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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9497-8.txt b/9497-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dba768f --- /dev/null +++ b/9497-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6578 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Twilight in Italy, by D. H. Lawrence + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Twilight in Italy + +Author: D. H. Lawrence + +Posting Date: August 5, 2012 [EBook #9497] +Release Date: December, 2005 +First Posted: October 6, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT IN ITALY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + +TWILIGHT IN ITALY + + +By D. H. Lawrence + +1916 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE CRUCIFIX ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS + +ON THE LAGO DI GARDA + 1 _The Spinner and the Monks_ + 2 _The Lemon Gardens_ + 3 _The Theatre_ + 4 _San Gaudenzio_ + 5 _The Dance_ + 6 _Il Duro_ + 7 _John_ + +ITALIANS IN EXILE + +THE RETURN JOURNEY + + + + +_The Crucifix Across the Mountains_ + + +The imperial road to Italy goes from Munich across the Tyrol, through +Innsbruck and Bozen to Verona, over the mountains. Here the great +processions passed as the emperors went South, or came home again from +rosy Italy to their own Germany. + +And how much has that old imperial vanity clung to the German soul? Did +not the German kings inherit the empire of bygone Rome? It was not a +very real empire, perhaps, but the sound was high and splendid. + +Maybe a certain Grössenwahn is inherent in the German nature. If only +nations would realize that they have certain natural characteristics, if +only they could understand and agree to each other's particular nature, +how much simpler it would all be. + +The imperial procession no longer crosses the mountains, going South. +That is almost forgotten, the road has almost passed out of mind. But +still it is there, and its signs are standing. + +The crucifixes are there, not mere attributes of the road, yet still +having something to do with it. The imperial processions, blessed by the +Pope and accompanied by the great bishops, must have planted the holy +idol like a new plant among the mountains, there where it multiplied and +grew according to the soil, and the race that received it. + +As one goes among the Bavarian uplands and foothills, soon one realizes +here is another land, a strange religion. It is a strange country, +remote, out of contact. Perhaps it belongs to the forgotten, imperial +processions. + +Coming along the clear, open roads that lead to the mountains, one +scarcely notices the crucifixes and the shrines. Perhaps one's interest +is dead. The crucifix itself is nothing, a factory-made piece of +sentimentalism. The soul ignores it. + +But gradually, one after another looming shadowily under their hoods, +the crucifixes seem to create a new atmosphere over the whole of the +countryside, a darkness, a weight in the air that is so unnaturally +bright and rare with the reflection from the snows above, a darkness +hovering just over the earth. So rare and unearthly the light is, from +the mountains, full of strange radiance. Then every now and again recurs +the crucifix, at the turning of an open, grassy road, holding a shadow +and a mystery under its pointed hood. + +I was startled into consciousness one evening, going alone over a marshy +place at the foot of the mountains, when the sky was pale and unearthly, +invisible, and the hills were nearly black. At a meeting of the tracks +was a crucifix, and between the feet of the Christ a handful of withered +poppies. It was the poppies I saw, then the Christ. + +It was an old shrine, the wood-sculpture of a Bavarian peasant. The +Christ was a peasant of the foot of the Alps. He had broad cheekbones +and sturdy limbs. His plain, rudimentary face stared fixedly at the +hills, his neck was stiffened, as if in resistance to the fact of the +nails and the cross, which he could not escape. It was a man nailed down +in spirit, but set stubbornly against the bondage and the disgrace. He +was a man of middle age, plain, crude, with some of the meanness of the +peasant, but also with a kind of dogged nobility that does not yield its +soul to the circumstance. Plain, almost blank in his soul, the +middle-aged peasant of the crucifix resisted unmoving the misery of his +position. He did not yield. His soul was set, his will was fixed. He was +himself, let his circumstances be what they would, his life fixed down. + +Across the marsh was a tiny square of orange-coloured light, from the +farm-house with the low, spreading roof. I remembered how the man and +his wife and the children worked on till dark, silent and intent, +carrying the hay in their arms out of the streaming thunder-rain into +the shed, working silent in the soaking rain. + +The body bent forward towards the earth, closing round on itself; the +arms clasped full of hay, clasped round the hay that presses soft and +close to the breast and the body, that pricks heat into the arms and the +skin of the breast, and fills the lungs with the sleepy scent of dried +herbs: the rain that falls heavily and wets the shoulders, so that the +shirt clings to the hot, firm skin and the rain comes with heavy, +pleasant coldness on the active flesh, running in a trickle down towards +the loins, secretly; this is the peasant, this hot welter of physical +sensation. And it is all intoxicating. It is intoxicating almost like a +soporific, like a sensuous drug, to gather the burden to one's body in +the rain, to stumble across the living grass to the shed, to relieve +one's arms of the weight, to throw down the hay on to the heap, to feel +light and free in the dry shed, then to return again into the chill, +hard rain, to stoop again under the rain, and rise to return again with +the burden. + +It is this, this endless heat and rousedness of physical sensation which +keeps the body full and potent, and flushes the mind with a blood heat, +a blood sleep. And this sleep, this heat of physical experience, becomes +at length a bondage, at last a crucifixion. It is the life and the +fulfilment of the peasant, this flow of sensuous experience. But at last +it drives him almost mad, because he cannot escape. + +For overhead there is always the strange radiance of the mountains, +there is the mystery of the icy river rushing through its pink shoals +into the darkness of the pine-woods, there is always the faint tang of +ice on the air, and the rush of hoarse-sounding water. + +And the ice and the upper radiance of snow are brilliant with timeless +immunity from the flux and the warmth of life. Overhead they transcend +all life, all the soft, moist fire of the blood. So that a man must +needs live under the radiance of his own negation. + +There is a strange, clear beauty of form about the men of the Bavarian +highlands, about both men and women. They are large and clear and +handsome in form, with blue eyes very keen, the pupil small, tightened, +the iris keen, like sharp light shining on blue ice. Their large, +full-moulded limbs and erect bodies are distinct, separate, as if they +were perfectly chiselled out of the stuff of life, static, cut off. +Where they are everything is set back, as in a clear frosty air. + +Their beauty is almost this, this strange, clean-cut isolation, as if +each one of them would isolate himself still further and for ever from +the rest of his fellows. + +Yet they are convivial, they are almost the only race with the souls of +artists. Still they act the mystery plays with instinctive fullness of +interpretation, they sing strangely in the mountain fields, they love +make-belief and mummery, their processions and religious festivals are +profoundly impressive, solemn, and rapt. + +It is a race that moves on the poles of mystic sensual delight. Every +gesture is a gesture from the blood, every expression is a symbolic +utterance. + +For learning there is sensuous experience, for thought there is myth and +drama and dancing and singing. Everything is of the blood, of the +senses. There is no mind. The mind is a suffusion of physical heat, it +is not separated, it is kept submerged. + +At the same time, always, overhead, there is the eternal, negative +radiance of the snows. Beneath is life, the hot jet of the blood playing +elaborately. But above is the radiance of changeless not-being. And life +passes away into this changeless radiance. Summer and the prolific +blue-and-white flowering of the earth goes by, with the labour and the +ecstasy of man, disappears, and is gone into brilliance that hovers +overhead, the radiant cold which waits to receive back again all that +which has passed for the moment into being. + +The issue is too much revealed. It leaves the peasant no choice. The +fate gleams transcendent above him, the brightness of eternal, +unthinkable not-being. And this our life, this admixture of labour and +of warm experience in the flesh, all the time it is steaming up to the +changeless brilliance above, the light of the everlasting snows. This is +the eternal issue. + +Whether it is singing or dancing or play-acting or physical transport of +love, or vengeance or cruelty, or whether it is work or sorrow or +religion, the issue is always the same at last, into the radiant +negation of eternity. Hence the beauty and completeness, the finality of +the highland peasant. His figure, his limbs, his face, his motion, it is +all formed in beauty, and it is all completed. There is no flux nor hope +nor becoming, all is, once and for all. The issue is eternal, timeless, +and changeless. All being and all passing away is part of the issue, +which is eternal and changeless. Therefore there is no becoming and no +passing away. Everything is, now and for ever. Hence the strange beauty +and finality and isolation of the Bavarian peasant. + +It is plain in the crucifixes. Here is the essence rendered in sculpture +of wood. The face is blank and stiff, almost expressionless. One +realizes with a start how unchanging and conventionalized is the face of +the living man and woman of these parts, handsome, but motionless as +pure form. There is also an underlying meanness, secretive, cruel. It is +all part of the beauty, the pure, plastic beauty. The body also of the +Christus is stiff and conventionalized, yet curiously beautiful in +proportion, and in the static tension which makes it unified into one +clear thing. There is no movement, no possible movement. The being is +fixed, finally. The whole body is locked in one knowledge, beautiful, +complete. It is one with the nails. Not that it is languishing or dead. +It is stubborn, knowing its own undeniable being, sure of the absolute +reality of the sensuous experience. Though he is nailed down upon an +irrevocable fate, yet, within that fate he has the power and the delight +of all sensuous experience. So he accepts the fate and the mystic +delight of the senses with one will, he is complete and final. His +sensuous experience is supreme, a consummation of life and death +at once. + +It is the same at all times, whether it is moving with the scythe on the +hill-slopes, or hewing the timber, or steering the raft down the river +which is all effervescent with ice; whether it is drinking in the +Gasthaus, or making love, or playing some mummer's part, or hating +steadily and cruelly, or whether it is kneeling in spellbound subjection +in the incense-filled church, or walking in the strange, dark, +subject-procession to bless the fields, or cutting the young birch-trees +for the feast of Frohenleichnam, it is always the same, the dark, +powerful mystic, sensuous experience is the whole of him, he is mindless +and bound within the absoluteness of the issue, the unchangeability of +the great icy not-being which holds good for ever, and is supreme. + +Passing further away, towards Austria, travelling up the Isar, till the +stream becomes smaller and whiter and the air is colder, the full +glamour of the northern hills, which are so marvellously luminous and +gleaming with flowers, wanes and gives way to a darkness, a sense of +ominousness. Up there I saw another little Christ, who seemed the very +soul of the place. The road went beside the river, that was seething +with snowy ice-bubbles, under the rocks and the high, wolf-like +pine-trees, between the pinkish shoals. The air was cold and hard and +high, everything was cold and separate. And in a little glass case +beside the road sat a small, hewn Christ, the head resting on the hand; +and he meditates, half-wearily, doggedly, the eyebrows lifted in strange +abstraction, the elbow resting on the knee. Detached, he sits and dreams +and broods, wearing his little golden crown of thorns, and his little +cloak of red flannel that some peasant woman has stitched for him. + +No doubt he still sits there, the small, blank-faced Christ in the cloak +of red flannel, dreaming, brooding, enduring, persisting. There is a +wistfulness about him, as if he knew that the whole of things was too +much for him. There was no solution, either, in death. Death did not +give the answer to the soul's anxiety. That which is, is. It does not +cease to be when it is cut. Death cannot create nor destroy. What +is, is. + +The little brooding Christ knows this. What is he brooding, then? His +static patience and endurance is wistful. What is it that he secretly +yearns for, amid all the placidity of fate? 'To be, or not to be,' this +may be the question, but is it not a question for death to answer. It is +not a question of living or not-living. It is a question of being--to be +or not to be. To persist or not to persist, that is not the question; +neither is it to endure or not to endure. The issue, is it eternal +not-being? If not, what, then, is being? For overhead the eternal +radiance of the snow gleams unfailing, it receives the efflorescence of +all life and is unchanged, the issue is bright and immortal, the snowy +not-being. What, then, is being? + +As one draws nearer to the turning-point of the Alps, towards the +culmination and the southern slope, the influence of the educated world +is felt once more. Bavaria is remote in spirit, as yet unattached. Its +crucifixes are old and grey and abstract, small like the kernel of the +truth. Further into Austria they become new, they are painted white, +they are larger, more obtrusive. They are the expressions of a later, +newer phase, more introspective and self-conscious. But still they are +genuine expressions of the people's soul. + +Often one can distinguish the work of a particular artist here and there +in a district. In the Zemm valley, in the heart of the Tyrol, behind +Innsbruck, there are five or six crucifixes by one sculptor. He is no +longer a peasant working out an idea, conveying a dogma. He is an +artist, trained and conscious, probably working in Vienna. He is +consciously trying to convey a _feeling_, he is no longer striving +awkwardly to render a truth, a religious fact. + +The chief of his crucifixes stands deep in the Klamm, in the dank gorge +where it is always half-night. The road runs under the rock and the +trees, half-way up the one side of the pass. Below, the stream rushes +ceaselessly, embroiled among great stones, making an endless loud noise. +The rock face opposite rises high overhead, with the sky far up. So that +one is walking in a half-night, an underworld. And just below the path, +where the pack-horses go climbing to the remote, infolded villages, in +the cold gloom of the pass hangs the large, pale Christ. He is larger +than life-size. He has fallen forward, just dead, and the weight of the +full-grown, mature body hangs on the nails of the hands. So the dead, +heavy body drops forward, sags, as if it would tear away and fall under +its own weight. + +It is the end. The face is barren with a dead expression of weariness, +and brutalized with pain and bitterness. The rather ugly, passionate +mouth is set for ever in the disillusionment of death. Death is the +complete disillusionment, set like a seal over the whole body and being, +over the suffering and weariness and the bodily passion. + +The pass is gloomy and damp, the water roars unceasingly, till it is +almost like a constant pain. The driver of the pack-horses, as he comes +up the narrow path in the side of the gorge, cringes his sturdy +cheerfulness as if to obliterate himself, drawing near to the large, +pale Christ, and he takes his hat off as he passes, though he does not +look up, but keeps his face averted from the crucifix. He hurries by in +the gloom, climbing the steep path after his horses, and the large white +Christ hangs extended above. + +The driver of the pack-horses is afraid. The fear is always there in +him, in spite of his sturdy, healthy robustness. His soul is not sturdy. +It is blenched and whitened with fear. The mountains are dark overhead, +the water roars in the gloom below. His heart is ground between the +mill-stones of dread. When he passes the extended body of the dead +Christ he takes off his hat to the Lord of Death. Christ is the Deathly +One, He is Death incarnate. + +And the driver of the pack-horses acknowledges this deathly Christ as +supreme Lord. The mountain peasant seems grounded upon fear, the fear of +death, of physical death. Beyond this he knows nothing. His supreme +sensation is in physical pain, and in its culmination. His great climax, +his consummation, is death. Therefore he worships it, bows down before +it, and is fascinated by it all the while. It is his fulfilment, death, +and his approach to fulfilment is through physical pain. + +And so these monuments to physical death are found everywhere in the +valleys. By the same hand that carved the big Christ, a little further +on, at the end of a bridge, was another crucifix, a small one. This +Christ had a fair beard, and was thin, and his body was hanging almost +lightly, whereas the other Christ was large and dark and handsome. But +in this, as well as in the other, was the same neutral triumph of death, +complete, negative death, so complete as to be abstract, beyond cynicism +in its completeness of leaving off. + +Everywhere is the same obsession with the fact of physical pain, +accident, and sudden death. Wherever a misfortune has befallen a man, +there is nailed up a little memorial of the event, in propitiation of +the God of hurt and death. A man is standing up to his waist in water, +drowning in full stream, his arms in the air. The little painting in its +wooden frame is nailed to the tree, the spot is sacred to the accident. +Again, another little crude picture fastened to a rock: a tree, falling +on a man's leg, smashes it like a stalk, while the blood flies up. +Always there is the strange ejaculation of anguish and fear, perpetuated +in the little paintings nailed up in the place of the disaster. + +This is the worship, then, the worship of death and the approaches to +death, physical violence, and pain. There is something crude and +sinister about it, almost like depravity, a form of reverting, turning +back along the course of blood by which we have come. + +Turning the ridge on the great road to the south, the imperial road to +Rome, a decisive change takes place. The Christs have been taking on +various different characters, all of them more or less realistically +conveyed. One Christus is very elegant, combed and brushed and foppish +on his cross, as Gabriele D'Annunzio's son posing as a martyred saint. +The martyrdom of this Christ is according to the most polite convention. +The elegance is very important, and very Austrian. One might almost +imagine the young man had taken up this striking and original position +to create a delightful sensation among the ladies. It is quite in the +Viennese spirit. There is something brave and keen in it, too. The +individual pride of body triumphs over every difficulty in the +situation. The pride and satisfaction in the clean, elegant form, the +perfectly trimmed hair, the exquisite bearing, are more important than +the fact of death or pain. This may be foolish, it is at the same time +admirable. + +But the tendency of the crucifix, as it nears the ridge to the south, is +to become weak and sentimental. The carved Christs turn up their faces +and roll back their eyes very piteously, in the approved Guido Reni +fashion. They are overdoing the pathetic turn. They are looking to +heaven and thinking about themselves, in self-commiseration. Others +again are beautiful as elegies. It is dead Hyacinth lifted and extended +to view, in all his beautiful, dead youth. The young, male body droops +forward on the cross, like a dead flower. It looks as if its only true +nature were to be dead. How lovely is death, how poignant, real, +satisfying! It is the true elegiac spirit. + +Then there are the ordinary, factory-made Christs, which are not very +significant. They are as null as the Christs we see represented in +England, just vulgar nothingness. But these figures have gashes of red, +a red paint of blood, which is sensational. + +Beyond the Brenner, I have only seen vulgar or sensational crucifixes. +There are great gashes on the breast and the knees of the Christ-figure, +and the scarlet flows out and trickles down, till the crucified body has +become a ghastly striped thing of red and white, just a sickly thing of +striped red. + +They paint the rocks at the corners of the tracks, among the mountains; +a blue and white ring for the road to Ginzling, a red smear for the way +to St Jakob. So one follows the blue and white ring, or the three +stripes of blue and white, or the red smear, as the case may be. And the +red on the rocks, the dabs of red paint, are of just the same colour as +the red upon the crucifixes; so that the red upon the crucifixes is +paint, and the signs on the rocks are sensational, like blood. + +I remember the little brooding Christ of the Isar, in his little cloak +of red flannel and his crown of gilded thorns, and he remains real and +dear to me, among all this violence of representation. + +'_Couvre-toi de gloire, Tartarin--couvre-toi de flanelle._' Why should +it please me so that his cloak is of red flannel? + +In a valley near St Jakob, just over the ridge, a long way from the +railway, there is a very big, important shrine by the roadside. It is a +chapel built in the baroque manner, florid pink and cream outside, with +opulent small arches. And inside is the most startling sensational +Christus I have ever seen. He is a big, powerful man, seated after the +crucifixion, perhaps after the resurrection, sitting by the grave. He +sits sideways, as if the extremity were over, finished, the agitation +done with, only the result of the experience remaining. There is some +blood on his powerful, naked, defeated body, that sits rather hulked. +But it is the face which is so terrifying. It is slightly turned over +the hulked, crucified shoulder, to look. And the look of this face, of +which the body has been killed, is beyond all expectation horrible. The +eyes look at one, yet have no seeing in them, they seem to see only +their own blood. For they are bloodshot till the whites are scarlet, the +iris is purpled. These red, bloody eyes with their stained pupils, +glancing awfully at all who enter the shrine, looking as if to see +through the blood of the late brutal death, are terrible. The naked, +strong body has known death, and sits in utter dejection, finished, +hulked, a weight of shame. And what remains of life is in the face, +whose expression is sinister and gruesome, like that of an unrelenting +criminal violated by torture. The criminal look of misery and hatred on +the fixed, violated face and in the bloodshot eyes is almost impossible. +He is conquered, beaten, broken, his body is a mass of torture, an +unthinkable shame. Yet his will remains obstinate and ugly, integral +with utter hatred. + +It is a great shock to find this figure sitting in a handsome, baroque, +pink-washed shrine in one of those Alpine valleys which to our thinking +are all flowers and romance, like the picture in the Tate Gallery. +'Spring in the Austrian Tyrol' is to our minds a vision of pristine +loveliness. It contains also this Christ of the heavy body defiled by +torture and death, the strong, virile life overcome by physical +violence, the eyes still looking back bloodshot in consummate hate +and misery. + +The shrine was well kept and evidently much used. It was hung with +ex-voto limbs and with many gifts. It was a centre of worship, of a sort +of almost obscene worship. Afterwards the black pine-trees and the river +of that valley seemed unclean, as if an unclean spirit lived there. The +very flowers seemed unnatural, and the white gleam on the mountain-tops +was a glisten of supreme, cynical horror. + +After this, in the populous valleys, all the crucifixes were more or +less tainted and vulgar. Only high up, where the crucifix becomes +smaller and smaller, is there left any of the old beauty and religion. +Higher and higher, the monument becomes smaller and smaller, till in the +snows it stands out like a post, or a thick arrow stuck barb upwards. +The crucifix itself is a small thing under the pointed hood, the barb of +the arrow. The snow blows under the tiny shed, upon the little, exposed +Christ. All round is the solid whiteness of snow, the awful curves and +concaves of pure whiteness of the mountain top, the hollow whiteness +between the peaks, where the path crosses the high, extreme ridge of the +pass. And here stands the last crucifix, half buried, small and tufted +with snow. The guides tramp slowly, heavily past, not observing the +presence of the symbol, making no salute. Further down, every mountain +peasant lifted his hat. But the guide tramps by without concern. His is +a professional importance now. + +On a small mountain track on the Jaufen, not far from Meran, was a +fallen Christus. I was hurrying downhill to escape from an icy wind +which almost took away my consciousness, and I was looking up at the +gleaming, unchanging snow-peaks all round. They seemed like blades +immortal in the sky. So I almost ran into a very old Martertafel. It +leaned on the cold, stony hillside surrounded