top dog, and if he could speak some English, if he were talking
to English people, and if, as he said, he was going to England in April,
why he was so much the more top-doggy than his companions, who could not
rise to all these heights. At the same time, my nerves had too much to
bear.
Where were we going and where had we been and where did we live? And ah,
yes, English people lived in Italy. Thousands, thousands of English
people lived in Italy. Yes, it was very nice for them. There used to be
many Germans, but now the Germans were down. But the English--what could
be better for them than Italy now: they had sun, they had warmth, they
had abundance of everything, they had a charming people to deal with,
and they had the _cambio_! Ecco! The other commercial travellers agreed.
They appealed to the q-b if it was not so. And altogether I had enough
of it.
"Oh yes," said I, "it's very nice to be in Italy: especially if you are
not living in an hotel, and you have to attend to things for yourself.
It is very nice to be overcharged every time, and then insulted if you
say a word. It's very nice to have the _cambio_ thrown in your teeth, if
you say two words to any Italian, even a perfect stranger. It's very
nice to have waiters and shop-people and railway porters sneering in a
bad temper and being insulting in small, mean ways all the time. It's
very nice to feel what they all feel against you. And if you understand
enough Italian, it's very nice to hear what they say when you've gone
by. Oh very nice. Very nice indeed!"
I suppose the whisky had kindled this outburst in me. They sat dead
silent. And then our bounder began, in his sugary deprecating voice.
"Why no! Why no! It is not true, signore. No, it is not true. Why,
England is the foremost nation in the world--"
"And you want to pay her out for it."
"But no, signore. But no. What makes you say so? Why, we Italians are so
good-natured. Noi Italiani siamo cosi buoni. Siamo cosi buoni."
It was the identical words of the schoolmistress.
"Buoni," said I. "Yes--perhaps. Buoni when it's not a question of the
exchange and of money. But since it is always a question of _cambio_
and _soldi_ now, one is always, in a small way, insulted."
I suppose it must have been the whisky. Anyhow Italians can never bear
hard bitterness. The jewellers looked distressed, the bounders looked
down their noses, half exulting even now, and half sheepish, being
caught. The third of the _commis voyageurs_, the gentle one, made large
eyes and was terrified that he was going to be sick. He represented a
certain Italian liqueur, and he modestly asked us to take a glass of it.
He went with the waiter to secure the proper brand. So we drank--and it
was good. But he, the giver, sat with large and haunted eyes. Then he
said he would go to bed. Our bounder gave him various advice regarding
seasickness. There was a mild swell on the sea. So he of the liqueur
departed.
* * * * *
Our bounder thrummed on the table and hummed something, and asked the
q-b if she knew the _Rosencavalier_. He always appealed to her. She said
she did. And ah, he was passionately fond of music, said he. Then he
warbled, in a head voice, a bit more. He only knew classical music, said
he. And he mewed a bit of Moussorgsky. The q-b said Moussorgsky was her
favourite musician, for opera. Ah, cried the bounder, if there were but
a piano!--There is a piano, said his mate.--Yes, he replied, but it is
locked up.--Then let us get the key, said his mate, with aplomb. The
waiters, being men with the same feelings as our two, would give them
anything. So the key was forthcoming. We paid our bills--mine about
sixty francs. Then we went along the faintly rolling ship, up the curved
staircase to the drawing room. Our bounder unlocked the door of this
drawing room, and switched on the lights.
It was quite a pleasant room, with deep divans upholstered in pale
colours, and palm-trees standing behind little tables, and a black
upright piano. Our bounder sat on the piano-stool and gave us an
exhibition. He splashed out noise on the piano in splashes, like water
splashing out of a pail. He lifted his head and shook his black mop of
hair, and yelled out some fragments of opera. And he wriggled his large,
bounder's back upon the piano stool, wriggling upon his well-filled
haunches. Evidently he had a great deal of feeling for music: but very
little prowess. He yelped it out, and wriggled, and splashed the piano.
His friend the other bounder, a quiet one in a pale suit, with stout
limbs, older than the wriggler, stood by the piano whilst the young one
exhibited. Across the space of carpet sat the two brother jewellers,
deep in a divan, their lean, semi-blond faces quite inscrutable. The
q-b sat next to me, asking for this and that music, none of which the
wriggler could supply. He knew four scraps, and a few splashes--not
more. The elder bounder stood near him quietly comforting, encouraging,
and admiring him, as a lover encouraging and admiring his _ingenue_
betrothed. And the q-b sat bright-eyed and excited, admiring that a man
could perform so unself-consciously self-conscious, and give himself
away with such generous wriggles. For my part, as you may guess, I did
not admire.