by the white peaks in the +upper air. + +The wooden hood was silver-grey with age, and covered, on the top, with +a thicket of lichen, which stuck up in hoary tufts. But on the rock at +the foot of the post was the fallen Christ, armless, who had tumbled +down and lay in an unnatural posture, the naked, ancient wooden +sculpture of the body on the naked, living rock. It was one of the old +uncouth Christs hewn out of bare wood, having the long, wedge-shaped +limbs and thin flat legs that are significant of the true spirit, the +desire to convey a religious truth, not a sensational experience. + +The arms of the fallen Christ had broken off at the shoulders, and they +hung on their nails, as ex-voto limbs hang in the shrines. But these +arms dangled from the palms, one at each end of the cross, the muscles, +carved sparely in the old wood, looking all wrong, upside down. And the +icy wind blew them backwards and forwards, so that they gave a painful +impression, there in the stark, sterile place of rock and cold. Yet I +dared not touch the fallen body of the Christ, that lay on its back in +so grotesque a posture at the foot of the post. I wondered who would +come and take the broken thing away, and for what purpose. + + + + +_On the Lago di Garda_ + + + +_1_ + +THE SPINNER AND THE MONKS + + +The Holy Spirit is a Dove, or an Eagle. In the Old Testament it was an +Eagle; in the New Testament it is a Dove. + +And there are, standing over the Christian world, the Churches of the +Dove and the Churches of the Eagle. There are, moreover, the Churches +which do not belong to the Holy Spirit at all, but which are built to +pure fancy and logic; such as the Wren Churches in London. + +The Churches of the Dove are shy and hidden: they nestle among trees, +and their bells sound in the mellowness of Sunday; or they are gathered +into a silence of their own in the very midst of the town, so that one +passes them by without observing them; they are as if invisible, +offering no resistance to the storming of the traffic. + +But the Churches of the Eagle stand high, with their heads to the skies, +as if they challenged the world below. They are the Churches of the +Spirit of David, and their bells ring passionately, imperiously, falling +on the subservient world below. + +The Church of San Francesco was a Church of the Dove. I passed it +several times in the dark, silent little square, without knowing it was +a church. Its pink walls were blind, windowless, unnoticeable, it gave +no sign, unless one caught sight of the tan curtain hanging in the door, +and the slit of darkness beneath. Yet it was the chief church of +the village. + +But the Church of San Tommaso perched over the village. Coming down the +cobbled, submerged street, many a time I looked up between the houses +and saw the thin old church standing above in the light, as if it +perched on the house-roofs. Its thin grey neck was held up stiffly, +beyond was a vision of dark foliage, and the high hillside. + +I saw it often, and yet for a long time it never occurred to me that it +actually existed. It was like a vision, a thing one does not expect to +come close to. It was there standing away upon the house-tops, against a +glamour of foliaged hillside. I was submerged in the village, on the +uneven, cobbled street, between old high walls and cavernous shops and +the houses with flights of steps. + +For a long time I knew how the day went, by the imperious clangour of +midday and evening bells striking down upon the houses and the edge of +the lake. Yet it did not occur to me to ask where these bells rang. Till +at last my everyday trance was broken in upon, and I knew the ringing of +the Church of San Tommaso. The church became a living connexion with me. + +So I set out to find it, I wanted to go to it. It was very near. I could +see it from the piazza by the lake. And the village itself had only a +few hundreds of inhabitants. The church must be within a stone's throw. + +Yet I could not find it. I went out of the back door of the house, into +the narrow gully of the back street. Women glanced down at me from the +top of the flights of steps, old men stood, half-turning, half-crouching +under the dark shadow of the walls, to stare. It was as if the strange +creatures of the under-shadow were looking at me. I was of +another element. + +The Italian people are called 'Children of the Sun'. They might better +be called 'Children of the Shadow'. Their souls are dark and nocturnal. +If they are to be easy, they must be able to hide, to be hidden in lairs +and caves of darkness. Going through these tiny chaotic backways of the +village was like venturing through the labyrinth made by furtive +creatures, who watched from out of another element. And I was pale, and +clear, and evanescent, like the light, and they were dark, and close, +and constant, like the shadow. + +So I was quite baffled by the tortuous, tiny, deep passages of the +village. I could not find my way. I hurried towards the broken end of a +street, where the sunshine and the olive trees looked like a mirage +before me. And there above me I saw the thin, stiff neck of old San +Tommaso, grey and pale in the sun. Yet I could not get up to the church, +I found myself again on the piazza. + +Another day, however, I found a broken staircase, where weeds grew in +the gaps the steps had made in falling, and maidenhair hung on the +darker side of the wall. I went up unwillingly, because the Italians +used this old staircase as a privy, as they will any deep side-passage. + +But I ran up the broken stairway, and came out suddenly, as by a +miracle, clean on the platform of my San Tommaso, in the +tremendous sunshine. + +It was another world, the world of the eagle, the world of fierce +abstraction. It was all clear, overwhelming sunshine, a platform hung in +the light. Just below were the confused, tiled roofs of the village, and +beyond them the pale blue water, down below; and opposite, opposite my +face and breast, the clear, luminous snow of the mountain across the +lake, level with me apparently, though really much above. + +I was in the skies now, looking down from my square terrace of cobbled +pavement, that was worn like the threshold of the ancient church. Round +the terrace ran a low, broad wall, the coping of the upper heaven where +I had climbed. + +There was a blood-red sail like a butterfly breathing down on the blue +water, whilst the earth on the near side gave off a green-silver smoke +of olive trees, coming up and around the earth-coloured roofs. + +It always remains to me that San Tommaso and its terrace hang suspended +above the village, like the lowest step of heaven, of Jacob's ladder. +Behind, the land rises in a high sweep. But the terrace of San Tommaso +is let down from heaven, and does not touch the earth. + +I went into the church. It was very dark, and impregnated with centuries +of incense. It affected me like the lair of some enormous creature. My +senses were roused, they sprang awake in the hot, spiced darkness. My +skin was expectant, as if it expected some contact, some embrace, as if +it were aware of the contiguity of the physical world, the physical +contact with the darkness and the heavy, suggestive substance of the +enclosure. It was a thick, fierce darkness of the senses. But my +soul shrank. + +I went out again. The pavemented threshold was clear as a jewel, the +marvellous clarity of sunshine that becomes blue in the height seemed to +distil me into itself. + +Across, the heavy mountain crouched along the side of the lake, the +upper half brilliantly white, belonging to the sky, the lower half dark +and grim. So, then, that is where heaven and earth are divided. From +behind me, on the left, the headland swept down out of a great, +pale-grey, arid height, through a rush of russet and crimson, to the +olive smoke and the water of the level earth. And between, like a blade +of the sky cleaving the earth asunder, went the pale-blue lake, cleaving +mountain from mountain with the triumph of the sky. + +Then I noticed that a big, blue-checked cloth was spread on the parapet +before me, over the parapet of heaven. I wondered why it hung there. + +Turning round, on the other side of the terrace, under a caper-bush that +hung like a blood-stain from the grey wall above her, stood a little +grey woman whose fingers were busy. Like the grey church, she made me +feel as if I were not in existence. I was wandering by the parapet of +heaven, looking down. But she stood back against the solid wall, under +the caper-bush, unobserved and unobserving. She was like a fragment of +earth, she was a living stone of the terrace, sun-bleached. She took no +notice of me, who was hesitating looking down at the earth beneath. She +stood back under the sun-bleached solid wall, like a stone rolled down +and stayed in a crevice. + +Her head was tied in a dark-red kerchief, but pieces of hair, like dirty +snow, quite short, stuck out over her ears. And she was spinning. I +wondered so much, that I could not cross towards her. She was grey, and +her apron, and her dress, and her kerchief, and her hands and her face +were all sun-bleached and sun-stained, greyey, bluey, browny, like +stones and half-coloured leaves, sunny in their colourlessness. In my +black coat, I felt myself wrong, false, an outsider. + +She was spinning, spontaneously, like a little wind. Under her arm she +held a distaff of dark, ripe wood, just a straight stick with a clutch +at the end, like a grasp of brown fingers full of a fluff of blackish, +rusty fleece, held up near her shoulder. And her fingers were plucking +spontaneously at the strands of wool drawn down from it. And hanging +near her feet, spinning round upon a black thread, spinning busily, like +a thing in a gay wind, was her shuttle, her bobbin wound fat with the +coarse, blackish worsted she was making. + +All the time, like motion without thought, her fingers teased out the +fleece, drawing it down to a fairly uniform thickness: brown, old, +natural fingers that worked as in a sleep, the thumb having a long grey +nail; and from moment to moment there was a quick, downward rub, between +thumb and forefinger, of the thread that hung in front of her apron, the +heavy bobbin spun more briskly, and she felt again at the fleece as she +drew it down, and she gave a twist to the thread that issued, and the +bobbin spun swiftly. + +Her eyes were clear as the sky, blue, empyrean, transcendent. They were +dear, but they had no looking in them. Her face was like a +sun-worn stone. + +'You are spinning,' I said to her. + +Her eyes glanced over me, making no effort of attention. + +'Yes,' she said. + +She saw merely a man's figure, a stranger standing near. I was a bit of +the outside, negligible. She remained as she was, clear and sustained +like an old stone upon the hillside. She stood short and sturdy, looking +for the most part straight in front, unseeing, but glancing from time to +time, with a little, unconscious attention, at the thread. She was +slightly more animated than the sunshine and the stone and the +motionless caper-bush above her. Still her fingers went along the strand +of fleece near her breast. + +'That is an old way of spinning,' I said. + +'What?' + +She looked up at me with eyes clear and transcendent as the heavens. But +she was slightly roused. There was the slight motion of the eagle in her +turning to look at me, a faint gleam of rapt light in her eyes. It was +my unaccustomed Italian. + +'That is an old way of spinning,' I repeated. + +'Yes--an old way,' she repeated, as if to say the words so that they +should be natural to her. And I became to her merely a transient +circumstance, a man, part of the surroundings. We divided the gift of +speech, that was all. + +She glanced at me again, with her wonderful, unchanging eyes, that were +like the visible heavens, unthinking, or like two flowers that are open +in pure clear unconsciousness. To her I was a piece of the environment. +That was all. Her world was clear and absolute, without consciousness of +self. She was not self-conscious, because she was not aware that there +was anything in the universe except _her_ universe. In her universe I +was a stranger, a foreign _signore_. That I had a world of my own, other +than her own, was not conceived by her. She did not care. + +So we conceive the stars. We are told that they are other worlds. But +the stars are the clustered and single gleaming lights in the night-sky +of our world. When I come home at night, there are the stars. When I +cease to exist as the microcosm, when I begin to think of the cosmos, +then the stars are other worlds. Then the macrocosm absorbs me. But the +macrocosm is not me. It is something which I, the microcosm, am not. + +So that there is something which is unknown to me and which nevertheless +exists. I am finite, and my understanding has limits. The universe is +bigger than I shall ever see, in mind or spirit. There is that which +is not me. + +If I say 'The planet Mars is inhabited,' I do not know what I mean by +'inhabited', with reference to the planet Mars. I can only mean that +that world is not my world. I can only know there is that which is not +me. I am the microcosm, but the macrocosm is that also which I am not. + +The old woman on the terrace in the sun did not know this. She was +herself the core and centre to the world, the sun, and the single +firmament. She knew that I was an inhabitant of lands which she had +never seen. But what of that! There were parts of her own body which she +had never seen, which physiologically she could never see. They were +none the less her own because she had never seen them. The lands she had +not seen were corporate parts of her own living body, the knowledge she +had not attained was only the hidden knowledge of her own self. She +_was_ the substance of the knowledge, whether she had the knowledge in +her mind or not. There was nothing which was not herself, ultimately. +Even the man, the male, was part of herself. He was the mobile, separate +part, but he was none the less herself because he was sometimes severed +from her. If every apple in the world were cut in two, the apple would +not be changed. The reality is the apple, which is just the same in the +half-apple as in the whole. + +And she, the old spinning-woman, was the apple, eternal, unchangeable, +whole even in her partiality. It was this which gave the wonderful clear +unconsciousness to her eyes. How could she be conscious of herself when +all was herself? + +She was talking to me of a sheep that had died, but I could not +understand because of her dialect. It never occurred to her that I could +not understand. She only thought me different, stupid. And she talked +on. The ewes had lived under the house, and a part was divided off for +the he-goat, because the other people brought their she-goats to be +covered by the he-goat. But how the ewe came to die I could not +make out. + +Her fingers worked away all the time in a little, half-fretful movement, +yet spontaneous as butterflies leaping here and there. She chattered +rapidly on in her Italian that I could not understand, looking meanwhile +into my face, because the story roused her somewhat. Yet not a feature +moved. Her eyes remained candid and open and unconscious as the skies. +Only a sharp will in them now and then seemed to gleam at me, as if to +dominate me. + +Her shuttle had caught in a dead chicory plant, and spun no more. She +did not notice. I stooped and broke off the twigs. There was a glint of +blue on them yet. Seeing what I was doing, she merely withdrew a few +inches from the plant. Her bobbin hung free. + +She went on with her tale, looking at me wonderfully. She seemed like +the Creation, like the beginning of the world, the first morning. Her +eyes were like the first morning of the world, so ageless. + +Her thread broke. She seemed to take no notice, but mechanically picked +up the shuttle, wound up a length of worsted, connected the ends from +her wool strand, set the bobbin spinning again, and went on talking, in +her half-intimate, half-unconscious fashion, as if she were talking to +her own world in me. + +So she stood in the sunshine on the little platform, old and yet like +the morning, erect and solitary, sun-coloured, sun-discoloured, whilst I +at her elbow, like a piece of night and moonshine, stood smiling into +her eyes, afraid lest she should deny me existence. + +Which she did. She had stopped talking, did not look at me any more, but +went on with her spinning, the brown shuttle twisting gaily. So she +stood, belonging to the sunshine and the weather, taking no more notice +of me than of the dark-stained caper-bush which hung from the wall above +her head, whilst I, waiting at her side, was like the moon in the +daytime sky, overshone, obliterated, in spite of my black clothes. + +'How long has it taken you to do that much?' I asked. + +She waited a minute, glanced at her bobbin. + +'This much? I don't know. A day or two.' + +'But you do it quickly.' + +She looked at me, as if suspiciously and derisively. Then, quite +suddenly, she started forward and went across the terrace to the great +blue-and-white checked cloth that was drying on the wall. I hesitated. +She had cut off her consciousness from me. So I turned and ran away, +taking the steps two at a time, to get away from her. In a moment I was +between the walls, climbing upwards, hidden. + +The schoolmistress had told me I should find snowdrops behind San +Tommaso. If she had not asserted such confident knowledge I should have +doubted her translation of _perce-neige_. She meant Christmas roses all +the while. + +However, I went looking for snowdrops. The walls broke down suddenly, +and I was out in a grassy olive orchard, following a track beside pieces +of fallen overgrown masonry. So I came to skirt the brink of a steep +little gorge, at the bottom of which a stream was rushing down its steep +slant to the lake. Here I stood to look for my snowdrops. The grassy, +rocky bank went down steep from my feet. I heard water tittle-tattling +away in deep shadow below. There were pale flecks in the dimness, but +these, I knew, were primroses. So I scrambled down. + +Looking up, out of the heavy shadow that lay in the cleft, I could see, +right in the sky, grey rocks shining transcendent in the pure empyrean. +'Are they so far up?' I thought. I did not dare to say, 'Am I so far +down?' But I was uneasy. Nevertheless it was a lovely place, in the cold +shadow, complete; when one forgot the shining rocks far above, it was a +complete, shadowless world of shadow. Primroses were everywhere in nests +of pale bloom upon the dark, steep face of the cleft, and tongues of +fern hanging out, and here and there under the rods and twigs of bushes +were tufts of wrecked Christmas roses, nearly over, but still, in the +coldest corners, the lovely buds like handfuls of snow. There had been +such crowded sumptuous tufts of Christmas roses everywhere in the +stream-gullies, during the shadow of winter, that these few remaining +flowers were hardly noticeable. + +I gathered instead the primroses, that smelled of earth and of the +weather. There were no snowdrops. I had found the day before a bank of +crocuses, pale, fragile, lilac-coloured flowers with dark veins, +pricking up keenly like myriad little lilac-coloured flames among the +grass, under the olive trees. And I wanted very much to find the +snowdrops hanging in the gloom. But there were not any. + +I gathered a handful of primroses, then I climbed suddenly, quickly out +of the deep watercourse, anxious to get back to the sunshine before the +evening fell. Up above I saw the olive trees in the sunny golden grass, +and sunlit grey rocks immensely high up. I was afraid lest the evening +would fall whilst I was groping about like an otter in the damp and the +darkness, that the day of sunshine would be over. + +Soon I was up in the sunshine again, on the turf under the olive trees, +reassured. It was the upper world of glowing light, and I was +safe again. + +All the olives were gathered, and the mills were going night and day, +making a great, acrid scent of olive oil in preparation, by the lake. +The little stream rattled down. A mule driver 'Hued!' to his mules on +the Strada Vecchia. High up, on the Strada Nuova, the beautiful, new, +military high-road, which winds with beautiful curves up the +mountain-side, crossing the same stream several times in clear-leaping +bridges, travelling cut out of sheer slope high above the lake, winding +beautifully and gracefully forward to the Austrian frontier, where it +ends: high up on the lovely swinging road, in the strong evening +sunshine, I saw a bullock wagon moving like a vision, though the +clanking of the wagon and the crack of the bullock whip responded close +in my ears. + +Everything was clear and sun-coloured up there, clear-grey rocks +partaking of the sky, tawny grass and scrub, browny-green spires of +cypresses, and then the mist of grey-green olives fuming down to the +lake-side. There was no shadow, only clear sun-substance built up to the +sky, a bullock wagon moving slowly in the high sunlight, along the +uppermost terrace of the military road. It sat in the warm stillness of +the transcendent afternoon. + +The four o'clock steamer was creeping down the lake from the Austrian +end, creeping under the cliffs. Far away, the Verona side, beyond the +Island, lay fused in dim gold. The mountain opposite was so still, that +my heart seemed to fade in its beating as if it too would be still. All +was perfectly still, pure substance. The little steamer on the floor of +the world below, the mules down the road cast no shadow. They too were +pure sun-substance travelling on the surface of the sun-made world. + +A cricket hopped near me. Then I remembered that it was Saturday +afternoon, when a strange suspension comes over the world. And then, +just below me, I saw two monks walking in their garden between the +naked, bony vines, walking in their wintry garden of bony vines and +olive trees, their brown cassocks passing between the brown vine-stocks, +their heads bare to the sunshine, sometimes a glint of light as their +feet strode from under their skirts. + +It was so still, everything so perfectly suspended, that I felt them +talking. They marched with the peculiar march of monks, a long, loping +stride, their heads together, their skirts swaying slowly, two brown +monks with hidden hands, sliding under the bony vines and beside the +cabbages, their heads always together in hidden converse. It was as if I +were attending with my dark soul to their inaudible undertone. All the +time I sat still in silence, I was one with them, a partaker, though I +could hear no sound of their voices. I went with the long stride of +their skirted feet, that slid springless and noiseless from end to end +of the garden, and back again. Their hands were kept down at their +sides, hidden in the long sleeves, and the skirts of their robes. They +did not touch each other, nor gesticulate as they walked. There was no +motion save the long, furtive stride and the heads leaning together. Yet +there was an eagerness in their conversation. Almost like +shadow-creatures ventured out of their cold, obscure element, they went +backwards and forwards in their wintry garden, thinking nobody could +see them. + +Across, above them, was the faint, rousing dazzle of snow. They never +looked up. But the dazzle of snow began to glow as they walked, the +wonderful, faint, ethereal flush of the long range of snow in the +heavens, at evening, began to kindle. Another world was coming to pass, +the cold, rare night. It was dawning in exquisite, icy rose upon the +long mountain-summit opposite. The monks walked backwards and forwards, +talking, in the first undershadow. + +And I noticed that up above the snow, frail in the bluish sky, a frail +moon had put forth, like a thin, scalloped film of ice floated out on +the slow current of the coming night. And a bell sounded. + +And still the monks were pacing backwards and forwards, backwards and +forwards, with a strange, neutral regularity. + +The shadows were coming across everything, because of the mountains in +the west. Already the olive wood where I sat was extinguished. This was +the world of the monks, the rim of pallor between night and day. Here +they paced, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, in the +neutral, shadowless light of shadow. + +Neither the flare of day nor the completeness of night reached them, +they paced the narrow path of the twilight, treading in the neutrality +of the law. Neither the blood nor the spirit spoke in them, only the +law, the abstraction of the average. The infinite is positive and +negative. But the average is only neutral. And the monks trod backward +and forward down the line of neutrality. + +Meanwhile, on the length of mountain-ridge, the snow grew +rosy-incandescent, like heaven breaking into blossom. After all, eternal +not-being and eternal being are the same. In the rosy snow that shone in +heaven over a darkened earth was the ecstasy of consummation. Night and +day are one, light and dark are one, both the same in the origin and in +the issue, both the same in the moment, of ecstasy, light fused in +darkness and darkness fused in light, as in the rosy snow above +the twilight. + +But in the monks it was not ecstasy, in them it was neutrality, the +under earth. Transcendent, above the shadowed, twilit earth was the rosy +snow of ecstasy. But spreading far over us, down below, was the +neutrality of the twilight, of the monks. The flesh neutralizing the +spirit, the spirit neutralizing the flesh, the law of the average +asserted, this was the monks as they paced backward and forward. + +The moon climbed higher, away from the snowy, fading ridge, she became +gradually herself. Between the roots of the olive tree was a rosy-tipped +daisy just going to sleep. I gathered it and put it among the frail, +moony little bunch of primroses, so that its sleep should warm the rest. +Also I put in some little periwinkles, that were very blue, reminding me +of the eyes of the old woman. + +The day was gone, the twilight was gone, and the snow was invisible as I +came down to the side of the lake. Only the moon, white and shining, was +in the sky, like a woman glorying in her own loveliness as she loiters +superbly to the gaze of all the world, looking sometimes through the +fringe of dark olive leaves, sometimes looking at her own superb, +quivering body, wholly naked in the water of the lake. + +My little old woman was gone. She, all day-sunshine, would have none of +the moon. Always she must live like a bird, looking down on all the +world at once, so that it lay all subsidiary to herself, herself the +wakeful consciousness hovering over the world like a hawk, like a sleep +of wakefulness. And, like a bird, she went to sleep as the shadows came. + +She did not know the yielding up of the senses and the possession of the +unknown, through the senses, which happens under a superb moon. The +all-glorious sun knows none of these yieldings up. He takes his way. And +the daisies at once go to sleep. And the soul of the old spinning-woman +also closed up at sunset, the rest was a sleep, a cessation. + +It is all so strange and varied: the dark-skinned Italians ecstatic in +the night and the moon, the blue-eyed old woman ecstatic in the busy +sunshine, the monks in the garden below, who are supposed to unite both, +passing only in the neutrality of the average. Where, then, is the +meeting-point: where in mankind is the ecstasy of light and dark +together, the supreme transcendence of the afterglow, day hovering in +the embrace of the coming night like two angels embracing in the +heavens, like Eurydice in the arms of Orpheus, or Persephone embraced +by Pluto? + +Where is the supreme ecstasy in mankind, which makes day a delight and +night a delight, purpose an ecstasy and a concourse in ecstasy, and +single abandon of the single body and soul also an ecstasy under the +moon? Where is the transcendent knowledge in our hearts, uniting sun and +darkness, day and night, spirit and senses? Why do we not know that the +two in consummation are one; that each is only part; partial and alone +for ever; but that the two in consummation are perfect, beyond the range +of loneliness or solitude? + + + +_2_ + +THE LEMON GARDENS + + +The padrone came just as we were drinking coffee after dinner. It was +two o'clock, because the steamer going down the lake to Desenzano had +bustled through the sunshine, and the rocking of the water still made +lights that danced up and down upon the wall among the shadows by +the piano. + +The signore was very apologetic. I found him bowing in the hall, cap in +one hand, a slip of paper in the other, protesting eagerly, in broken +French, against disturbing me. + +He is a little, shrivelled man, with close-cropped grey hair on his +skull, and a protruding jaw, which, with his gesticulations, always +makes me think of an ancient, aristocratic monkey. The signore is a +gentleman, and the last, shrivelled representative of his race. His only +outstanding quality, according to the villagers, is his avarice. + +_'Mais--mais, monsieur--je crains que--que--que je vous dérange--'_ + +He spreads wide his hands and bows, looking up at me with implicit brown +eyes, so ageless in his wrinkled, monkey's face, like onyx. He loves to +speak French, because then he feels grand. He has a queer, naïve, +ancient passion to be grand. As the remains of an impoverished family, +he is not much better than a well-to-do peasant. But the old spirit is +eager and pathetic in him. + +He loves to speak French to me. He holds his chin and waits, in his +anxiety for the phrase to come. Then it stammers forth, a little rush, +ending in Italian. But his pride is all on edge: we must continue +in French. + +The hall is cold, yet he will not come into the large room. This is not +a courtesy visit. He is not here in his quality of gentleman. He is only +an anxious villager. + +'_Voyez, monsieur--cet--cet--qu'est-ce que--qu'est-ce que veut dire +cet--cela?_' + +He shows me the paper. It is an old scrap of print, the picture of an +American patent door-spring, with directions: 'Fasten the spring either +end up. Wind it up. Never unwind.' + +It is laconic and American. The signore watches me anxiously, waiting, +holding his chin. He is afraid he ought to understand my English. I +stutter off into French, confounded by the laconic phrases of the +directions. Nevertheless, I make it clear what the paper says. + +He cannot believe me. It must say something else as well. He has not +done anything contrary to these directions. He is most distressed. + +'_Mais, monsieur, la porte--la porte--elle ferme_ pas--_elle s'ouvre_--' + +He skipped to the door and showed me the whole tragic mystery. The door, +it is shut--_ecco_! He releases the catch, and pouf!--she flies open. +She flies _open_. It is quite final. + +The brown, expressionless, ageless eyes, that remind me of a monkey's, +or of onyx, wait for me. I feel the responsibility devolve upon me. I +am anxious. + +'Allow me,' I said, 'to come and look at the door.' + +I feel uncomfortably like Sherlock Holmes. The padrone protests--_non, +monsieur, non, cela vous dérange_--that he only wanted me to translate +the words, he does not want to disturb me. Nevertheless, we go. I feel I +have the honour of mechanical England in my hands. + +The Casa di Paoli is quite a splendid place. It is large, pink and +cream, rising up to a square tower in the centre, throwing off a painted +loggia at either extreme of the façade. It stands a little way back from +the road, just above the lake, and grass grows on the bay of cobbled +pavement in front. When at night the moon shines full on this pale +façade, the theatre is far outdone in staginess. + +The hall is spacious and beautiful, with great glass doors at either +end, through which shine the courtyards where bamboos fray the sunlight +and geraniums glare red. The floor is of soft red tiles, oiled and +polished like glass, the walls are washed grey-white, the ceiling is +painted with pink roses and birds. This is half-way between the outer +world and the interior world, it partakes of both. + +The other rooms are dark and ugly. There is no mistake about their being +interior. They are like furnished vaults. The red-tiled, polished floor +in the drawing-room seems cold and clammy, the carved, cold furniture +stands in its tomb, the air has been darkened and starved to death, it +is perished. + +Outside, the sunshine runs like birds singing. Up above, the grey rocks +build the sun-substance in heaven, San Tommaso guards the terrace. But +inside here is the immemorial shadow. + +Again I had to think of the Italian soul, how it is dark, cleaving to +the eternal night. It seems to have become so, at the Renaissance, after +the Renaissance. + +In the Middle Ages Christian Europe seems to have been striving, out of +a strong, primitive, animal nature, towards the self-abnegation and the +abstraction of Christ. This brought about by itself a great sense of +completeness. The two halves were joined by the effort towards the one +as yet unrealized. There was a triumphant joy in the Whole. + +But the movement all the time was in one direction, towards the +elimination of the flesh. Man wanted more and more to become purely free +and abstract. Pure freedom was in pure abstraction. The Word was +absolute. When man became as the Word, a pure law, then he was free. + +But when this conclusion was reached, the movement broke. Already +Botticelli painted Aphrodite, queen of the senses, supreme along with +Mary, Queen of Heaven. And Michelangelo suddenly turned back on the +whole Christian movement, back to the flesh. The flesh was supreme and +god-like, in the oneness of the flesh, in the oneness of our physical +being, we are one with God, with the Father. God the Father created man +in the flesh, in His own image. Michelangelo swung right back to the old +Mosaic position. Christ did not exist. To Michelangelo there was no +salvation in the spirit. There was God the Father, the Begetter, the +Author of all flesh. And there was the inexorable law of the flesh, the +Last Judgement, the fall of the immortal flesh into Hell. + +This has been the Italian position ever since. The mind, that is the +Light; the senses, they are the Darkness. Aphrodite, the queen of the +senses, she, born of the sea-foam, is the luminousness of the gleaming +senses, the phosphorescence of the sea, the senses become a conscious +aim unto themselves; she is the gleaming darkness, she is the luminous +night, she is goddess of destruction, her white, cold fire consumes and +does not create. + +This is the soul of the Italian since the Renaissance. In the sunshine +he basks asleep, gathering up a vintage into his veins which in the +night-time he will distil into ecstatic sensual delight, the intense, +white-cold ecstasy of darkness and moonlight, the raucous, cat-like, +destructive enjoyment, the senses conscious and crying out in their +consciousness in the pangs of the enjoyment, which has consumed the +southern nation, perhaps all the Latin races, since the Renaissance. + +It is a lapse back, back to the original position, the Mosaic position, +of the divinity of the flesh, and the absoluteness of its laws. But also +there is the Aphrodite-worship. The flesh, the senses, are now +self-conscious. They know their aim. Their aim is in supreme sensation. +They seek the maximum of sensation. They seek the reduction of the +flesh, the flesh reacting upon itself, to a crisis, an ecstasy, a +phosphorescent transfiguration in ecstasy. + +The mind, all the time, subserves the senses. As in a cat, there is +subtlety and beauty and the dignity of the darkness. But the fire is +cold, as in the eyes of a cat, it is a green fire. It is fluid, +electric. At its maximum it is the white ecstasy of phosphorescence, in +the darkness, always amid the darkness, as under the black fur of a cat. +Like the feline fire, it is destructive, always consuming and reducing +to the ecstasy of sensation, which is the end in itself. + +There is the I, always the I. And the mind is submerged, overcome. But +the senses are superbly arrogant. The senses are the absolute, the +god-like. For I can never have another man's senses. These are me, my +senses absolutely me. And all that is can only come to me through my +senses. So that all is me, and is administered unto me. The rest, that +is not me, is nothing, it is something which is nothing. So the Italian, +through centuries, has avoided our Northern purposive industry, because +it has seemed to him a form of nothingness. + +It is the spirit of the tiger. The tiger is the supreme manifestation of +the senses made absolute. This is the + + Tiger, tiger burning bright, + In the forests of the night + +of Blake. It does indeed burn within the darkness. But the +_essential_ fate, of the tiger is cold and white, a white ecstasy. +It is seen in the white eyes of the blazing cat. This is the supremacy +of the flesh, which devours all, and becomes transfigured into a +magnificent brindled flame, a burning bush indeed. + +This is one way of transfiguration into the eternal flame, the +transfiguration through ecstasy in the flesh. Like the tiger in the +night, I devour all flesh, I drink all blood, until this fuel blazes up +in me to the consummate fire of the Infinite. In the ecstacy I am +Infinite, I become again the great Whole, I am a flame of the One White +Flame which is the Infinite, the Eternal, the Originator, the Creator, +the Everlasting God. In the sensual ecstasy, having drunk all blood and +devoured all flesh, I am become again the eternal Fire, I am infinite. + +This is the way of the tiger; the tiger is supreme. His head is +flattened as if there were some great weight on the hard skull, +pressing, pressing, pressing the mind into a stone, pressing it down +under the blood, to serve the blood. It is the subjugate instrument of +the blood. The will lies above the loins, as it were at the base of the +spinal column, there is the living will, the living mind of the tiger, +there in the slender loins. That is the node, there in the spinal cord. + +So the Italian, so the soldier. This is the spirit of the soldier. He, +too, walks with his consciousness concentrated at the base of the spine, +his mind subjugated, submerged. The will of the soldier is the will of +the great cats, the will to ecstasy in destruction, in absorbing life +into his own life, always his own life supreme, till the ecstasy burst +into the white, eternal flame, the Infinite, the Flame of the Infinite. +Then he is satisfied, he has been consummated in the Infinite. + +This is the true soldier, this is the immortal climax of the senses. +This is the acme of the flesh, the one superb tiger who has devoured all +living flesh, and now paces backwards and forwards in the cage of its +own infinite, glaring with blind, fierce, absorbed eyes at that which is +nothingness to it. + +The eyes of the tiger cannot see, except with the light from within +itself, by the light of its own desire. Its own white, cold light is so +fierce that the other warm light of day is outshone, it is not, it does +not exist. So the white eyes of the tiger gleam to a point of +concentrated vision, upon that which does not exist. Hence its +terrifying sightlessness. The something which I know I am is hollow +space to its vision, offers no resistance to the tiger's looking. It can +only see of me that which it knows I am, a scent, a resistance, a +voluptuous solid, a struggling warm violence that it holds overcome, a +running of hot blood between its Jaws, a delicious pang of live flesh in +the mouth. This it sees. The rest is not. + +And what is the rest, that which is-not the tiger, that which the tiger +is-not? What is this? + +What is that which parted ways with the terrific eagle-like angel of the +senses at the Renaissance? The Italians said, 'We are one in the Father: +we will go back.' The Northern races said, 'We are one in Christ: we +will go on.' + +What _is_ the consummation in Christ? Man knows satisfaction when he +surpasses all conditions and becomes, to himself, consummate in the +Infinite, when he reaches a state of infinity. In the supreme ecstasy +of the flesh, the Dionysic ecstasy, he reaches this state. But how does +it come to pass in Christ? + +It is not the mystic ecstasy. The mystic ecstasy is a special sensual +ecstasy, it is the senses satisfying themselves with a self-created +object. It is self-projection into the self, the sensuous self satisfied +in a projected self. + + Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. + + Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for + theirs is the kingdom of heaven. + +The kingdom of heaven is this Infinite into which we may be consummated, +then, if we are poor in spirit or persecuted for righteousness' sake. + + Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other + also. + + Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that + hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and + persecute you. + + Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is + perfect. + +To be perfect, to be one with God, to be infinite and eternal, what +shall we do? We must turn the other cheek, and love our enemies. + +Christ is the lamb which the eagle swoops down upon, the dove taken by +the hawk, the deer which the tiger devours. + +What then, if a man come to me with a sword, to kill me, and I do not +resist him, but suffer his sword and the death from his sword, what am +I? Am I greater than he, am I stronger than he? Do I know a consummation +in the Infinite, I, the prey, beyond the tiger who devours me? By my +non-resistance I have robbed him of his consummation. For a tiger knows +no consummation unless he kill a violated and struggling prey. There is +no consummation merely for the butcher, nor for a hyena. I can rob the +tiger of his ecstasy, his consummation, his very __my non-resistance. In +my non-resistance the tiger is infinitely destroyed. + +But I, what am I? 'Be ye therefore perfect.' Wherein am I perfect in +this submission? Is there an affirmation, behind my negation, other than +the tiger's affirmation of his own glorious infinity? + +What is the Oneness to which I subscribe, I who offer no resistance in +the flesh? + +Have I only the negative ecstasy of being devoured, of becoming thus +part of the Lord, the Great Moloch, the superb and terrible God? I have +this also, this subject ecstasy of consummation. But is there +nothing else? + +The Word of the tiger is: my senses are supremely Me, and my senses are +God in me. But Christ said: God is in the others, who are not-me. In all +the multitude of the others is God, and this is the great God, greater +than the God which is Me. God is that which is Not-Me. + +And this is the Christian truth, a truth complementary to the pagan +affirmation: 'God is that which is Me.' + +God is that which is Not-Me. In realizing the Not-Me I am consummated, I +become infinite. In turning the other cheek I submit to God who is +greater than I am, other than I am, who is in that which is not me. This +is the supreme consummation. To achieve this consummation I love my +neighbour as myself. My neighbour is all that is not me. And if I love +all this, have I not become one with the Whole, is not my consummation +complete, am I not one with God, have I not achieved the Infinite? + +After the Renaissance the Northern races continued forward to put into +practice this religious belief in the God which is Not-Me. Even the idea +of the saving of the soul was really negative: it was a question of +escaping damnation. The Puritans made the last great attack on the God +who is Me. When they beheaded Charles the First, the king by Divine +Right, they destroyed, symbolically, for ever, the supremacy of the Me +who am the image of God, the Me of the flesh, of the senses, Me, the +tiger burning bright, me the king, the Lord, the aristocrat, me who am +divine because I am the body of God. + +After the Puritans, we have been gathering data for the God who is +not-me. When Pope said 'Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The +proper study of mankind is Man,' he was stating the proposition: A man +is right, he is consummated, when he is seeking to know Man, the great +abstract; and the method of knowledge is by the analysis, which is the +destruction, of the Self. The proposition up to that time was, a man is +the epitome of the universe. He has only to express himself, to fulfil +his desires, to satisfy his supreme senses. + +Now the change has come to pass. The individual man is a limited being, +finite in himself. Yet he is capable of apprehending that which is not +himself. 'The proper study of mankind is Man.' This is another way of +saying, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' Which means, a man +is consummated in his knowledge of that which is not himself, the +abstract Man. Therefore the consummation lies in seeking that other, in +knowing that other. Whereas the Stuart proposition was: 'A man is +consummated in expressing his own Self.' + +The new spirit developed into the empirical and ideal systems of +philosophy. Everything that is, is consciousness. And in every man's +consciousness, Man is great and illimitable, whilst the individual is +small and fragmentary. Therefore the individual must sink himself in the +great whole of Mankind. + +This is the spirituality of Shelley, the perfectibility of man. This is +the way in which we fulfil the commandment, 'Be ye therefore perfect, +even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.' This is Saint +Paul's, 'Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am known.' + +When a man knows everything and understands everything, then he will be +perfect, and life will be blessed. He is capable of knowing everything +and understanding everything. Hence he is justified in his hope of +infinite freedom and blessedness. + +The great inspiration of the new religion was the inspiration of +freedom. When I have submerged or distilled away my concrete body and my +limited desires, when I am like the skylark dissolved in the sky yet +filling heaven and earth with song, then I am perfect, consummated in +the Infinite. When I am all that is not-me, then I have perfect liberty, +I know no limitation. Only I must eliminate the Self. + +It was this religious belief which expressed itself in science. Science +was the analysis of the outer self, the elementary substance of the +self, the outer world. And the machine is the great reconstructed +selfless power. Hence the active worship to which we were given at the +end of the last century, the worship of mechanized force. + +Still we continue to worship that which is not-me, the Selfless world, +though we would fain bring in the Self to help us. We are shouting the +Shakespearean advice to warriors: 'Then simulate the action of the +tiger.' We are trying to become again the tiger, the supreme, imperial, +warlike Self. At the same time our ideal is the selfless world +of equity. + +We continue to give service to the Selfless God, we worship the great +selfless oneness in the spirit, oneness in service of the great +humanity, that which is Not-Me. This selfless God is He who works for +all alike, without consideration. And His image is the machine which +dominates and cows us, we cower before it, we run to serve it. For it +works for all humanity alike. + +At the same time, we want to be warlike tigers. That is the horror: the +confusing of the two ends. We warlike tigers fit ourselves out with +machinery, and our blazing tiger wrath is emitted through a machine. It +is a horrible thing to see machines hauled about by tigers, at the mercy +of tigers, forced to express the tiger. It is a still more horrible +thing to see tigers caught up and entangled and torn in machinery. It is +horrible, a chaos beyond chaos, an unthinkable hell. + +The tiger is not wrong, the machine is not wrong, but we, liars, +lip-servers, duplicate fools, we are unforgivably wrong. We say: 'I will +be a tiger because I love mankind; out of love for other people, out of +selfless service to that which is not me, I will even become a tiger.' +Which is absurd. A tiger devours because it is consummated in devouring, +it achieves its absolute self in devouring. It does not devour because +its unselfish conscience bids it do so, for the sake of the other deer +and doves, or the other tigers. + +Having arrived at the one extreme of mechanical selflessness, we +immediately embrace the other extreme of the transcendent Self. But we +try to be both at once. We do not cease to be the one before we become +the other. We do not even play the roles in turn. We want to be the +tiger and the deer both in one. Which is just ghastly nothingness. We +try to say, 'The tiger is the lamb and the lamb is the tiger.' Which is +nil, nihil, nought. + +The padrone took me into a small room almost contained in the thickness +of the wall. There the Signora's dark eyes glared with surprise and +agitation, seeing me intrude. She is younger than the Signore, a mere +village tradesman's daughter, and, alas, childless. + +It was quite true, the door stood open. Madame put down the screw-driver +and drew herself erect. Her eyes were a flame of excitement. This +question of a door-spring that made the door fly open when it should +make it close roused a vivid spark in her soul. It was she who was +wrestling with the angel of mechanism. + +She was about forty years old, and flame-like and fierily sad. I think +she did not know she was sad. But her heart was eaten by some impotence +in her life. + +She subdued her flame of life to the little padrone. He was strange and +static, scarcely human, ageless, like a monkey. She supported him with +her flame, supported his static, ancient, beautiful form, kept it +intact. But she did not believe in him. + +Now, the Signora Gemma held her husband together whilst he undid the +screw that fixed the spring. If they had been alone, she would have done +it, pretending to be under his direction. But since I was there, he did +it himself; a grey, shaky, highly-bred little gentleman, standing on a +chair with a long screw-driver, whilst his wife stood behind him, her +hands half-raised to catch him if he should fall. Yet he was strangely +absolute, with a strange, intact force in his breeding. + +They had merely adjusted the strong spring to the shut door, and +stretched it slightly in fastening it to the door-jamb, so that it drew +together the moment the latch was released, and the door flew open. + +We soon made it right. There was a moment of anxiety, the screw was +fixed. And the door swung to. They were delighted. The Signora Gemma, +who roused in me an electric kind of melancholy, clasped her hands +together in ecstasy as the door swiftly shut itself. + +'_Ecco!_' she cried, in her vibrating, almost warlike woman's voice: +'_Ecco!_' + +Her eyes were aflame as they looked at the door. She ran forward to try +it herself. She opened the door expectantly, eagerly. Pouf!--it shut +with a bang. + +'_Ecco!