I had had enough. Rising, I bowed and marched off. The q-b came after
me. Good-night, said I, at the head of the corridor. She turned in, and
I went round the ship to look at the dark night of the sea.
* * * * *
Morning came sunny with pieces of cloud: and the Sicilian coast towering
pale blue in the distance. How wonderful it must have been to Ulysses to
venture into this Mediterranean and open his eyes on all the loveliness
of the tall coasts. How marvellous to steal with his ship into these
magic harbours. There is something eternally morning-glamourous about
these lands as they rise from the sea. And it is always the Odyssey
which comes back to one as one looks at them. All the lovely
morning-wonder of this world, in Homer's day!
Our bounder was dashing about on deck, in one of those rain-coats
gathered in at the waist and ballooning out into skirts below the waist.
He greeted me with a cry of "It's a long, long way to Tipperary." "Very
long," said I. "Good-bye Piccadilly--" he continued. "Ciao," said I, as
he dashed jauntily down the steps. Soon we saw the others as well. But
it was morning, and I simply did not want to speak to them--except just
Good-day. For my life I couldn't say two more words to any of them this
morning: except to ask the mild one if he had been sick. He had not.
So we waited for the great _Citta di Trieste_ to float her way into
Palermo harbour. It looked so near--the town there, the great circle of
the port, the mass of the hills crowding round. Panormus, the
All-harbour. I wished the bulky steamer would hurry up. For I hated her
now. I hated her swankiness, she seemed made for commercial travellers
with cash. I hated the big picture that filled one end of the
state-room: an elegant and ideal peasant-girl, a sort of Italia,
strolling on a lovely and ideal cliff's edge, among myriad blooms, and
carrying over her arm, in a most sophisticated fashion, a bough of
almond blossom and a sheaf of anemones. I hated the waiters, and the
cheap elegance, the common _de luxe_. I disliked the people, who all
turned their worst, cash-greasy sides outwards on this ship. Vulgar,
vulgar post-war commercialism and dog-fish money-stink. I longed to get
off. And the bloated boat edged her way so slowly into the port, and
then more slowly still edged round her fat stern. And even then we were
kept for fifteen minutes waiting for someone to put up the gangway for
the first class. The second class, of course, were streaming off and
melting like thawed snow into the crowds of onlookers on the quay, long
before we were allowed to come off.
* * * * *
Glad, glad I was to get off that ship: I don't know why, for she was
clean and comfortable and the attendants were perfectly civil. Glad,
glad I was not to share the deck with any more commercial travellers.
Glad I was to be on my own feet, independent. No, I would _not_ take a
carriage. I carried my sack on my back to the hotel, looking with a
jaundiced eye on the lethargic traffic of the harbour front. It was
about nine o'clock.
* * * * *
Later on, when I had slept, I thought as I have thought before, the
Italians are not to blame for their spite against us. We, England, have
taken upon ourselves for so long the role of leading nation. And if now,
in the war or after the war, we have led them all into a real old
swinery--which we have, notwithstanding all Entente cant--then they have
a legitimate grudge against us. If you take upon yourself to lead, you
must expect the mud to be thrown at you if you lead into a nasty morass.
Especially if, once in the bog, you think of nothing else but scrambling
out over other poor devils' backs. Pretty behaviour of great nations!
And still, for all that, I must insist that I am a single human being,
an individual, not a mere national unit, a mere chip of l'Inghilterra or
la Germania. I am not a chip of any nasty old block. I am myself.
* * * * *
In the evening the q-b insisted on going to the marionettes, for which
she has a sentimental passion. So the three of us--we were with the
American friend once more--chased through dark and tortuous side-streets
and markets of Palermo in the night, until at last a friendly man led us
to the place. The back streets of Palermo felt friendly, not huge and
rather horrible, like Naples near the port.
The theatre was a little hole opening simply off the street. There was
no one in the little ticket box, so we walked past the door-screen. A
shabby old man with a long fennel-stalk hurried up and made us places on
the back benches, and hushed us when we spoke of tickets. The play was
in progress. A serpent-dragon was just having a tussle with a knight in
brilliant brass armour, and my heart came into my mouth. The audience
consisted mostly of boys, gazing with frantic interest on the bright
stage. There was a sprinkling of soldiers and elderly men. The place was
packed--about fifty souls crowded on narrow little ribbons of benches,
so close one behind the other that the end of the man in front of me
continually encroached and sat on my knee. I saw on a notice that the
price of entry was forty centimes.
We had come in towards the end of the performance, and so sat rather
bewildered, unable to follow. The story was the inevitable Paladins of
France--one heard the names _Rinaldo!_ _Orlando!_ again and again. But
the story was told in dialect, hard to follow.