_' she cried, her voice quivering like bronze, overwrought but +triumphant. + +I must try also. I opened the door. Pouf! It shut with a bang. We all +exclaimed with joy. + +Then the Signor di Paoli turned to me, with a gracious, bland, formal +grin. He turned his back slightly on the woman, and stood holding his +chin, his strange horse-mouth grinning almost pompously at me. It was an +affair of gentlemen. His wife disappeared as if dismissed. Then the +padrone broke into cordial motion. We must drink. + +He would show me the estate. I had already seen the house. We went out +by the glass doors on the left, into the domestic courtyard. + +It was lower than the gardens round it, and the sunshine came through +the trellised arches on to the flagstones, where the grass grew fine and +green in the cracks, and all was deserted and spacious and still. There +were one or two orange-tubs in the light. + +Then I heard a noise, and there in the corner, among all the pink +geraniums and the sunshine, the Signora Gemma sat laughing with a baby. +It was a fair, bonny thing of eighteen months. The Signora was +concentrated upon the child as he sat, stolid and handsome, in his +little white cap, perched on a bench picking at the pink geraniums. + +She laughed, bent forward her dark face out of the shadow, swift into a +glitter of sunshine near the sunny baby, laughing again excitedly, +making mother-noises. The child took no notice of her. She caught him +swiftly into the shadow, and they were obscured; her dark head was +against the baby's wool jacket, she was kissing his neck, avidly, under +the creeper leaves. The pink geraniums still frilled joyously in +the sunshine. + +I had forgotten the padrone. Suddenly I turned to him inquiringly. + +'The Signora's nephew,' he explained, briefly, curtly, in a small voice. +It was as if he were ashamed, or too deeply chagrined. + +The woman had seen us watching, so she came across the sunshine with the +child, laughing, talking to the baby, not coming out of her own world to +us, not acknowledging us, except formally. + +The Signor Pietro, queer old horse, began to laugh and neigh at the +child, with strange, rancorous envy. The child twisted its face to cry. +The Signora caught it away, dancing back a few yards from her +old husband. + +'I am a stranger,' I said to her across the distance. 'He is afraid of a +stranger.' + +'No, no,' she cried back, her eyes flaring up. 'It is the man. He always +cries at the men.' + +She advanced again, laughing and roused, with the child in her arms. Her +husband stood as if overcast, obliterated. She and I and the baby, in +the sunshine, laughed a moment. Then I heard the neighing, forced laugh +of the old man. He would not be left out. He seemed to force himself +forward. He was bitter, acrid with chagrin and obliteration, struggling +as if to assert his own existence. He was nullified. + +The woman also was uncomfortable. I could see she wanted to go away with +the child, to enjoy him alone, with palpitating, pained enjoyment. It +was her brother's boy. And the old padrone was as if nullified by her +ecstasy over the baby. He held his chin, gloomy, fretful, unimportant. + +He was annulled. I was startled when I realized it. It was as though his +reality were not attested till he had a child. It was as if his _raison +d'être_ had been to have a son. And he had no children. Therefore he had +no _raison d'être_. He was nothing, a shadow that vanishes into nothing. +And he was ashamed, consumed by his own nothingness. + +I was startled. This, then, is the secret of Italy's attraction for us, +this phallic worship. To the Italian the phallus is the symbol of +individual creative immortality, to each man his own Godhead. The child +is but the evidence of the Godhead. + +And this is why the Italian is attractive, supple, and beautiful, +because he worships the Godhead in the flesh. We envy him, we feel pale +and insignificant beside him. Yet at the same time we feel superior to +him, as if he were a child and we adult. + +Wherein are we superior? Only because we went beyond the phallus in the +search of the Godhead, the creative origin. And we found the physical +forces and the secrets of science. + +We have exalted Man far above the man who is in each one of us. Our aim +is a perfect humanity, a perfect and equable human consciousness, +selfless. And we obtain it in the subjection, reduction, analysis, and +destruction of the Self. So on we go, active in science and mechanics, +and social reform. + +But we have exhausted ourselves in the process. We have found great +treasures, and we are now impotent to use them. So we have said: 'What +good are these treasures, they are vulgar nothings.' We have said: 'Let +us go back from this adventuring, let us enjoy our own flesh, like the +Italian.' But our habit of life, our very constitution, prevents our +being quite like the Italian. The phallus will never serve us as a +Godhead, because we do not believe in it: no Northern race does. +Therefore, either we set ourselves to serve our children, calling them +'the future', or else we turn perverse and destructive, give ourselves +joy in the destruction of the flesh. + +The children are not the future. The living truth is the future. Time +and people do not make the future. Retrogression is not the future. +Fifty million children growing up purposeless, with no purpose save the +attainment of their own individual desires, these are not the future, +they are only a disintegration of the past. The future is in living, +growing truth, in advancing fulfilment. + +But it is no good. Whatever we do, it is within the greater will towards +self-reduction and a perfect society, analysis on the one hand, and +mechanical construction on the other. This will dominates us as a whole, +and until the whole breaks down, the will must persist. So that now, +continuing in the old, splendid will for a perfect selfless humanity, we +have become inhuman and unable to help ourselves, we are but attributes +of the great mechanized society we have created on our way to +perfection. And this great mechanized society, being selfless, is +pitiless. It works on mechanically and destroys us, it is our master +and our God. + +It is past the time to leave off, to cease entirely from what we are +doing, and from what we have been doing for hundreds of years. It is +past the time to cease seeking one Infinite, ignoring, striving to +eliminate the other. The Infinite is twofold, the Father and the Son, +the Dark and the Light, the Senses and the Mind, the Soul and the +Spirit, the self and the not-self, the Eagle and the Dove, the Tiger and +the Lamb. The consummation of man is twofold, in the Self and in +Selflessness. By great retrogression back to the source of darkness in +me, the Self, deep in the senses, I arrive at the Original, Creative +Infinite. By projection forth from myself, by the elimination of my +absolute sensual self, I arrive at the Ultimate Infinite, Oneness in the +Spirit. They are two Infinites, twofold approach to God. And man must +know both. + +But he must never confuse them. They are eternally separate. The lion +shall never lie down with the lamb. The lion eternally shall devour the +lamb, the lamb eternally shall be devoured. Man knows the great +consummation in the flesh, the sensual ecstasy, and that is eternal. +Also the spiritual ecstasy of unanimity, that is eternal. But the two +are separate and never to be confused. To neutralize the one with the +other is unthinkable, an abomination. Confusion is horror and +nothingness. + +The two Infinites, negative and positive, they are always related, but +they are never identical. They are always opposite, but there exists a +relation between them. This is the Holy Ghost of the Christian Trinity. +And it is this, the relation which is established between the two +Infinites, the two natures of God, which we have transgressed, +forgotten, sinned against. The Father is the Father, and the Son is the +Son. I may know the Son and deny the Father, or know the Father and deny +the Son. But that which I may never deny, and which I have denied, is +the Holy Ghost which relates the dual Infinites into One Whole, which +relates and keeps distinct the dual natures of God. To say that the two +are one, this is the inadmissible lie. The two are related, by the +intervention of the Third, into a Oneness. + +There are two ways, there is not only One. There are two opposite ways +to consummation. But that which relates them, like the base of the +triangle, this is the constant, the Absolute, this makes the Ultimate +Whole. And in the Holy Spirit I know the Two Ways, the Two Infinites, +the Two Consummations. And knowing the Two, I admit the Whole. But +excluding One, I exclude the Whole. And confusing the two, I make +nullity nihil. + +'_Mais_,' said the Signore, starting from his scene of ignominy, where +his wife played with another man's child, '_mais--voulez-vous vous +promener dans mes petites terres?_' + +It came out fluently, he was so much roused in self-defence and +self-assertion. + +We walked under the pergola of bony vine-stocks, secure in the sunshine +within the walls, only the long mountain, parallel with us, looking in. + +I said how I liked the big vine-garden, I asked when it ended. The pride +of the padrone came back with a click. He pointed me to the terrace, to +the great shut lemon-houses above. They were all his. But--he shrugged +his Italian shoulders--it was nothing, just a little garden, _vous +savez, monsieur_. I protested it was beautiful, that I loved it, and +that it seemed to me _very_ large indeed. He admitted that today, +perhaps, it was beautiful. + +'_Perchè--parce que--il fait un tempo--così--très bell'--très beau, +ecco!_' + +He alighted on the word _beau_ hurriedly, like a bird coming to ground +with a little bounce. + +The terraces of the garden are held up to the sun, the sun falls full +upon them, they are like a vessel slanted up, to catch the superb, heavy +light. Within the walls we are remote, perfect, moving in heavy spring +sunshine, under the bony avenue of vines. The padrone makes little +exclamatory noises that mean nothing, and teaches me the names of +vegetables. The land is rich and black. + +Opposite us, looking down on our security, is the long, arched mountain +of snow. We climbed one flight of steps, and we could see the little +villages on the opposite side of the lake. We climbed again, and could +see the water rippling. + +We came to a great stone building that I had thought was a storehouse, +for open-air storage, because the walls are open halfway up, showing the +darkness inside and the corner pillar very white and square and distinct +in front of it. + +Entering carelessly into the dimness, I started, for at my feet was a +great floor of water, clear and green in its obscurity, going down +between the walls, a reservoir in the gloom. The Signore laughed at my +surprise. It was for irrigating the land, he said. It stank, slightly, +with a raw smell; otherwise, I said, what a wonderful bath it would +make. The old Signore gave his little neighing laugh at the idea. + +Then we climbed into a great loft of leaves, ruddy brown, stored in a +great bank under the roof, seeming to give off a little red heat, as +they gave off the lovely perfume of the hills. We passed through, and +stood at the foot of the lemon-house. The big, blind building rose high +in the sunshine before us. + +All summer long, upon the mountain slopes steep by the lake, stands the +rows of naked pillars rising out of the green foliage like ruins of +temples: white, square pillars of masonry, standing forlorn in their +colonnades and squares, rising up the mountain-sides here and there, as +if they remained from some great race that had once worshipped here. And +still, in the winter, some are seen, standing away in lonely places +where the sun streams full, grey rows of pillars rising out of a broken +wall, tier above tier, naked to the sky, forsaken. + +They are the lemon plantations, and the pillars are to support the heavy +branches of the trees, but finally to act as scaffolding of the great +wooden houses that stand blind and ugly, covering the lemon trees in +the winter. + +In November, when cold winds came down and snow had fallen on the +mountains, from out of the storehouses the men were carrying timber, and +we heard the clang of falling planks. Then, as we walked along the +military road on the mountain-side, we saw below, on the top of the +lemon gardens, long, thin poles laid from pillar to pillar, and we heard +the two men talking and singing as they walked across perilously, +placing the poles. In their clumsy zoccoli they strode easily across, +though they had twenty or thirty feet to fall if they slipped. But the +mountain-side, rising steeply, seemed near, and above their heads the +rocks glowed high into the sky, so that the sense of elevation must have +been taken away. At any rate, they went easily from pillar-summit to +pillar-summit, with a great cave of space below. Then again was the +rattle and clang of planks being laid in order, ringing from the +mountain-side over the blue lake, till a platform of timber, old and +brown, projected from the mountain-side, a floor when seen from above, a +hanging roof when seen from below. And we, on the road above, saw the +men sitting easily on this flimsy hanging platform, hammering the +planks. And all day long the sound of hammering echoed among the rocks +and olive woods, and came, a faint, quick concussion, to the men on the +boats far out. When the roofs were on they put in the fronts, blocked in +between the white pillars withhold, dark wood, in roughly made panels. +And here and there, at irregular intervals, was a panel of glass, pane +overlapping pane in the long strip of narrow window. So that now these +enormous, unsightly buildings bulge out on the mountain-sides, rising in +two or three receding tiers, blind, dark, sordid-looking places. + +In the morning I often lie in bed and watch the sunrise. The lake lies +dim and milky, the mountains are dark blue at the back, while over them +the sky gushes and glistens with light. At a certain place on the +mountain ridge the light burns gold, seems to fuse a little groove on +the hill's rim. It fuses and fuses at this point, till of a sudden it +comes, the intense, molten, living light. The mountains melt suddenly, +the light steps down, there is a glitter, a spangle, a clutch of +spangles, a great unbearable sun-track flashing across the milky lake, +and the light falls on my face. Then, looking aside, I hear the little +slotting noise which tells me they are opening the lemon gardens, a long +panel here and there, a long slot of darkness at irregular intervals +between the brown wood and the glass stripes. + +'_Voulez-vous_'--the Signore bows me in with outstretched +hand--'_voulez-vous entrer, monsieur?_' + +I went into the lemon-house, where the poor threes seem to mope in the +darkness. It is an immense, dark, cold place. Tall lemon trees, heavy +with half-visible fruit, crowd together, and rise in the gloom. They +look like ghosts in the darkness of the underworld, stately, and as if +in life, but only grand shadows of themselves. And lurking here and +there, I see one of the pillars, But he, too, seems a shadow, not one of +the dazzling white fellows I knew. Here we are trees, men, pillars, the +dark earth, the sad black paths, shut in in this enormous box. It is +true, there are long strips of window and slots of space, so that the +front is striped, and an occasional beam of light fingers the leaves of +an enclosed tree and the sickly round lemons. But it is nevertheless +very gloomy. + +'But it is much colder in here than outside,' I said. + +'Yes,' replied the Signore, 'now. But at night--I _think_--' + +I almost wished it were night to try. I wanted to imagine the trees +cosy. They seemed now in the underworld. Between the lemon trees, beside +the path, were little orange trees, and dozens of oranges hanging like +hot coals in the twilight. When I warm my hands at them the Signore +breaks me off one twig after another, till I have a bunch of burning +oranges among dark leaves, a heavy bouquet. Looking down the Hades of +the lemon-house, the many ruddy-clustered oranges beside the path remind +me of the lights of a village along the lake at night, while the pale +lemons above are the stars. There is a subtle, exquisite scent of lemon +flowers. Then I notice a citron. He hangs heavy and bloated upon so +small a tree, that he seems a dark green enormity. There is a great host +of lemons overhead, half-visible, a swarm of ruddy oranges by the paths, +and here and there a fat citron. It is almost like being under the sea. + +At the corners of the path were round little patches of ash and stumps +of charred wood, where fires had been kindled inside the house on cold +nights. For during the second and third weeks in January the snow came +down so low on the mountains that, after climbing for an hour, I found +myself in a snow lane, and saw olive orchards on lawns of snow. + +The padrone says that all lemons and sweet oranges are grafted on a +bitter-orange stock. The plants raised from seed, lemon and sweet +orange, fell prey to disease, so the cultivators found it safe only to +raise the native bitter orange, and then graft upon it. + +And the maestra--she is the schoolmistress, who wears black gloves while +she teaches us Italian--says that the lemon was brought by St Francis of +Assisi, who came to the Garda here and founded a church and a monastery. +Certainly the church of San Francesco is very old and dilapidated, and +its cloisters have some beautiful and original carvings of leaves and +fruit upon the pillars, which seem to connect San Francesco with the +lemon. I imagine him wandering here with a lemon in his pocket. Perhaps +he made lemonade in the hot summer. But Bacchus had been before him in +the drink trade. + +Looking at his lemons, the Signore sighed. I think he hates them. They +are leaving him in the lurch. They are sold retail at a halfpenny each +all the year round. 'But that is as dear, or dearer, than in England,' I +say. 'Ah, but,' says the maestra, 'that is because your lemons are +outdoor fruit from Sicily. _Però_--one of our lemons is as good as _two_ +from elsewhere.' + +It is true these lemons have an exquisite fragrance and perfume, but +whether their force as lemons is double that of an ordinary fruit is a +question. Oranges are sold at fourpence halfpenny the kilo--it comes +about five for twopence, small ones. The citrons are sold also by weight +in Salò for the making of that liqueur known as 'Cedro'. One citron +fetches sometimes a shilling or more, but then the demand is necessarily +small. So that it is evident, from these figures, the Lago di Garda +cannot afford to grow its lemons much longer. The gardens are already +many of them in ruins, and still more 'Da Vendere'. + +We went out of the shadow of the lemon-house on to the roof of the +section below us. When we came to the brink of the roof I sat down. The +padrone stood behind me, a shabby, shaky little figure on his roof in +the sky, a little figure of dilapidation, dilapidated as the +lemon-houses themselves. + +We were always level with the mountain-snow opposite. A film of pure +blue was on the hills to the right and the left. There had been a wind, +but it was still now. The water breathed an iridescent dust on the far +shore, where the villages were groups of specks. + +On the low level of the world, on the lake, an orange-sailed boat leaned +slim to the dark-blue water, which had flecks of foam. A woman went +down-hill quickly, with two goats and a sheep. Among the olives a man +was whistling. + +'_Voyez_,' said the padrone, with distant, perfect melancholy. 'There +was once a lemon garden also there--you see the short pillars, cut off +to make a pergola for the vine. Once there were twice as many lemons as +now. Now we must have vine instead. From that piece of land I had two +hundred lire a year, in lemons. From the vine I have only eighty.' + +'But wine is a valuable crop,' I said. + +'Ah--_così-così_! For a man who grows much. For me--_poco, poco--peu_.' + +Suddenly his face broke into a smile of profound melancholy, almost a +grin, like a gargoyle. It was the real Italian melancholy, very +deep, static. + +'_Vous voyez, monsieur_--the lemon, it is all the year, all the year. +But the vine--one crop--?' + +He lifts his shoulders and spreads his hands with that gesture of +finality and fatality, while his face takes the blank, ageless look of +misery, like a monkey's. There is no hope. There is the present. Either +that is enough, the present, or there is nothing. + +I sat and looked at the lake. It was beautiful as paradise, as the first +creation. On the shores were the ruined lemon-pillars standing out in +melancholy, the clumsy, enclosed lemon-houses seemed ramshackle, bulging +among vine stocks and olive trees. The villages, too, clustered upon +their churches, seemed to belong to the past. They seemed to be +lingering in bygone centuries. + +'But it is very beautiful,' I protested. 'In England--' + +'Ah, in England,' exclaimed the padrone, the same ageless, monkey-like +grin of fatality, tempered by cunning, coming on his face, 'in England +you have the wealth--_les richesses_--you have the mineral coal and the +machines, _vous savez_. Here we have the sun--' + +He lifted his withered hand to the sky, to the wonderful source of that +blue day, and he smiled, in histrionic triumph. But his triumph was only +histrionic. The machines were more to his soul than the sun. He did not +know these mechanisms, their great, human-contrived, inhuman power, and +he wanted to know them. As for the sun, that is common property, and no +man is distinguished by it. He wanted machines, machine production, +money, and human power. He wanted to know the joy of man who has got the +earth in his grip, bound it up with railways, burrowed it with iron +fingers, subdued it. He wanted this last triumph of the ego, this last +reduction. He wanted to go where the English have gone, beyond the Self, +into the great inhuman Not Self, to create the great unliving creators, +the machines, out of the active forces of nature that existed +before flesh. + +But he is too old. It remains for the young Italian to embrace his +mistress, the machine. + +I sat on the roof of the lemon-house, with the lake below and the snowy +mountain opposite, and looked at the ruins on the old, olive-fuming +shores, at all the peace of the ancient world still covered in sunshine, +and the past seemed to me so lovely that one must look towards it, +backwards, only backwards, where there is peace and beauty and no more +dissonance. + +I thought of England, the great mass of London, and the black, fuming, +laborious Midlands and north-country. It seemed horrible. And yet, it +was better than the padrone, this old, monkey-like cunning of fatality. +It is better to go forward into error than to stay fixed inextricably +in the past. + +Yet what should become of the world? There was London and the industrial +counties spreading like a blackness over all the world, horrible, in the +end destructive. And the Garda was so lovely under the sky of sunshine, +it was intolerable. For away, beyond, beyond all the snowy Alps, with +the iridescence of eternal ice above them, was this England, black and +foul and dry, with her soul worn down, almost worn away. And England was +conquering the world with her machines and her horrible destruction of +natural life. She was conquering the whole world. + +And yet, was she not herself finished in this work? She had had enough. +She had conquered the natural life to the end: she was replete with the +conquest of the outer world, satisfied with the destruction of the Self. +She would cease, she would turn round; or else expire. + +If she still lived, she would begin to build her knowledge into a great +structure of truth. There it lay, vast masses of rough-hewn knowledge, +vast masses of machines and appliances, vast masses of ideas and +methods, and nothing done with it, only teeming swarms of disintegrated +human beings seething and perishing rapidly away amongst it, till it +seems as if a world will be left covered with huge ruins, and scored by +strange devices of industry, and quite dead, the people disappeared, +swallowed up in the last efforts towards a perfect, selfless society. + + + +_3_ + +THE THEATRE + + +During carnival a company is playing in the theatre. On Christmas Day +the padrone came in with the key of his box, and would we care to see +the drama? The theatre was small, a mere nothing, in fact; a mere affair +of peasants, you understand; and the Signor Di Paoli spread his hands +and put his head on one side, parrot-wise; but we might find a little +diversion--_un peu de divertiment_. With this he handed me the key. + +I made suitable acknowledgements, and was really impressed. To be handed +the key of a box at the theatre, so simply and pleasantly, in the large +sitting-room looking over the grey lake of Christmas Day; it seemed to +me a very graceful event. The key had a chain and a little shield of +bronze, on which was beaten out a large figure 8. + +So the next day we went to see _I Spettri_, expecting some good, crude +melodrama. The theatre is an old church. Since that triumph of the deaf +and dumb, the cinematograph, has come to give us the nervous excitement +of speed--grimace agitation, and speed, as of flying atoms, chaos--many +an old church in Italy has taken a new lease of life. + +This cast-off church made a good theatre. I realized how cleverly it had +been constructed for the dramatic presentation of religious ceremonies. +The east end is round, the walls are windowless, sound is well +distributed. Now everything is theatrical, except the stone floor and +two pillars at the back of the auditorium, and the slightly +ecclesiastical seats below. + +There are two tiers of little boxes in the theatre, some forty in all, +with fringe and red velvet, and lined with dark red paper, quite like +real boxes in a real theatre. And the padrone's is one of the best. It +just holds three people. + +We paid our threepence entrance fee in the stone hall and went upstairs. +I opened the door of Number 8, and we were shut in our little cabin, +looking down on the world. Then I found the barber, Luigi, bowing +profusely in a box opposite. It was necessary to make bows all round: +ah, the chemist, on the upper tier, near the barber; how-do-you-do to +the padrona of the hotel, who is our good friend, and who sits, wearing +a little beaver shoulder-cape, a few boxes off; very cold salutation to +the stout village magistrate with the long brown beard, who leans +forward in the box facing the stage, while a grouping of faces look out +from behind him; a warm smile to the family of the Signora Gemma, across +next to the stage. Then we are settled. + +I cannot tell why I hate the village magistrate. He looks like a family +portrait by a Flemish artist, he himself weighing down the front of the +picture with his portliness and his long brown beard, whilst the faces +of his family are arranged in two groups for the background. I think he +is angry at our intrusion. He is very republican and self-important. But +we eclipse him easily, with the aid of a large black velvet hat, and +black furs, and our Sunday clothes. + +Downstairs the villagers are crowding, drifting like a heavy current. +The women are seated, by church instinct, all together on the left, with +perhaps an odd man at the end of a row, beside his wife. On the right, +sprawling in the benches, are several groups of bersaglieri, in grey +uniforms and slanting cock's-feather hats; then peasants, fishermen, and +an odd couple or so of brazen girls taking their places on the +men's side. + +At the back, lounging against the pillars or standing very dark and +sombre, are the more reckless spirits of the village. Their black felt +hats are pulled down, their cloaks are thrown over their mouths, they +stand very dark and isolated in their moments of stillness, they shout +and wave to each other when anything occurs. + +The men are clean, their clothes are all clean washed. The rags of the +poorest porter are always well washed. But it is Sunday tomorrow, and +they are shaved only on a Sunday. So that they have a week's black +growth on their chins. But they have dark, soft eyes, unconscious and +vulnerable. They move and balance with loose, heedless motion upon their +clattering zoccoli, they lounge with wonderful ease against the wall at +the back, or against the two pillars, unconscious of the patches on +their clothes or of their bare throats, that are knotted perhaps with a +scarlet rag. Loose and abandoned, they lounge and talk, or they watch +with wistful absorption the play that is going on. + +They are strangely isolated in their own atmosphere, and as if revealed. +It is as if their vulnerable being was exposed and they have not the wit +to cover it. There is a pathos of physical sensibility and mental +inadequacy. Their mind is not sufficiently alert to run with their +quick, warm senses. + +The men keep together, as if to support each other, the women also are +together; in a hard, strong herd. It is as if the power, the hardness, +the triumph, even in this Italian village, were with the women in their +relentless, vindictive unity. + +That which drives men and women together, the indomitable necessity, is +like a bondage upon the people. They submit as under compulsion, under +constraint. They come together mostly in anger and in violence of +destructive passion. There is no comradeship between men and women, none +whatsoever, but rather a condition of battle, reserve, hostility. + +On Sundays the uncomfortable, excited, unwilling youth walks for an hour +with his sweetheart, at a little distance from her, on the public +highway in the afternoon. This is a concession to the necessity for +marriage. There is no real courting, no happiness of being together, +only the roused excitement which is based on a fundamental hostility. +There is very little flirting, and what there is is of the subtle, cruel +kind, like a sex duel. On the whole, the men and women avoid each other, +almost shun each other. Husband and wife are brought together in a +child, which they both worship. But in each of them there is only the +great reverence for the infant, and the reverence for fatherhood or +motherhood, as the case may be; there is no spiritual love. + +In marriage, husband and wife wage the subtle, satisfying war of sex +upon each other. It gives a profound satisfaction, a profound intimacy. +But it destroys all joy, all unanimity in action. + +On Sunday afternoons the uncomfortable youth walks by the side of his +maiden for an hour in the public highway. Then he escapes; as from a +bondage he goes back to his men companions. On Sunday afternoons and +evenings the married woman, accompanied by a friend or by a child--she +dare not go alone, afraid of the strange, terrible sex-war between her +and the drunken man--is seen leading home the wine-drunken, liberated +husband. Sometimes she is beaten when she gets home. It is part of the +process. But there is no synthetic love between men and women, there is +only passion, and passion is fundamental hatred, the act of love is +a fight. + +The child, the outcome, is divine. Here the union, the oneness, is +manifest. Though spirit strove with spirit, in mortal conflict, during +the sex-passion, yet the flesh united with flesh in oneness. The phallus +is still divine. But the spirit, the mind of man, this has +become nothing. + +So the women triumph. They sit down below in the theatre, their +perfectly dressed hair gleaming, their backs very straight, their heads +carried tensely. They are not very noticeable. They seem held in +reserve. They are just as tense and stiff as the men are slack and +abandoned. Some strange will holds the women taut. They seem like +weapons, dangerous. There is nothing charming nor winning about them; at +the best a full, prolific maternity, at the worst a yellow poisonous +bitterness of the flesh that is like a narcotic. But they are too strong +for the men. The male spirit, which would subdue the immediate flesh to +some conscious or social purpose, is overthrown. The woman in her +maternity is the law-giver, the supreme authority. The authority of the +man, in work, in public affairs, is something trivial in comparison. The +pathetic ignominy of the village male is complete on Sunday afternoon, +on his great day of liberation, when he is accompanied home, drunk but +sinister, by the erect, unswerving, slightly cowed woman. His drunken +terrorizing is only pitiable, she is so obviously the more +constant power. + +And this is why the men must go away to America. It is not the money. It +is the profound desire to rehabilitate themselves, to recover some +dignity as men, as producers, as workers, as creators from the spirit, +not only from the flesh. It is a profound desire to get away from women +altogether, the terrible subjugation to sex, the phallic worship. + +The company of actors in the little theatre was from a small town away +on the plain, beyond Brescia. The curtain rose, everybody was still, +with that profound, naïve attention which children give. And after a few +minutes I realized that _I Spettri_ was Ibsen's _Ghosts_. The peasants +and fishermen of the Garda, even the rows of ungovernable children, sat +absorbed in watching as the Norwegian drama unfolded itself. + +The actors are peasants. The leader is the son of a peasant proprietor. +He is qualified as a chemist, but is unsettled, vagrant, prefers +play-acting. The Signer Pietro di Paoli shrugs his shoulders and +apologizes for their vulgar accent. It is all the same to me. I am +trying to get myself to rights with the play, which I have just lately +seen in Munich, perfectly produced and detestable. + +It was such a change from the hard, ethical, slightly mechanized +characters in the German play, which was as perfect an interpretation as +I can imagine, to the rather pathetic notion of the Italian peasants, +that I had to wait to adjust myself. + +The mother was a pleasant, comfortable woman harassed by something, she +did not quite know what. The pastor was a ginger-haired caricature +imitated from the northern stage, quite a lay figure. The peasants never +laughed, they watched solemnly and absorbedly like children. The servant +was just a slim, pert, forward hussy, much too flagrant. And then the +son, the actor-manager: he was a dark, ruddy man, broad and thick-set, +evidently of peasant origin, but with some education now; he was the +important figure, the play was his. + +And he was strangely disturbing. Dark, ruddy, and powerful, he could not +be the blighted son of 'Ghosts', the hectic, unsound, northern issue of +a diseased father. His flashy Italian passion for his half-sister was +real enough to make one uncomfortable: something he wanted and would +have in spite of his own soul, something which fundamentally he did +not want. + +It was this contradiction within the man that made the play so +interesting. A robust, vigorous man of thirty-eight, flaunting and +florid as a rather successful Italian can be, there was yet a secret +sickness which oppressed him. But it was no taint in the blood, it was +rather a kind of debility in the soul. That which he wanted and would +have, the sensual excitement, in his soul he did not want it, no, not at +all. And yet he must act from his physical desires, his physical will. + +His true being, his real self, was impotent. In his soul he was +dependent, forlorn. He was childish and dependent on the mother. To hear +him say, '_Grazia, mamma!_' would have tormented the mother-soul in any +woman living. Such a child crying in the night! And for what? + +For he was hot-blooded, healthy, almost in his prime, and free as a man +can be in his circumstances. He had his own way, he admitted no +thwarting. He governed his circumstances pretty much, coming to our +village with his little company, playing the plays he chose himself. And +yet, that which he would have he did not vitally want, it was only a +sort of inflamed obstinacy that made him so insistent, in the masculine +way. He was not going to be governed by women, he was not going to be +dictated to in the least by any one. And this because he was beaten by +his own flesh. + +His real man's soul, the soul that goes forth and builds up a new world +out of the void, was ineffectual. It could only revert to the senses. +His divinity was the phallic divinity. The other male divinity, which is +the spirit that fulfils in the world the new germ of an idea, this was +denied and obscured in him, unused. And it was this spirit which cried +out helplessly in him through the insistent, inflammable flesh. Even +this play-acting was a form of physical gratification for him, it had in +it neither real mind nor spirit. + +It was so different from Ibsen, and so much more moving. Ibsen is +exciting, nervously sensational. But this was really moving, a real +crying in the night. One loved the Italian nation, and wanted to help it +with all one's soul. But when one sees the perfect Ibsen, how one hates +the Norwegian and Swedish nations! They are detestable. + +They seem to be fingering with the mind the secret places and sources of +the blood, impertinent, irreverent, nasty. There is a certain +intolerable nastiness about the real Ibsen: the same thing is in +Strindberg and in most of the Norwegian and Swedish writings. It is with +them a sort of phallic worship also, but now the worship is mental and +perverted: the phallus is the real fetish, but it is the source of +uncleanliness and corruption and death, it is the Moloch, worshipped in +obscenity. + +Which is unbearable. The phallus is a symbol of creative divinity. But +it represents only part of creative divinity. The Italian has made it +represent the whole. Which is now his misery, for he has to destroy his +symbol in himself. + +Which is why the Italian men have the enthusiasm for war, unashamed. +Partly it is the true phallic worship, for the phallic principle is to +absorb and dominate all life. But also it is a desire to expose +themselves to death, to know death, that death may destroy in them this +too strong dominion of the blood, may once more liberate the spirit of +outgoing, of uniting, of making order out of chaos, in the outer world, +as the flesh makes a new order from chaos in begetting a new life, set +them free to know and serve a greater idea. + +The peasants below sat and listened intently, like children who hear and +do not understand, yet who are spellbound. The children themselves sit +spellbound on the benches till the play is over. They do not fidget or +lose interest. They watch with wide, absorbed eyes at the mystery, held +in thrall by the sound of emotion. + +But the villagers do not really care for Ibsen. They let it go. On the +feast of Epiphany, as a special treat, was given a poetic drama by +D'Annunzio, _La Fiaccola sotto il Moggio_--_The Light under the Bushel_. + +It is a foolish romantic play of no real significance. There are several +murders and a good deal of artificial horror. But it is all a very nice +and romantic piece of make-believe, like a charade. + +So the audience loved it. After the performance of _Ghosts_ I saw the +barber, and he had the curious grey clayey look of an Italian who is +cold and depressed. The sterile cold inertia, which the so-called +passionate nations know so well, had settled on him, and he went +obliterating himself in the street, as if he were cold, dead. + +But after the D'Annunzio play he was like a man who has drunk sweet wine +and is warm. + +'_Ah, bellissimo, bellissimo_!' he said, in tones of intoxicated +reverence, when he saw me. + +'Better than _I Spettri_?' I said. + +He half-raised his hands, as if to imply the fatuity of the question. + +'Ah, but--' he said, 'it was D'Annunzio. The other....' + +'That was Ibsen--a great Norwegian,' I said, 'famous all over the +world.' + +'But you know--D'Annunzio is a poet--oh, beautiful, beautiful!' There +was no going beyond this '_bello--bellissimo_'. + +It was the language which did it. It was the Italian passion for +rhetoric, for the speech which appeals to the senses and makes no demand +on the mind. When an Englishman listens to a speech he wants at least to +imagine that he understands thoroughly and impersonally what is meant. +But an Italian only cares about the emotion. It is the movement, the +physical effect of the language upon the blood which gives him supreme +satisfaction. His mind is scarcely engaged at all. He is like a child, +hearing and feeling without understanding. It is the sensuous +gratification he asks for. Which is why D'Annunzio is a god in Italy. He +can control the current of the blood with his words, and although much +of what he says is bosh, yet his hearer is satisfied, fulfilled. + +Carnival ends on the 5th of February, so each Thursday there is a Serata +d' Onore of one of the actors. The first, and the only one for which +prices were raised--to a fourpence entrance fee instead of +threepence--was for the leading lady. The play was _The Wife of the +Doctor_, a modern piece, sufficiently uninteresting; the farce that +followed made me laugh. + +Since it was her Evening of Honour, Adelaida was the person to see. She +is very popular, though she is no longer young. In fact, she is the +mother of the young pert person of _Ghosts_. + +Nevertheless, Adelaida, stout and blonde and soft and pathetic, is the +real heroine of the theatre, the prima. She is very good at sobbing; and +afterwards the men exclaim involuntarily, out of their strong emotion, +'_bella, bella_!' The women say nothing. They sit stiffly and +dangerously as ever. But, no doubt, they quite agree this is the true +picture of ill-used, tear-stained woman, the bearer of many wrongs. +Therefore they take unto themselves the homage of the men's '_bella, +bella_!' that follows the sobs: it is due recognition of their hard +wrongs: 'the woman pays.' Nevertheless, they despise in their souls the +plump, soft Adelaida. + +Dear Adelaida, she is irreproachable. In every age, in every clime, she +is dear, at any rate to the masculine soul, this soft, tear-blenched, +blonde, ill-used thing. She must be ill-used and unfortunate. Dear +Gretchen, dear Desdemona, dear Iphigenia, dear Dame aux Camélias, dear +Lucy of Lammermoor, dear Mary Magdalene, dear, pathetic, unfortunate +soul, in all ages and lands, how we love you. In the theatre she +blossoms forth, she is the lily of the stage. Young and inexperienced as +I am, I have broken my heart over her several times. I could write a +sonnet-sequence to her, yes, the fair, pale, tear-stained thing, +white-robed, with her hair down her back; I could call her by a hundred +names, in a hundred languages, Melisande, Elizabeth, Juliet, Butterfly, +Phèdre, Minnehaha, etc. Each new time I hear her voice, with its faint +clang of tears, my heart grows big and hot, and my bones melt. I detest +her, but it is no good. My heart begins to swell like a bud under the +plangent rain. + +The last time I saw her was here, on the Garda, at Salò. She was the +chalked, thin-armed daughter of Rigoletto. I detested her, her voice had +a chalky squeak in it. And yet, by the end, my heart was overripe in my +breast, ready to burst with loving affection. I was ready to walk on to +the stage, to wipe out the odious, miscreant lover, and to offer her all +myself, saying, 'I can see it is real _love_ you want, and you shall +have it: _I_ will give it to you.' + +Of course I know the secret of the Gretchen magic; it is all in the +'Save me, Mr Hercules!' phrase. Her shyness, her timidity, her +trustfulness, her tears foster my own strength and grandeur. I am the +positive half of the universe. But so I am, if it comes to that, just as +positive as the other half. + +Adelaida is plump, and her voice has just that moist, plangent strength +which gives one a real voluptuous thrill. The moment she comes on the +stage and looks round--a bit scared--she is _she_, Electra, Isolde, +Sieglinde, Marguèrite. She wears a dress of black voile, like the lady +who weeps at the trial in the police-court. This is her modern uniform. +Her antique garment is of trailing white, with a blonde pigtail and a +flower. Realistically, it is black voile and a handkerchief. + +Adelaida always has a handkerchief. And still I cannot resist it. I say, +'There's the hanky!' Nevertheless, in two minutes it has worked its way +with me. She squeezes it in her poor, plump hand as the tears begin to +rise; Fate, or man, is inexorable, so cruel. There is a sob, a cry; she +presses the fist and the hanky to her eyes, one eye, then the other. She +weeps real tears, tears shaken from the depths of her soft, vulnerable, +victimized female self. I cannot stand it. There I sit in the padrone's +little red box and stifle my emotion, whilst I repeat in my heart: 'What +a shame, child, what a shame!' She is twice my age, but what is age in +such circumstances? 'Your poor little hanky, it's sopping. There, then, +don't cry. It'll be all right. _I'll_ see you're all right. _All_ men +are not beasts, you know.' So I cover her protectively in my arms, and +soon I shall be kissing her, for comfort, in the heat and prowess of my +compassion, kissing her soft, plump cheek and neck closely, bringing my +comfort nearer and nearer. + +It is a pleasant and exciting role for me to play. Robert Burns did the +part to perfection: + + O wert thou in the cauld blast + On yonder lea, on yonder lea. + +How many times does one recite that to all the Ophelias and Gretchens in +the world: + + Thy bield should be my bosom. + +How one admires one's bosom in that capacity! Looking down at one's +shirt-front, one is filled with strength and pride. + +Why are the women so bad at playing this part in real life, this +Ophelia-Gretchen role? Why are they so unwilling to go mad and die for +our sakes? They do it regularly on the stage. + +But perhaps, after all, we write the plays. What a villain I am, what a +black-browed, passionate, ruthless, masculine villain I am to the +leading lady on the stage; and, on the other hand, dear heart, what a +hero, what a fount of chivalrous generosity and faith! I am _anything_ +but a dull and law-abiding citizen. I am a Galahad, full of purity and +spirituality, I am the Lancelot of valour and lust; I fold my hands, or +I cock my hat in one side, as the case may be: I am _myself_. Only, I am +not a respectable citizen, not that, in this hour of my glory and +my escape. + +Dear Heaven, how Adelaida wept, her voice plashing like violin music, at +my ruthless, masculine cruelty. Dear heart, how she sighed to rest on my +sheltering bosom! And how I enjoyed my dual nature! How I +admired myself! + +Adelaida chose _La Moglie del Dottore_ for her Evening of Honour. During +the following week came a little storm of coloured bills: 'Great Evening +of Honour of Enrico Persevalli.' + +This is the leader, the actor-manager. What should he choose for his +great occasion, this broad, thick-set, ruddy descendant of the peasant +proprietors of the plain? No one knew. The title of the play was +not revealed. + +So we were staying at home, it was cold and wet. But the maestra came +inflammably on that Thursday evening, and were we not going to the +theatre, to see _Amleto_? + +Poor maestra, she is yellow and bitter-skinned, near fifty, but her dark +eyes are still corrosively inflammable. She was engaged to a lieutenant +in the cavalry, who got drowned when she was twenty-one. Since then she +has hung on the tree unripe, growing yellow and bitter-skinned, never +developing. + +'_Amleto!_' I say. '_Non lo conosco._' + +A certain fear comes into her eyes. She is schoolmistress, and has a +mortal dread of being wrong. + +'_Si_,' she cries, wavering, appealing, '_una dramma inglese_.' + +'English!' I repeated. + +'Yes, an English drama.' + +'How do you write it?' + +Anxiously, she gets a pencil from her reticule, and, with black-gloved +scrupulousness, writes _Amleto_. + +'_Hamlet_!' I exclaim wonderingly. + +'_Ecco, Amleto!_' cries the maestra, her eyes aflame with thankful +justification. + +Then I knew that Signore Enrico Persevalli was looking to me for an +audience. His Evening of Honour would be a bitter occasion to him if the +English were not there to see his performance. + +I hurried to get ready, I ran through the rain. I knew he would take it +badly that it rained on his Evening of Honour. He counted himself a man +who had fate against him. + +'_Sono un disgraziato, io._' + +I was late. The First Act was nearly over. The play was not yet alive, +neither in the bosoms of the actors nor in the audience. I closed the +door of the box softly, and came forward. The rolling Italian eyes of +Hamlet glanced up at me. There came a new impulse over the Court +of Denmark. + +Enrico looked a sad fool in his melancholy black. The doublet sat close, +making him stout and vulgar, the knee-breeches seemed to exaggerate the +commonness of his thick, rather short, strutting legs. And he carried a +long black rag, as a cloak, for histrionic purposes. And he had on his +face a portentous grimace of melancholy and philosophic importance. His +was the caricature of Hamlet's melancholy self-absorption. + +I stooped to arrange my footstool and compose my countenance. I was +trying not to grin. For the first time, attired in philosophic +melancholy of black silk, Enrico looked a boor and a fool. His +close-cropped, rather animal head was common above the effeminate +doublet, his sturdy, ordinary figure looked absurd in a +melancholic droop. + +All the actors alike were out of their element. Their Majesties of +Denmark were touching. The Queen, burly little peasant woman, was ill at +ease in her pink satin. Enrico had had no mercy. He knew she loved to be +the scolding servant or housekeeper, with her head tied up in a +handkerchief, shrill and vulgar. Yet here she was pranked out in an +expanse of satin, la Regina. Regina, indeed! + +She obediently did her best to be important. Indeed, she rather fancied +herself; she looked sideways at the audience, self-consciously, quite +ready to be accepted as an imposing and noble person, if they would +esteem her such. Her voice sounded hoarse and common, but whether it was +the pink satin in contrast, or a cold, I do not know. She was almost +childishly afraid to move. Before she began a speech she looked down and +kicked her skirt viciously, so that she was sure it was under control. +Then she let go. She was a burly, downright little body of sixty, one +rather expected her to box Hamlet on the ears. + +Only she liked being a queen when she sat on the throne. There she +perched with great satisfaction, her train splendidly displayed down the +steps. She was as proud as a child, and she looked like Queen Victoria +of the Jubilee period. + +The King, her noble consort, also had new honours thrust upon him, as +well as new garments. His body was real enough but it had nothing at all +to do with his clothes. They established a separate identity by +themselves. But wherever he went, they went with him, to the confusion +of everybody. + +He was a thin, rather frail-looking peasant, pathetic, and very gentle. +There was something pure and fine about him, he was so exceedingly +gentle and by natural breeding courteous. But he did not feel kingly, he +acted the part with beautiful, simple resignation. + +Enrico Persevalli had overshot himself in every direction, but worst of +all in his own. He had become a hulking fellow, crawling about with his +head ducked between his shoulders, pecking and poking, creeping about +after other people, sniffing at them, setting traps for them, absorbed +by his own self-important self-consciousness. His legs, in their black +knee-breeches, had a crawling, slinking look; he always carried the +black rag of a cloak, something for him to twist about as he twisted in +his own soul, overwhelmed by a sort of inverted perversity. + +I had always felt an aversion from Hamlet: a creeping, unclean thing he +seems, on the stage, whether he is Forbes Robertson or anybody else. His +nasty poking and sniffing at his mother, his setting traps for the King, +his conceited perversion with Ophelia make him always intolerable. The +character is repulsive in its conception, based on self-dislike and a +spirit of disintegration. + +There is, I think, this strain of cold dislike, or self-dislike, through +much of the Renaissance art, and through all the later Shakespeare. In +Shakespeare it is a kind of corruption in the flesh and a conscious +revolt from this. A sense of corruption in the flesh makes Hamlet +frenzied, for he will never admit that it is his own flesh. Leonardo da +Vinci is the same, but Leonardo loves the corruption maliciously. +Michelangelo rejects any feeling of corruption, he stands by the flesh, +the flesh only. It is the corresponding reaction, but in the opposite +direction. But that is all four hundred years ago. Enrico Persevalli has +just reached the position. He _is_ Hamlet, and evidently he has great +satisfaction in the part. He is the modern Italian, suspicious, +isolated, self-nauseated, labouring in a sense of physical corruption. +But he will not admit it is in himself. He creeps about in self-conceit, +transforming his own self-loathing. With what satisfaction did he reveal +corruption--corruption in his neighbours he gloated in--letting his +mother know he had discovered her incest, her uncleanness, gloated in +torturing the incestuous King. Of all the unclean ones, Hamlet was the +uncleanest. But he accused only the others. + +Except in the 'great' speeches, and there Enrico was betrayed, Hamlet +suffered the extremity of physical self-loathing, loathing of his own +flesh. The play is the statement of the most significant philosophic +position of the Renaissance. Hamlet is far more even than Orestes, his +prototype, a mental creature, anti-physical, anti-sensual. The whole +drama is the tragedy of the convulsed reaction of the mind from the +flesh, of the spirit from the self, the reaction from the great +aristocratic to the great democratic principle. + +An ordinary instinctive man, in Hamlet's position, would either have set +about murdering his uncle, by reflex action, or else would have gone +right away. There would have been no need for Hamlet to murder his +mother. It would have been sufficient blood-vengeance if he had killed +his uncle. But that is the statement according to the aristocratic +principle. + +Orestes was in the same position, but the same position two thousand +years earlier, with two thousand years of experience wanting. So that +the question was not so intricate in him as in Hamlet, he was not nearly +so conscious. The whole Greek life was based on the idea of the +supremacy of the self, and the self was always male. Orestes was his +father's child, he would be the same whatever mother he had. The mother +was but the vehicle, the soil in which the paternal seed was planted. +When Clytemnestra murdered Agamemnon, it was as if a common individual +murdered God, to the Greek. + +But Agamemnon, King and Lord, was not infallible. He was fallible. He +had sacrificed Iphigenia for the sake of glory in war, for the +fulfilment of the superb idea of self, but on the other hand he had made +cruel dissension for the sake of the concubines captured in war. The +paternal flesh was fallible, ungodlike. It lusted after meaner pursuits +than glory, war, and slaying, it was not faithful to the highest idea of +the self. Orestes was driven mad by the furies of his mother, because of +the justice that they represented. Nevertheless he was in the end +exculpated. The third play of the trilogy is almost foolish, with its +prating gods. But it means that, according to the Greek conviction, +Orestes was right and Clytemnestra entirely wrong. But for all that, the +infallible King, the infallible male Self, is dead in Orestes, killed by +the furies of Clytemnestra. He gains his peace of mind after the +revulsion from his own physical fallibility, but he will never be an +unquestioned lord, as Agamemnon was. Orestes is left at peace, +neutralized. He is the beginning of non-aristocratic Christianity. + +Hamlet's father, the King, is, like Agamemnon, a warrior-king. But, +unlike Agamemnon, he is blameless with regard to Gertrude. Yet Gertrude, +like Clytemnestra, is the potential murderer of her husband, as Lady +Macbeth is murderess, as the daughters of Lear. The women murder the +supreme male, the ideal Self, the King and Father. + +This is the tragic position Shakespeare must dwell upon. The woman +rejects, repudiates the ideal Self which the male represents to her. The +supreme representative, King and Father, is murdered by the Wife and the +Daughters. + +What is the reason? Hamlet goes mad in a revulsion of rage and nausea. +Yet the women-murderers only represent some ultimate judgement in his +own soul. At the bottom of his own soul Hamlet has decided that the Self +in its supremacy, Father and King, must die. It is a suicidal decision +for his involuntary soul to have arrived at. Yet it is inevitable. The +great religious, philosophic tide, which has been swelling all through +the Middle Ages, had brought him there. + +The question, to be or not to be, which Hamlet puts himself, does not +mean, to live or not to live. It is not the simple human being who puts +himself the question, it is the supreme I, King and Father. To be or not +to be King, Father, in the Self supreme? And the decision is, not to be. + +It is the inevitable philosophic conclusion of all the Renaissance. The +deepest impulse in man, the religious impulse, is the desire to be +immortal, or infinite, consummated. And this impulse is satisfied in +fulfilment of an idea, a steady progression. In this progression man is +satisfied, he seems to have reached his goal, this infinity, this +immortality, this eternal being, with every step nearer which he takes. + +And so, according to his idea of fulfilment, man establishes the whole +order of life. If my fulfilment is the fulfilment and establishment of +the unknown divine Self which I am, then I shall proceed in the +realizing of the greatest idea of the self, the highest conception of +the I, my order of life will be kingly, imperial, aristocratic. The body +politic also will culminate in this divinity of the flesh, this body +imbued with glory, invested with divine power and might, the King, the +Emperor. In the body politic also I shall desire a king, an emperor, a +tyrant, glorious, mighty, in whom I see myself consummated and +fulfilled. This is inevitable! + +But during the Middle Ages, struggling within this pagan, original +transport, the transport of the Ego, was a small dissatisfaction, a +small contrary desire. Amid the pomp of kings and popes was the Child +Jesus and the Madonna. Jesus the King gradually dwindled down. There was +Jesus the Child, helpless, at the mercy of all the world. And there was +Jesus crucified. + +The old transport, the old fulfilment of the Ego, the Davidian ecstasy, +the assuming of all power and glory unto the self, the becoming infinite +through the absorption of all into the Ego, this gradually became +unsatisfactory. This was not the infinite, this was not immortality. +This was eternal death, this was damnation. + +The monk rose up with his opposite ecstasy, the Christian ecstasy. There +was a death to die: the flesh, the self, must die, so that the spirit +should rise again immortal, eternal, infinite. I am dead unto myself, +but I live in the Infinite. The finite Me is no more, only the Infinite, +the Eternal, is. + +At the Renaissance this great half-truth overcame the other great +half-truth. The Christian Infinite, reached by a process of abnegation, +a process of being absorbed, dissolved, diffused into the great +Not-Self, supplanted the old pagan Infinite, wherein the self like a +root threw out branches and radicles which embraced the whole universe, +became the Whole. + +There is only one Infinite, the world now cried, there is the great +Christian Infinite of renunciation and consummation in the not-self. The +other, that old pride, is damnation. The sin of sins is Pride, it is the +way to total damnation. Whereas the pagans based their life on pride. + +And according to this new Infinite, reached through renunciation and +dissolving into the Others, the Neighbour, man must build up his actual +form of life. With Savonarola and Martin Luther the living Church +actually transformed itself, for the Roman Church was still pagan. Henry +VIII simply said: 'There is no Church, there is only the State.' But +with Shakespeare the transformation had reached the State also. The +King, the Father, the representative of the Consummate Self, the maximum +of all life, the symbol of the consummate being, the becoming Supreme, +Godlike, Infinite, he must perish and pass away. This Infinite was not +infinite, this consummation was not consummated, all this was fallible, +false. It was rotten, corrupt. It must go. But Shakespeare was also the +thing itself. Hence his horror, his frenzy, his self-loathing. + +The King, the Emperor is killed in the soul of man, the old order of +life is over, the old tree is dead at the root. So said Shakespeare. It +was finally enacted in Cromwell. Charles I took up the old position of +kingship by divine right. Like Hamlet's father, he was blameless +otherwise. But as representative of the old form of life, which mankind +now hated with frenzy, he must be cut down, removed. It was a +symbolic act. + +The world, our world of Europe, had now really turned, swung round to a +new goal, a new idea, the Infinite reached through the omission of Self. +God is all that which is Not-Me. I am consummate when my Self, the +resistant solid, is reduced and diffused into all that which is Not-Me: +my neighbour, my enemy, the great Otherness. Then I am perfect. + +And from this belief the world began gradually to form a new State, a +new body politic, in which the Self should be removed. There should be +no king, no lords, no aristocrats. The world continued in its religious +belief, beyond the French Revolution, beyond the great movement of +Shelley and Godwin. There should be no Self. That which was supreme was +that which was Not-Me, the other. The governing factor in the State was +the idea of the good of others; that is, the Common Good. And the +_vital_ governing idea in the State has been this idea since Cromwell. + +Before Cromwell the idea was 'For the King', because every man saw +himself consummated in the King. After Cromwell the idea was 'For the +good of my neighbour', or 'For the good of the people', or 'For the good +of the whole'. This has been our ruling idea, by which we have more or +less lived. + +Now this has failed. Now we say that the Christian Infinite is not +infinite. We are tempted, like Nietzsche, to return back to the old +pagan Infinite, to say that is supreme. Or we are inclined, like the +English and the Pragmatist, to say, 'There is no Infinite, there is no +Absolute. The only Absolute is expediency, the only reality is sensation +and momentariness.' But we may say this, even act on it, _à la Sanine_. +But we never believe it. + +What is really Absolute is the mystic Reason which connects both +Infinites, the Holy Ghost that relates both natures of God. If we now +wish to make a living State, we must build it up to the idea of the Holy +Spirit, the supreme Relationship. We must say, the pagan Infinite is +infinite, the Christian Infinite is infinite: these are our two +Consummations, in both of these we are consummated. But that which +relates them alone is absolute. + +This Absolute of the Holy Ghost we may call Truth or Justice or Right. +These are partial names, indefinite and unsatisfactory unless there be +kept the knowledge of the two Infinites, pagan and Christian, which they +go between. When both are there, they are like a superb bridge, on which +one can stand and know the whole world, my world, the two halves of +the universe. + +'_Essere, o non essere, è qui il punto._' + +To be or not to be was the question for Hamlet to settle. It is no +longer our question, at least, not in the same sense. When it is a +question of death, the fashionable young suicide declares that his +self-destruction is the final proof of his own incontrovertible being. +And as for not-being in our public life, we have achieved it as much as +ever we want to, as much as is necessary. Whilst in private life there +is a swing back to paltry selfishness as a creed. And in the war there +is the position of neutralization and nothingness. It is a question of +knowing how _to be_, and how _not to be_, for we must fulfil both. +Enrico Persevalli was detestable with his '_Essere, o non essere_'. He +whispered it in a hoarse whisper as if it were some melodramatic murder +he was about to commit. As a matter of fact, he knows quite well, and +has known all his life, that his pagan Infinite, his transport of the +flesh and the supremacy of the male in fatherhood, is all +unsatisfactory. All his life he has really cringed before the northern +Infinite of the Not-Self, although he has continued in the Italian habit +of Self. But it is mere habit, sham. + +How can he know anything about being and not-being when he is only a +maudlin compromise between them, and all he wants is to be a maudlin +compromise? He is neither one nor the other. He has neither being nor +riot-being. He is as equivocal as the monks. He was detestable, mouthing +Hamlet's sincere words. He has still to let go, to know what not-being +is, before he can _be_. Till he has gone through the Christian negation +of himself, and has known the Christian consummation, he is a mere +amorphous heap. + +For the soliloquies of Hamlet are as deep as the soul of man can go, in +one direction, and as sincere as the Holy Spirit itself in their +essence. But thank heaven, the bog into which Hamlet struggled is almost +surpassed. + +It is a strange thing, if a man covers his face, and speaks with his +eyes blinded, how significant and poignant he becomes. The ghost of this +Hamlet was very simple. He was wrapped down to the knees in a great +white cloth, and over his face was an open-work woollen shawl. But the +naïve blind helplessness and verity of his voice was strangely +convincing. He seemed the most real thing in the play. From the knees +downward he was Laertes, because he had on Laertes' white trousers and +patent leather slippers. Yet he was strangely real, a voice out of +the dark. + +The Ghost is really one of the play's failures, it is so trivial and +unspiritual and vulgar. And it was spoilt for me from the first. When I +was a child I went to the twopenny travelling theatre to see _Hamlet_. +The Ghost had on a helmet and a breastplate. I sat in pale transport. + +''Amblet, 'Amblet, I _am_ thy father's ghost.' + +Then came a voice from the dark, silent audience, like a cynical knife +to my fond soul: + +'Why tha arena, I can tell thy voice.' + +The peasants loved Ophelia: she was in white with her hair down her +back. Poor thing, she was pathetic, demented. And no wonder, after +Hamlet's 'O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt!' What then of +her young breasts and her womb? Hamlet with her was a very disagreeable +sight. The peasants loved her. There was a hoarse roar, half of +indignation, half of roused passion, at the end of her scene. + +The graveyard scene, too, was a great success, but I could not bear +Hamlet. And the grave-digger in Italian was a mere buffoon. The whole +scene was farcical to me because of the Italian, '_Questo cranio, +Signore_--'And Enrico, dainty fellow, took the skull in a corner of his +black cloak. As an Italian, he would not willingly touch it. It was +unclean. But he looked a fool, hulking himself in his lugubriousness. He +was as self-important as D'Annunzio. + +The close fell flat. The peasants had applauded the whole graveyard +scene wildly. But at the end of all they got up and crowded to the +doors, as if to hurry away: this in spite of Enrico's final feat: he +fell backwards, smack down three steps of the throne platform, on to the +stage. But planks and braced muscle will bounce, and Signer Amleto +bounced quite high again. + +It was the end of _Amleto_, and I was glad. But I loved the theatre, I +loved to look down on the peasants, who were so absorbed. At the end of +the scenes the men pushed back their black hats, and rubbed their hair +across their brows with a pleased, excited movement. And the women +stirred in their seats. + +Just one man was with his wife and child, and he was of the same race as +my old woman at San Tommaso. He was fair, thin, and clear, abstract, of +the mountains. He seemed to have gathered his wife and child together +into another, finer atmosphere, like the air of the mountains, and to +guard them in it. This is the real Joseph, father of the child. He has a +fierce, abstract look, wild and untamed as a hawk, but like a hawk at +its own nest, fierce with love. He goes out and buys a tiny bottle of +lemonade for a penny, and the mother and child sip it in tiny sips, +whilst he bends over, like a hawk arching its wings. + +It is the fierce spirit of the Ego come out of the primal infinite, but +detached, isolated, an aristocrat. He is not an Italian, dark-blooded. +He is fair, keen as steel, with the blood of the mountaineer in him. He +is like my old spinning woman. It is curious how, with his wife and +child, he makes a little separate world down there in the theatre, like +a hawk's nest, high and arid under the gleaming sky. + +The Bersaglieri sit close together in groups, so that there is a +strange, corporal connexion between them. They have close-cropped, dark, +slightly bestial heads, and thick shoulders, and thick brown hands on +each other's shoulders. When an act is over they pick up their cherished +hats and fling on their cloaks and go into the hall. They are rather +rich, the Bersaglieri. + +They are like young, half-wild oxen, such strong, sturdy, dark lads, +thickly built and with strange hard heads, like young male caryatides. +They keep close together, as if there were some physical instinct +connecting them. And they are quite womanless. There is a curious +inter-absorption among themselves, a sort of physical trance that holds +them all, and puts their minds to sleep. There is a strange, hypnotic +unanimity among them as they put on their plumed hats and go out +together, always very close, as if their bodies must touch. Then they +feel safe and content in this heavy, physical trance. They are in love +with one another, the young men love the young men. They shrink from the +world beyond, from the outsiders, from all who are not Bersaglieri of +their barracks. + +One man is a sort of leader. He is very straight and solid, solid like a +wall, with a dark, unblemished will. His cock-feathers slither in a +profuse, heavy stream from his black oil-cloth hat, almost to his +shoulder. He swings round. His feathers slip into a cascade. Then he +goes out to the hall, his feather tossing and falling richly. He must be +well off. The Bersaglieri buy their own black cock's-plumes, and some +pay twenty or thirty francs for the bunch, so the maestra said. The poor +ones have only poor, scraggy plumes. + +There is something very primitive about these men. They remind me really +of Agamemnon's soldiers clustered oil the seashore, men, all men, a +living, vigorous, physical host of men. But there is a pressure on these +Italian soldiers, as if they were men caryatides, with a great weight on +their heads, making their brain hard, asleep, stunned. They all look is +if their real brain were stunned, as if there were another centre of +physical consciousness from which they lived. + +Separate from them all is Pietro, the young man who lounges on the wharf +to carry things from the steamer. He starts up from sleep like a +wild-cat as somebody claps him on the shoulder. It is the start of a man +who has many enemies. He is almost an outlaw. Will he ever find himself +in prison? He is the _gamin_ of the village, well detested. + +He is twenty-four years old, thin, dark, handsome, with a cat-like +lightness and grace, and a certain repulsive, _gamin_ evil in his face. +Where everybody is so clean and tidy, he is almost ragged. His week's +beard shows very black in his slightly hollow cheeks. He hates the man +who has waked him by clapping him on the shoulder. + +Pietro is already married, yet he behaves as if he were not. He has been +carrying on with a loose woman, the wife of the citron-coloured barber, +the Siciliano. Then he seats himself on the women's side of the theatre, +behind a young person from Bogliaco, who also has no reputation, and +makes her talk to him. He leans forward, resting his arms on the seat +before him, stretching his slender, cat-like, flexible loins. The +padrona of the hotel hates him--'_ein frecher Kerl_,' she says with +contempt, and she looks away. Her eyes hate to see him. + +In the village there is the clerical party, which is the majority; +there is the anti-clerical party, and there are the ne'er-do-wells. The +clerical people are dark and pious and cold; there is a curious +stone-cold, ponderous darkness over them, moral and gloomy. Then the +anti-clerical party, with the Syndaco at the head, is bourgeois and +respectable as far as the middle-aged people are concerned, banal, +respectable, shut off as by a wall from the clerical people. The young +anti-clericals are the young bloods of the place, the men who gather +every night in the more expensive and less-respectable cafe. These young +men are all free-thinkers, great dancers, singers, players of the +guitar. They are immoral and slightly cynical. Their leader is the young +shopkeeper, who has lived in Vienna, who is a bit of a bounder, with a +veneer of sneering irony on an original good nature. He is well-to-do, +and gives dances to which only the looser women go, with these reckless +young men. He also gets up parties of pleasure, and is chiefly +responsible for the coming of the players to the theatre this carnival. +These young men are disliked, but they belong to the important class, +they are well-to-do, and they have the life of the village in their +hands. The clerical peasants are priest-ridden and good, because they +are poor and afraid and superstitious. There is, lastly, a sprinkling of +loose women, one who keeps the inn where the soldiers drink. These women +are a definite set. They know what they are, they pretend nothing else. +They are not prostitutes, but just loose women. They keep to their own +clique, among men and women, never wanting to compromise anybody else. + +And beyond all these there are the Franciscan friars in their brown +robes, so shy, so silent, so obliterated, as they stand back in the +shop, waiting to buy the bread for the monastery, waiting obscure and +neutral, till no one shall be in the shop wanting to be served. The +village women speak to them in a curious neutral, official, slightly +contemptuous voice. They answer neutral and humble, though distinctly. + +At the theatre, now the play is over, the peasants in their black hats +and cloaks crowd the hall. Only Pietro, the wharf-lounger, has no cloak, +and a bit of a cap on the side of his head instead of a black felt hat. +His clothes are thin and loose on his thin, vigorous, cat-like body, and +he is cold, but he takes no notice. His hands are always in his pockets, +his shoulders slightly raised. + +The few women slip away home. In the little theatre bar the well-to-do +young atheists are having another drink. Not that they spend much. A +tumbler of wine or a glass of vermouth costs a penny. And the wine is +horrible new stuff. Yet the little baker, Agostino, sits on a bench with +his pale baby on his knee, putting the wine to its lips. And the baby +drinks, like a blind fledgeling. + +Upstairs, the quality has paid its visits and shaken hands: the Syndaco +and the well-to-do half-Austrian owners of the woodyard, the Bertolini, +have ostentatiously shown their mutual friendship; our padrone, the +Signer Pietro Di Paoli, has visited his relatives the Graziani in the +box next the stage and has spent two intervals with us in our box; +meanwhile, his two peasants standing down below, pathetic, thin +contadini of the old school, like worn stones, have looked up at us as +if we are the angels in heaven, with a reverential, devotional eye, they +themselves far away below, standing in the bay at the back, below all. + +The chemist and the grocer and the schoolmistress pay calls. They have +all sat self-consciously posed in the front of their boxes, like framed +photographs of themselves. The second grocer and the baker visit each +other. The barber looks in on the carpenter, then drops downstairs among +the crowd. Class distinctions are cut very fine. As we pass with the +padrona of the hotel, who is a Bavarian, we stop to speak to our own +padroni, the Di Paoli. They have a warm handshake and effusive polite +conversation for us; for Maria Samuelli, a distant bow. We realize +our mistake. + +The barber--not the Siciliano, but flashy little Luigi with the big +tie-ring and the curls--knows all about the theatre. He says that Enrico +Persevalli has for his mistress Carina, the servant in _Ghosts_: that +the thin, gentle, old-looking king in _Hamlet_ is the husband of +Adelaida, and Carina is their daughter: that the old, sharp, fat little +body of a queen is Adelaida's mother: that they all like Enrico +Persevalli, because he is a very clever man: but that the 'Comic', Il +Brillante, Francesco, is unsatisfied. + +In three performances in Epiphany week, the company took two hundred and +sixty-five francs, which was phenomenal. The manager, Enrico Persevalli, +and Adelaida pay twenty-four francs for every performance, or every +evening on which a performance is given, as rent for the theatre, +including light. The company is completely satisfied with its reception +on the Lago di Garda. + +So it is all over. The Bersaglieri go running all the way home, because +it is already past half past ten. The night is very dark. About four +miles up the lake the searchlights of the Austrian border are swinging, +looking for smugglers. Otherwise the darkness is complete. + + + +_4_ + +SAN GAUDENZIO + + +In the autumn the little rosy cyclamens blossom in the shade of this +west side of the lake. They are very cold and fragrant, and their scent +seems to belong to Greece, to the Bacchae. They are real flowers of the +past. They seem to be blossoming in the landscape of Phaedra and Helen. +They bend down, they brood like little chill fires. They are little +living myths that I cannot understand. + +After the cyclamens the Christmas roses are in bud. It is at this season +that the cacchi are ripe on the trees in the garden, whole naked trees +full of lustrous, orange-yellow, paradisal fruit, gleaming against the +wintry blue sky. The monthly roses still blossom frail and pink, there +are still crimson and yellow roses. But the vines are bare and the +lemon-houses shut. And then, mid-winter, the lowest buds of the +Christmas roses appear under the hedges and rocks and by the streams. +They are very lovely, these first large, cold, pure buds, like violets, +like magnolias, but cold, lit up with the light from the snow. + +The days go by, through the brief silence of winter, when the sunshine +is so still and pure, like iced wine, and the dead leaves gleam brown, +and water sounds hoarse in the ravines. It is so still and transcendent, +the cypress trees poise like flames of forgotten darkness, that should +have been blown out at the end of the summer. For as we have candles to +light the darkness of night, so the cypresses are candles to keep the +darkness aflame in the full sunshine. + +Meanwhile, the Christmas roses become many. They rise from their budded, +intact humbleness near the ground, they rise up, they throw up their +crystal, they become handsome, they are heaps of confident, mysterious +whiteness in the shadow of a rocky stream. It is almost uncanny to see +them. They are the flowers of darkness, white and wonderful +beyond belief. + +Then their radiance becomes soiled and brown, they thaw, break, and +scatter and vanish away. Already the primroses are coming out, and the +almond is in bud. The winter is passing away. On the mountains the +fierce snow gleams apricot gold as evening approaches, golden, apricot, +but so bright that it is almost frightening. What can be so fiercely +gleaming when all is shadowy? It is something inhuman and unmitigated +between heaven and earth. + +The heavens are strange and proud all the winter, their progress goes on +without reference to the dim earth. The dawns come white and +translucent, the lake is a moonstone in the dark hills, then across the +lake there stretches a vein of fire, then a whole, orange, flashing +track over the whiteness. There is the exquisite silent passage of the +day, and then at evening the afterglow, a huge incandescence of rose, +hanging above and gleaming, as if it were the presence of a host of +angels in rapture. It gleams like a rapturous chorus, then passes away, +and the stars appear, large and flashing. + +Meanwhile, the primroses are dawning on the ground, their light is +growing stronger, spreading over the banks and under the bushes. Between +the olive roots the violets are out, large, white, grave violets, and +less serious blue ones. And looking down the bill, among the grey smoke +of olive leaves, pink puffs of smoke are rising up. It is the almond and +the apricot trees, it is the Spring. + +Soon the primroses are strong on the ground. There is a bank of small, +frail crocuses shooting the lavender into this spring. And then the +tussocks and tussocks of primroses are fully out, there is full morning +everywhere on the banks and roadsides and stream-sides, and around the +olive roots, a morning of primroses underfoot, with an invisible +threading of many violets, and then the lovely blue clusters of +hepatica, really like pieces of blue sky showing through a clarity of +primrose. The few birds are piping thinly and shyly, the streams sing +again, there is a strange flowering shrub full of incense, overturned +flowers of crimson and gold, like Bohemian glass. Between the olive +roots new grass is coming, day is leaping all clear and coloured from +the earth, it is full Spring, full first rapture. + +Does it pass away, or does it only lose its pristine quality? It deepens +and intensifies, like experience. The days seem to be darker and richer, +there is a sense of power in the strong air. On the banks by the lake +the orchids are out, many, many pale bee-orchids standing clear from the +short grass over the lake. And in the hollows are the grape hyacinths, +purple as noon, with the heavy, sensual fragrance of noon. They are +many-breasted, and full of milk, and ripe, and sun-darkened, like +many-breasted Diana. + +We could not bear to live down in the village any more, now that the +days opened large and spacious and the evenings drew out in sunshine. We +could not bear the indoors, when above us the mountains shone in clear +air. It was time to go up, to climb with the sun. + +So after Easter we went to San Gaudenzio. It was three miles away, up +the winding mule-track that climbed higher and higher along the lake. +Leaving the last house of the village, the path wound on the steep, +cliff-like side of the lake, curving into the hollow where the landslip +had tumbled the rocks in chaos, then out again on to the bluff of a +headland that hung over the lake. + +Thus we came to the tall barred gate of San Gaudenzio, on which was the +usual little fire-insurance tablet, and then the advertisements for +beer, 'Birra, Verona', which is becoming a more and more popular drink. + +Through the gate, inside the high wall, is the little Garden of Eden, a +property of three or four acres fairly level upon a headland over the +lake. The high wall girds it on the land side, and makes it perfectly +secluded. On the lake-side it is bounded by the sudden drops of the +land, in sharp banks and terraces, overgrown with ilex and with laurel +bushes, down to the brink of the cliff, so that the thicket of the first +declivities seems to safeguard the property. + +The pink farm-house stands almost in the centre of the little territory, +among the olive trees. It is a solid, six-roomed place, about fifty +years old, having been rebuilt by Paolo's uncle. Here we came to live +for a time with the Fiori, Maria and Paolo, and their three children, +Giovanni and Marco and Felicina. + +Paolo had inherited, or partly inherited, San Gaudenzio, which had been +in his family for generations. He was a peasant of fifty-three, very +grey and wrinkled and worn-looking, but at the same time robust, with +full strong limbs and a powerful chest. His face was old, but his body +was solid and powerful. His eyes were blue like upper ice, beautiful. He +had been a fair-haired man, now he was almost white. + +He, was strangely like the pictures of peasants in the northern Italian +pictures, with the same curious nobility, the same aristocratic, eternal +look of motionlessness, something statuesque. His head was hard and +fine, the bone finely constructed, though the skin of his face was loose +and furrowed with work. His temples had that fine, hard clarity which is +seen in Mantegna, an almost jewel-like quality. + +We all loved Paolo, he was so finished in his being, detached, with an +almost classic simplicity and gentleness, an eternal kind of sureness. +There was also something concluded and unalterable about him, something +inaccessible. + +Maria Fiori was different. She was from the plain, like Enrico +Persevalli and the Bersaglier from the Venetian district. She reminded +me again of oxen, broad-boned and massive in physique, dark-skinned, +slow in her soul. But, like the oxen of the plain, she knew her work, +she knew the other people engaged in the work. Her intelligence was +attentive and purposive. She had been a housekeeper, a servant, in +Venice and Verona, before her marriage. She had got the hang of this +world of commerce and activity, she wanted to master it. But she was +weighted down by her heavy animal blood. + +Paolo and she were the opposite sides of the universe, the light and the +dark. Yet they lived together now without friction, detached, each +subordinated in their common relationship. With regard to Maria, Paolo +omitted himself; Maria omitted herself with regard to Paolo. Their souls +were silent and detached, completely apart, and silent, quite silent. +They shared the physical relationship of marriage as if it were +something beyond them, a third thing. + +They had suffered very much in the earlier stages of their connexion. +Now the storm had gone by, leaving them, as it were, spent. They were +both by nature passionate, vehement. But the lines of their passion were +opposite. Hers was the primitive, crude, violent flux of the blood, +emotional and undiscriminating, but wanting to mix and mingle. His was +the hard, clear, invulnerable passion of the bones, finely tempered and +unchangeable. She was the flint and he the steel. But in continual +striking together they only destroyed each other. The fire was a third +thing, belonging to neither of them. + +She was still heavy and full of desire. She was much younger than he. + +'How long did you know your Signora before you were married?' she asked +me. + +'Six weeks,' I said. + +'_Il Paolo e me, venti giorni, tre settimane_,' she cried vehemently. +Three weeks they had known each other when they married. She still +triumphed in the fact. So did Paolo. But it was past, strangely and +rather terribly past. + +What did they want when they came together, Paolo and she? He was a man +over thirty, she was a woman of twenty-three. They were both violent in +desire and of strong will. They came together at once, like two +wrestlers almost matched in strength. Their meetings must have been +splendid. Giovanni, the eldest child, was a tall lad of sixteen, with +soft brown hair and grey eyes, and a clarity of brow, and the same calm +simplicity of bearing which made Paolo so complete; but the son had at +the same time a certain brownness of skin, a heaviness of blood, which +he had from his mother. Paolo was so clear and translucent. + +In Giovanni the fusion of the parents was perfect, he was a perfect +spark from the flint and steel. There was in Paolo a subtle intelligence +in feeling, a delicate appreciation of the other person. But the mind +was unintelligent, he could not grasp a new order. Maria Fiori was much +sharper and more adaptable to the ways of the world. Paolo had an almost +glass-like quality, fine and clear and perfectly tempered; but he was +also finished and brittle. Maria was much coarser, more vulgar, but also +she was more human, more fertile, with crude potentiality. His passion +was too fixed in its motion, hers too loose and overwhelming. + +But Giovanni was beautiful, gentle, and courtly like Paolo, but warm, +like Maria, ready to flush like a girl with anger or confusion. He stood +straight and tall, and seemed to look into the far distance with his +clear grey eyes. Yet also he could look at one and touch one with his +look, he could meet one. Paolo's blue eyes were like the eyes of the old +spinning-woman, clear and blue and belonging to the mountains, their +vision seemed to end in space, abstract. They reminded me of the eyes of +the eagle, which looks into the sun, and which teaches its young to do +the same, although they are unwilling. + +Marco, the second son, was thirteen years old. He was his mother's +favourite, Giovanni loved his father best. But Marco was his mother's +son, with the same brown-gold and red complexion, like a pomegranate, +and coarse black hair, and brown eyes like pebble, like agate, like an +animal's eyes. He had the same broad, bovine figure, though he was only +a boy. But there was some discrepancy in him. He was not unified, he had +no identity. + +He was strong and full of animal life, but always aimless, as though his +wits scarcely controlled him. But he loved his mother with a +fundamental, generous, undistinguishing love. Only he always forgot what +he was going to do. He was much more sensitive than Maria, more shy and +reluctant. But his shyness, his sensitiveness only made him more aimless +and awkward, a tiresome clown, slack and uncontrolled, witless. All day +long his mother shouted and shrilled and scolded at him, or hit him +angrily. He did not mind, he came up like a cork, warm and roguish and +curiously appealing. She loved him with a fierce protective love, +grounded on pain. There was such a split, a contrariety in his soul, one +part reacting against the other, which landed him always into trouble. + +It was when Marco was a baby that Paolo had gone to America. They were +poor on San Gaudenzio. There were the few olive trees, the grapes, and +the fruit; there was the one cow. But these scarcely made a living. +Neither was Maria content with the real peasants' lot any more, polenta +at midday and vegetable soup in the evening, and no way out, nothing to +look forward to, no future, only this eternal present. She had been in +service, and had eaten bread and drunk coffee, and known the flux and +variable chance of life. She had departed from the old static +conception. She knew what one might be, given a certain chance. The +fixture was the thing she militated against. So Paolo went to America, +to California, into the gold mines. + +Maria wanted the future, the endless possibility of life on earth. She +wanted her sons to be freer, to achieve a new plane of living. The +peasant's life was a slave's life, she said, railing against the poverty +and the drudgery. And it was quite true, Paolo and Giovanni worked +twelve and fourteen hours a day at heavy laborious work that would have +broken an Englishman. And there was nothing at the end of it. Yet Paolo +was even happy so. This was the truth to him. + +It was the mother who wanted things different. It was she who railed and +railed against the miserable life of the peasants. When we were going to +throw to the fowls a dry broken penny roll of white bread, Maria said, +with anger and shame and resentment in her voice: 'Give it to Marco, he +will eat it. It isn't too dry for him.' + +White bread was a treat for them even now, when everybody eats bread. +And Maria Fiori hated it, that bread should be a treat to her children, +when it was the meanest food of all the rest of the world. She was in +opposition to this order. She did not want her sons to be peasants, +fixed and static as posts driven in the earth. She wanted them to be in +the great flux of life in the midst of all possibilities. So she at +length sent Paolo to America to the gold-mines. Meanwhile, she covered +the wall of her parlour with picture postcards, to bring the outer world +of cities and industries into her house. + +Paolo was entirely remote from Maria's world. He had not yet even +grasped the fact of money, not thoroughly. He reckoned in land and olive +trees. So he had the old fatalistic attitude to his circumstances, even +to his food. The earth was the Lord's and the fulness thereof; also the +leanness thereof. Paolo could only do his part and leave the rest. If he +ate in plenty, having oil and wine and sausage in the house, and plenty +of maize-meal, he was glad with the Lord. If he ate meagrely, of poor +polenta, that was fate, it was the skies that ruled these things, and no +man ruled the skies. He took his fate as it fell from the skies. + +Maria was exorbitant about money. She would charge us all she could for +what we had and for what was done for us. + +Yet she was not mean in her soul. In her soul she was in a state of +anger because of her own closeness. It was a violation to her strong +animal nature. Yet her mind had wakened to the value of money. She knew +she could alter her position, the position of her children, by virtue of +money. She knew it was only money that made the difference between +master and servant. And this was all the difference she would +acknowledge. So she ruled her life according to money. Her supreme +passion was to be mistress rather than servant, her supreme aspiration +for her children was that in the end they might be masters and +not servants. + +Paolo was untouched by all this. For him there was some divinity about a +master which even America had not destroyed. If we came in for supper +whilst the family was still at table he would have the children at once +take their plates to the wall, he would have Maria at once set the table +for us, though their own meal were never finished. And this was not +servility, it was the dignity of a religious conception. Paolo regarded +us as belonging to the Signoria, those who are elect, near to God. And +this was part of his religious service. His life was a ritual. It was +very beautiful, but it made me unhappy, the purity of his spirit was so +sacred and the actual facts seemed such a sacrilege to it. Maria was +nearer to the actual truth when she said that money was the only +distinction. But Paolo had hold of an eternal truth, where hers was +temporal. Only Paolo misapplied this eternal truth. He should not have +given Giovanni the inferior status and a fat, mean Italian tradesman the +superior. That was false, a real falsity. Maria knew it and hated it. +But Paolo could not distinguish between the accident of riches and the +aristocracy of the spirit. So Maria rejected him altogether, and went to +the other extreme. We were all human beings like herself; naked, there +was no distinction between us, no higher nor lower. But we were +possessed of more money than she. And she had to steer her course +between these two conceptions. The money alone made the real +distinction, the separation; the being, the life made the common level. + +Paolo had the curious peasant's avarice also, but it was not meanness. +It was a sort of religious conservation of his own power, his own self. +Fortunately he could leave all business transactions on our account to +Maria, so that his relation with us was purely ritualistic. He would +have given me anything, trusting implicitly that I would fulfil my own +nature as Signore, one of those more godlike, nearer the light of +perfection than himself, a peasant. It was pure bliss to him to bring us +the first-fruit of the garden, it was like laying it on an altar. + +And his fulfilment was in a fine, subtle, exquisite relationship, not of +manners, but subtle interappreciation. He worshipped a finer +understanding and a subtler tact. A further fineness and dignity and +freedom in bearing was to him an approach towards the divine, so he +loved men best of all, they fulfilled his soul. A woman was always a +woman, and sex was a low level whereon he did not esteem himself. But a +man, a doer, the instrument of God, he was really godlike. + +Paolo was a Conservative. For him the world was established and divine +in its establishment. His vision grasped a small circle. A finer nature, +a higher understanding, took in a greater circle, comprehended the +whole. So that when Paolo was in relation to a man of further vision, he +himself was extended towards the whole. Thus he was fulfilled. And his +initial assumption was that every signore, every gentleman, was a man of +further, purer vision than himself. This assumption was false. But +Maria's assumption, that no one had a further vision, no one was more +elect than herself, that we are all one flesh and blood and being, was +even more false. Paolo was mistaken in actual life, but Maria was +ultimately mistaken. + +Paolo, conservative as he was, believing that a priest must be a priest +of God, yet very rarely went to church. And he used the religious oaths +that Maria hated, even _Porca-Maria_. He always used oaths, either +Bacchus or God or Mary or the Sacrament. Maria was always offended. Yet +it was she who, in her soul, jeered at the Church and at religion. She +wanted the human society as the absolute, without religious +abstractions. So Paolo's oaths enraged her, because of their profanity, +she said. But it was really because of their subscribing to another +superhuman order. She jeered at the clerical people. She made a loud +clamour of derision when the parish priest of the village above went +down to the big village on the lake, and across the piazza, the quay, +with two pigs in a sack on his shoulder. This was a real picture of the +sacred minister to her. + +One day, when a storm had blown down an olive tree in front of the +house, and Paolo and Giovanni were beginning to cut it up, this same +priest of Mugiano came to San Gaudenzio. He was an iron-grey, thin, +disreputable-looking priest, very talkative and loud and queer. He +seemed like an old ne'er-do-well in priests' black, and he talked +loudly, almost to himself, as drunken people do. At once _he_ must show +the Fiori how to cut up the tree, he must have the axe from Paolo. He +shouted to Maria for a glass of wine. She brought it out to him with a +sort of insolent deference, insolent contempt of the man and traditional +deference to the cloth. The priest drained the tumblerful of wine at one +drink, his thin throat with its Adam's apple working. And he did not pay +the penny. + +Then he stripped off his cassock and put away his hat, and, a ludicrous +figure in ill-fitting black knee-breeches and a not very clean shirt, a +red handkerchief round his neck, he proceeded to give great extravagant +blows at the tree. He was like a caricature. In the doorway Maria was +encouraging him rather jeeringly, whilst she winked at me. Marco was +stifling his hysterical amusement in his mother's apron, and prancing +with glee. Paolo and Giovanni stood by the fallen tree, very grave and +unmoved, inscrutable, abstract. Then the youth came away to the doorway, +with a flush mounting on his face and a grimace distorting its +youngness. Only Paolo, unmoved and detached, stood by the tree with +unchanging, abstract face, very strange, his eyes fixed in the ageless +stare which is so characteristic. + +Meanwhile the priest swung drunken blows at the tree, his thin buttocks +bending in the green-black broadcloth, supported on thin shanks, and +thin throat growing dull purple in the red-knotted kerchief. +Nevertheless he was doing the job. His face was wet with sweat. He +wanted another glass of wine. + +He took no notice of us. He was strangely a local, even a mountebank +figure, but entirely local, an appurtenance of the district. + +It was Maria who jeeringly told us the story of the priest, who shrugged +her shoulders to imply that he was a contemptible figure. Paolo sat with +the abstract look on his face, as of one who hears and does not hear, is +not really concerned. He never opposed or contradicted her, but stayed +apart. It was she who was violent and brutal in her ways. But sometimes +Paolo went into a rage, and then Maria, everybody, was afraid. It was a +white heavy rage, when his blue eyes shone unearthly, and his mouth +opened with a curious drawn blindness of the old Furies. There was +something of the cruelty of a falling mass of snow, heavy, horrible. +Maria drew away, there was a silence. Then the avalanche was finished. + +They must have had some cruel fights before they learned to withdraw +from each other so completely. They must have begotten Marco in hatred, +terrible disintegrated opposition and otherness. And it was after this, +after the child of their opposition was born, that Paolo went away to +California, leaving his San Gaudenzio, travelling with several +companions, like blind beasts, to Havre, and thence to New York, then to +California. He stayed five years in the gold-mines, in a wild valley, +living with a gang of Italians in a town of corrugated iron. + +All the while he had never really left San Gaudenzio. I asked him, 'Used +you to think of it, the lake, the Monte Baldo, the laurel trees down the +slope?' He tried to see what I wanted to know. Yes, he said--but +uncertainly. I could see that he had never been really homesick. It had +been very wretched on the ship going from Havre to New York. That he +told me about. And he told me about the gold-mines, the galleries, the +valley, the huts in the valley. But he had never really fretted for San +Gaudenzio whilst he was in California. + +In real truth he was at San Gaudenzio all the time, his fate was riveted +there. His going away was an excursion from reality, a kind of +sleep-walking. He left his own reality there in the soil above the lake +of Garda. That his body was in California, what did it matter? It was +merely for a time, and for the sake of his own earth, his land. He would +pay off the mortgage. But the gate at home was his gate all the time, +his hand was on the latch. + +As for Maria, he had felt his duty towards her. She was part of his +little territory, the rooted centre of the world. He sent her home the +money. But it did not occur to him, in his soul, to miss her. He wanted +her to be safe with the children, that was all. In his flesh perhaps he +missed the woman. But his spirit was even more completely isolated since +marriage. Instead of having united with each other, they had made each +other more terribly distinct and separate. He could live alone +eternally. It was his condition. His sex was functional, like eating and +drinking. To take a woman, a prostitute at the camp, or not to take her, +was no more vitally important than to get drunk or not to get drunk of a +Sunday. And fairly often on Sunday Paolo got drunk. His world remained +unaltered. + +But Maria suffered more bitterly. She was a young, powerful, passionate +woman, and she was unsatisfied body and soul. Her soul's satisfaction +became a bodily unsatisfaction. Her blood was heavy, violent, anarchic, +insisting on the equality of the blood in all, and therefore on her own +absolute right to satisfaction. + +She took a wine licence for San Gaudenzio, and she sold wine. There were +many scandals about her. Somehow it did not matter very much, outwardly. +The authorities were too divided among themselves to enforce public +opinion. Between the clerical party and the radicals and the socialists, +what canons were left that were absolute? Besides, these wild villages +had always been ungoverned. + +Yet Maria suffered. Even she, according to her conviction belonged to +Paolo. And she felt betrayed, betrayed and deserted. The iron had gone +deep into her soul. Paolo had deserted her, she had been betrayed to +other men for five years. There was something cruel and implacable in +life. She sat sullen and heavy, for all her quick activity. Her soul was +sullen and heavy. + +I could never believe Felicina was Paolo's child. She was an +unprepossessing little girl, affected, cold, selfish, foolish. Maria and +Paolo, with real Italian greatness, were warm and natural towards the +child in her. But they did not love her in their very souls, she was the +fruit of ash to them. And this must have been the reason that she was so +self-conscious and foolish and affected, small child that she was. + +Paolo had come back from America a year before she was born--a year +before she was born, Maria insisted. The husband and wife lived together +in a relationship of complete negation. In his soul he was sad for her, +and in her soul she felt annulled. He sat at evening in the +chimney-seat, smoking, always pleasant and cheerful, not for a moment +thinking he was unhappy. It had all taken place in his subconsciousness. +But his eyebrows and eyelids were lifted in a kind of vacancy, his blue +eyes were round and somehow finished, though he was so gentle and +vigorous in body. But the very quick of him was killed. He was like a +ghost in the house, with his loose throat and powerful limbs, his open, +blue extinct eyes, and his musical, slightly husky voice, that seemed to +sound out of the past. + +And Maria, stout and strong and handsome like a peasant woman, went +about as if there were a weight on her, and her voice was high and +strident. She, too, was finished in her life. But she remained unbroken, +her will was like a hammer that destroys the old form. + +Giovanni was patiently labouring to learn a little English. Paolo knew +only four or five words, the chief of which were 'a'right', 'boss', +'bread', and 'day'. The youth had these by heart, and was studying a +little more. He was very graceful and lovable, but he found it difficult +to learn. A confused light, like hot tears, would come into his eyes +when he had again forgotten the phrase. But he carried the paper about +with him, and he made steady progress. + +He would go to America, he also. Not for anything would he stay in San +Gaudenzio. His dream was to be gone. He would come back. The world was +not San Gaudenzio to Giovanni. + +The old order, the order of Paolo and of Pietro di Paoli, the +aristocratic order of the supreme God, God the Father, the Lord, was +passing away from the beautiful little territory. The household no +longer receives its food, oil and wine and maize, from out of the earth +in the motion of fate. The earth is annulled, and money takes its place. +The landowner, who is the lieutenant of God and of Fate, like Abraham, +he, too, is annulled. There is now the order of the rich, which +supersedes the order of the Signoria. + +It is passing away from Italy as it has passed from England. The peasant +is passing away, the workman is taking his place. The stability is gone. +Paolo is a ghost, Maria is the living body. And the new order means +sorrow for the Italian more even than it has meant for us. But he will +have the new order. + +San Gaudenzio is already becoming a thing of the past. Below the house, +where the land drops in sharp slips to the sheer cliff's edge, over +which it is Maria's constant fear that Felicina will tumble, there are +the deserted lemon gardens of the little territory, snug down below. +They are invisible till one descends by tiny paths, sheer down into +them. And there they stand, the pillars and walls erect, but a dead +emptiness prevailing, lemon trees all dead, gone, a few vines in their +place. It is only twenty years since the lemon trees finally perished of +a disease and were not renewed. But the deserted terrace, shut between +great walls, descending in their openness full to the south, to the lake +and the mountain opposite, seem more terrible than Pompeii in their +silence and utter seclusion. The grape hyacinths flower in the cracks, +the lizards run, this strange place hangs suspended and forgotten, +forgotten for ever, its erect pillars utterly meaningless. + +I used to sit and write in the great loft of the lemon-house, high up, +far, far from the ground, the open front giving across the lake and the +mountain snow opposite, flush with twilight. The old matting and boards, +the old disused implements of lemon culture made shadows in the deserted +place. Then there would come the call from the back, away above: +'_Venga, venga mangiare_.' + +We ate in the kitchen, where the olive and laurel wood burned in the +open fireplace. It was always soup in the evening. Then we played games +or cards, all playing; or there was singing, with the accordion, and +sometimes a rough mountain peasant with a guitar. + +But it is all passing away. Giovanni is in America, unless he has come +back to the War. He will not want to live in San Gaudenzio when he is a +man, he says. He and Marco will not spend their lives wringing a little +oil and wine out of the rocky soil, even if they are not killed in the +fighting which is going on at the end of the lake. In my loft by the +lemon-houses now I should hear the guns. And Giovanni kissed me with a +kind of supplication when I went on to the steamer, as if he were +beseeching for a soul. His eyes were bright and clear and lit up with +courage. He will make a good fight for the new soul he wants--that is, +if they do not kill him in this War. + + + +_5_ + +THE DANCE + + +Maria had no real licence for San Gaudenzio, yet the peasants always +called for wine. It is easy to arrange in Italy. The penny is paid +another time. + +The wild old road that skirts the lake-side, scrambling always higher as +the precipice becomes steeper, climbing and winding to the villages +perched high up, passes under the high boundary-wall of San Gaudenzio, +between that and the ruined church. But the road went just as much +between the vines and past the house as outside, under the wall; for the +high gates were always open, and men or women and mules come into the +property to call at the door of the homestead. There was a loud shout, +'Ah--a--a--ah--Mari--a. O--O--Oh Pa'o!' from outside, another wild, +inarticulate cry from within, and one of the Fiori appeared in the +doorway to hail the newcomer. + +It was usually a man, sometimes a peasant from Mugiano, high up, +sometimes a peasant from the wilds of the mountain, a wood-cutter, or a +charcoal-burner. He came in and sat in the house-place, his glass of +wine in his hand between his knees, or on the floor between his feet, +and he talked in a few wild phrases, very shy, like a hawk indoors, and +unintelligible in his dialect. + +Sometimes we had a dance. Then, for the wine to drink, three men came +with mandolines and guitars, and sat in a corner playing their rapid +tunes, while all danced on the dusty brick floor of the little parlour. +No strange women were invited, only men; the young bloods from the big +village on the lake, the wild men from above. They danced the slow, +trailing, lilting polka-waltz round and round the small room, the +guitars and mandolines twanging rapidly, the dust rising from the soft +bricks. There were only the two English women: so men danced with men, +as the Italians love to do. They love even better to dance with men, +with a dear blood-friend, than with women. + +'It's better like this, two men?' Giovanni says to me, his blue eyes +hot, his face curiously tender. + +The wood-cutters and peasants take off their coats, their throats are +bare. They dance with strange intentness, particularly if they have for +partner an English Signora. Their feet in thick boots are curiously +swift and significant. And it is strange to see the Englishwomen, as +they dance with the peasants transfigured with a kind of brilliant +surprise. All the while the peasants are very courteous, but quiet. They +see the women dilate and flash, they think they have found a footing, +they are certain. So the male dancers are quiet, but even grandiloquent, +their feet nimble, their bodies wild and confident. + +They are at a loss when the two English Signoras move together and laugh +excitedly at the end of the dance. + +'Isn't it fine?' + +'Fine! Their arms are like iron, carrying you round.' + +'Yes! Yes! And the muscles on their shoulders! I never knew there were +such muscles! I'm almost frightened.' + +'But it's fine, isn't it? I'm getting into the dance.' + +'Yes--yes--you've only to let them take you.' + +Then the glasses are put down, the guitars give their strange, vibrant, +almost painful summons, and the dance begins again. + +It is a strange dance, strange and lilting, and changing as the music +changed. But it had always a kind of leisurely dignity, a trailing kind +of polka-waltz, intimate, passionate, yet never hurried, never violent +in its passion, always becoming more intense. The women's faces changed +to a kind of transported wonder, they were in the very rhythm of +delight. From the soft bricks of the floor the red ochre rose in a thin +cloud of dust, making hazy the shadowy dancers; the three musicians, in +their black hats and their cloaks, sat obscurely in the corner, making a +music that came quicker and quicker, making a dance that grew swifter +and more intense, more subtle, the men seeming to fly and to implicate +other strange inter-rhythmic dance into the women, the women drifting +and palpitating as if their souls shook and resounded to a breeze that +was subtly rushing upon them, through them; the men worked their feet, +their thighs swifter, more vividly, the music came to an almost +intolerable climax, there was a moment when the dance passed into a +possession, the men caught up the women and swung them from the earth, +leapt with them for a second, and then the next phase of the dance had +begun, slower again, more subtly interwoven, taking perfect, oh, +exquisite delight in every interrelated movement, a rhythm within a +rhythm, a subtle approaching and drawing nearer to a climax, nearer, +till, oh, there was the surpassing lift and swing of the women, when the +woman's body seemed like a boat lifted over the powerful, exquisite wave +of the man's body, perfect, for a moment, and then once more the slow, +intense, nearer movement of the dance began, always nearer, nearer, +always to a more perfect climax. + +And the women waited as if in transport for the climax, when they would +be flung into a movement surpassing all movement. They were flung, borne +away, lifted like a boat on a supreme wave, into the zenith and nave of +the heavens, consummate. + +Then suddenly the dance crashed to an end, and the dancers stood +stranded, lost, bewildered, on a strange shore. The air was full of red +dust, half-lit by the lamp on the wall; the players in the corner were +putting down their instruments to take up their glasses. + +And the dancers sat round the wall, crowding in the little room, faint +with the transport of repeated ecstasy. There was a subtle smile on the +face of the men, subtle, knowing, so finely sensual that the conscious +eyes could scarcely look at it. And the women were dazed, like creatures +dazzled by too much light. The light was still on their faces, like a +blindness, a reeling, like a transfiguration. The men were bringing +wine, on a little tin tray, leaning with their proud, vivid loins, their +faces flickering with the same subtle smile. Meanwhile, Maria Fiori was +splashing water, much water, on the red floor. There was the smell of +water among the glowing, transfigured men and women who sat gleaming in +another world, round the walls. + +The peasants have chosen their women. For the dark, handsome +Englishwoman, who looks like a slightly malignant Madonna, comes Il +Duro; for the '_bella bionda_', the wood-cutter. But the peasants have +always to take their turn after the young well-to-do men from the +village below. + +Nevertheless, they are confident. They cannot understand the +middle-class diffidence of the young men who wear collars and ties and +finger-rings. + +The wood-cutter from the mountain is of medium height, dark, thin, and +hard as a hatchet, with eyes that are black like the very flaming thrust +of night. He is quite a savage. There is something strange about his +dancing, the violent way he works one shoulder. He has a wooden leg, +from the knee-joint. Yet he dances well, and is inordinately proud. He +is fierce as a bird, and hard with energy as a thunderbolt. He will +dance with the blonde signora. But he never speaks. He is like some +violent natural phenomenon rather than a person. The woman begins to +wilt a little in his possession. + +'_È bello--il ballo?_' he asked at length, one direct, flashing +question. + +'_Si--molto bello_,' cries the woman, glad to have speech again. + +The eyes of the wood-cutter flash like actual possession. He seems now +to have come into his own. With all his senses, he is dominant, sure. + +He is inconceivably vigorous in body, and his dancing is almost perfect, +with a little catch in it, owing to his lameness, which brings almost a +pure intoxication. Every muscle in his body is supple as steel, supple, +as strong as thunder, and yet so quick, so delicately swift, it is +almost unbearable. As he draws near to the swing, the climax, the +ecstasy, he seems to lie in wait, there is a sense of a great strength +crouching ready. Then it rushes forth, liquid, perfect, transcendent, +the woman swoons over in the dance, and it goes on, enjoyment, infinite, +incalculable enjoyment. He is like a god, a strange natural phenomenon, +most intimate and compelling, wonderful. + +But he is not a human being. The woman, somewhere shocked in her +independent soul, begins to fall away from him. She has another being, +which he has not touched, and which she will fall back upon. The dance +is over, she will fall back on herself. It is perfect, too perfect. + +During the next dance, while she is in the power of the educated Ettore, +a perfect and calculated voluptuary, who knows how much he can get out +of this Northern woman, and only how much, the wood-cutter stands on the +edge of the darkness, in the open doorway, and watches. He is fixed upon +her, established, perfect. And all the while she is aware of the +insistent hawk-like poising of the face of the wood-cutter, poised on +the edge of the darkness, in the doorway, in possession, +unrelinquishing. + +And she is angry. There is something stupid, absurd, in the hard, +talon-like eyes watching so fiercely and so confidently in the doorway, +sure, unmitigated. Has the creature no sense? + +The woman reacts from him. For some time she will take no notice of him. +But he waits, fixed. Then she comes near to him, and his will seems to +take hold of her. He looks at her with a strange, proud, inhuman +confidence, as if his influence with her was already accomplished. + +'_Venga--venga un po'_,' he says, jerking his head strangely to the +darkness. + +'What?' she replies, and passes shaken and dilated and brilliant, +consciously ignoring him, passes away among the others, among those +who are safe. + +There is food in the kitchen, great hunks of bread, sliced sausage that +Maria has made, wine, and a little coffee. But only the quality come to +eat. The peasants may not come in. There is eating and drinking in the +little house, the guitars are silent. It is eleven o'clock. + +Then there is singing, the strange bestial singing of these hills. +Sometimes the guitars can play an accompaniment, but usually not. Then +the men lift up their heads and send out the high, half-howling music, +astounding. The words are in dialect. They argue among themselves for a +moment: will the Signoria understand? They sing. The Signoria does not +understand in the least. So with a strange, slightly malignant triumph, +the men sing all the verses of their song, sitting round the walls of +the little parlour. Their throats move, their faces have a slight +mocking smile. The boy capers in the doorway like a faun, with glee, his +straight black hair falling over his forehead. The elder brother sits +straight and flushed, but even his eyes glitter with a kind of yellow +light of laughter. Paolo also sits quiet, with the invisible smile on +his face.' Only Maria, large and active, prospering now, keeps +collected, ready to order a shrill silence in the same way as she orders +the peasants, violently, to keep their places. + +The boy comes to me and says: + +'Do you know, Signore, what they are singing?' + +'No,' I say. + +So he capers with furious glee. The men with the watchful eyes, all +roused, sit round the wall and sing more distinctly: + + _Si verrà la primavera + Fiorann' le mandoline, + Vienn' di basso le Trentine + Coi 'taliani far' l'amor._ + +But the next verses are so improper that I pretend not to understand. +The women, with wakened, dilated faces, are listening, listening hard, +their two faces beautiful in their attention, as if listening to +something magical, a long way off. And the men sitting round the wall +sing more plainly, coming nearer to the correct Italian. The song comes +loud and vibrating and maliciously from their reedy throats, it +penetrates everybody. The foreign women can understand the sound, they +can feel the malicious, suggestive mockery. But they cannot catch the +words. The smile becomes more dangerous on the faces of the men. + +Then Maria Fiori sees that I have understood, and she cries, in her +loud, overriding voice: + +'_Basta--basta._ + +The men get up, straighten their bodies with a curious, offering +movement. The guitars and mandolines strike the vibrating strings. But +the vague Northern reserve has come over the Englishwomen. They dance +again, but without the fusion in the dance. They have had enough. + +The musicians are thanked, they rise and go into the night. The men pass +off in pairs. But the wood-cutter, whose name and whose nickname I could +never hear, still hovered on the edge of the darkness. + +Then Maria sent him also away, complaining that he was too wild, +_proprio selvatico_, and only the 'quality' remained, the well-to-do +youths from below. There was a little more coffee, and a talking, a +story of a man who had fallen over a declivity in a lonely part going +home drunk in the evening, and had lain unfound for eighteen hours. Then +a story of a donkey who had kicked a youth in the chest and killed him. + +But the women were tired, they would go to bed. Still the two young men +would not go away. We all went out to look at the night. + +The stars were very bright overhead, the mountain opposite and the +mountains behind us faintly outlined themselves on the sky. Below, the +lake was a black gulf. A little wind blew cold from the Adige. + +In the morning the visitors had gone. They had insisted on staying the +night. They had eaten eight eggs each and much bread at one o'clock in +the morning. Then they had gone to sleep, lying on the floor in the +sitting-room. + +In the early sunshine they had drunk coffee and gone down to the village +on the lake. Maria was very pleased. She would have made a good deal of +money. The young men were rich. Her cupidity seemed like her +very blossom. + + + +_6_ + +IL DURO + + +The first time I saw Il Duro was on a sunny day when there came up a +party of pleasure-makers to San Gaudenzio. They were three women and +three men. The women were in cotton frocks, one a large, dark, florid +woman in pink, the other two rather insignificant. The men I scarcely +noticed at first, except that two were young and one elderly. + +They were a queer party, even on a feast day, coming up purely for +pleasure, in the morning, strange, and slightly uncertain, advancing +between the vines. They greeted Maria and Paolo in loud, coarse voices. +There was something blowsy and uncertain and hesitating about the women +in particular, which made one at once notice them. + +Then a picnic was arranged for them out of doors, on the grass. They sat +just in front of the house, under the olive tree, beyond the well. It +should have been pretty, the women in their cotton frocks, and their +friends, sitting with wine and food in the spring sunshine. But somehow +it was not: it was hard and slightly ugly. + +But since they were picnicking out of doors, we must do so too. We were +at once envious. But Maria was a little unwilling, and then she set a +table for us. + +The strange party did not speak to us, they seemed slightly uneasy and +angry at our presence. I asked Maria who they were. She lifted her +shoulders, and, after a second's cold pause, said they were people from +down below, and then, in her rather strident, shrill, slightly bitter, +slightly derogatory voice, she added: + +'They are not people for you, signore. You don't know them.' + +She spoke slightly angrily and contemptuously of them, rather +protectively of me. So that vaguely I gathered that they were not quite +'respectable'. + +Only one man came into the house. He was very handsome, beautiful +rather, a man of thirty-two or-three, with a clear golden skin, and +perfectly turned face, something godlike. But the expression was +strange. His hair was jet black and fine and smooth, glossy as a bird's +wing, his brows were beautifully drawn, calm above his grey eyes, that +had long dark lashes. + +His eyes, however, had a sinister light in them, a pale, slightly +repelling gleam, very much like a god's pale-gleaming eyes, with the +same vivid pallor. And all his face had the slightly malignant, +suffering look of a satyr. Yet he was very beautiful. + +He walked quickly and surely, with his head rather down, passing from +his desire to his object, absorbed, yet curiously indifferent, as if the +transit were in a strange world, as if none of what he was doing were +worth the while. Yet he did it for his own pleasure, and the light on +his face, a pale, strange gleam through his clear skin, remained like a +translucent smile, unchanging as time. + +He seemed familiar with the household, he came and fetched wine at his +will. Maria was angry with him. She railed loudly and violently. He was +unchanged. He went out with the wine to the party on the grass. Maria +regarded them all with some hostility. + +They drank a good deal out there in the sunshine. The women and the +older man talked floridly. Il Duro crouched at the feast in his curious +fashion--he had strangely flexible loins, upon which he seemed to crouch +forward. But he was separate, like an animal that remains quite single, +no matter where it is. + +The party remained until about two o'clock. Then, slightly flushed, it +moved on in a ragged group up to the village beyond. I do not know if +they went to one of the inns of the stony village, or to the large +strange house which belonged to the rich young grocer of the village +below, a house kept only for feasts and riots, uninhabited for the most +part. Maria would tell me nothing about them. Only the young well-to-do +grocer, who had lived in Vienna, the Bertolotti, came later in the +afternoon inquiring for the party. + +And towards sunset I saw the elderly man of the group stumbling home +very drunk down the path, after the two women, who had gone on in front. +Then Paolo sent Giovanni to see the drunken one safely past the +landslip, which was dangerous. Altogether it was an unsatisfactory +business, very much like any other such party in any other country. + +Then in the evening Il Duro came in. His name is Faustino, but everybody +in the village has a nickname, which is almost invariably used. He came +in and asked for supper. We had all eaten. So he ate a little food alone +at the table, whilst we sat round the fire. + +Afterwards we played 'Up, Jenkins'. That was the one game we played with +the peasants, except that exciting one of theirs, which consists in +shouting in rapid succession your guesses at the number of fingers +rapidly spread out and shut into the hands again upon the table. + +Il Duro joined in the game. And that was because he had been in America, +and now was rich. He felt he could come near to the strange signori. But +he was always inscrutable. + +It was queer to look at the hands spread on the table: the Englishwomen, +having rings on their soft fingers; the large fresh hands of the elder +boy, the brown paws of the younger; Paolo's distorted great hard hands +of a peasant; and the big, dark brown, animal, shapely hands +of Faustino. + +He had been in America first for two years and then for five +years--seven years altogether--but he only spoke a very little English. +He was always with Italians. He had served chiefly in a flag factory, +and had had very little to do save to push a trolley with flags from the +dyeing-room to the drying-room I believe it was this. + +Then he had come home from America with a fair amount of money, he had +taken his uncle's garden, had inherited his uncle's little house, and he +lived quite alone. + +He was rich, Maria said, shouting in her strident voice. He at once +disclaimed it, peasant-wise. But before the signori he was glad also to +appear rich. He was mean, that was more, Maria cried, half-teasing, half +getting at him. + +He attended to his garden, grew vegetables all the year round, lived in +his little house, and in spring made good money as a vine-grafter: he +was an expert vine-grafter. + +After the boys had gone to bed he sat and talked to me. He was curiously +attractive and curiously beautiful, but somehow like stone in his clear +colouring and his clear-cut face. His temples, with the black hair, were +distinct and fine as a work of art. + +But always his eyes had this strange, half-diabolic, half-tortured pale +gleam, like a goat's, and his mouth was shut almost uglily, his cheeks +stern. His moustache was brown, his teeth strong and spaced. The women +said it was a pity his moustache was brown. + +'_Peccato!--sa, per bellezza, i baffi neri--ah-h!_' + +Then a long-drawn exclamation of voluptuous appreciation. + +'You live quite alone?' I said to him. + +He did. And even when he had been ill he was alone. He had been ill two +years before. His cheeks seemed to harden like marble and to become pale +at the thought. He was afraid, like marble with fear. + +'But why,' I said, 'why do you live alone? You are sad--_è triste_.' + +He looked at me with his queer, pale eyes. I felt a great static misery +in him, something very strange. + +'_Triste!_' he repeated, stiffening up, hostile. I could not understand. + +'_Vuol' dire che hai l'aria dolorosa_,' cried Maria, like a chorus +interpreting. And there was always a sort of loud ring of challenge +somewhere in her voice. + +'Sad,' I said in English. + +'Sad I' he repeated, also in English. And he did not smile or change, +only his face seemed to become more stone-like. And he only looked at +me, into my eyes, with the long, pale, steady, inscrutable look of a +goat, I can only repeat, something stone-like. + +'Why,' I said, 'don't you marry? Man doesn't live alone.' + +'I don't marry,' he said to me, in his emphatic, deliberate, cold +fashion, 'because I've seen too much. _Ho visto troppo._' + +'I don't understand,' I said. + +Yet I could feel that Paolo, sitting silent, like a monolith also, in +the chimney opening, he understood: Maria also understood. + +Il Duro looked again steadily into my eyes. + +'_Ho visto troppo_,' he repeated, and the words seemed engraved on +stone. 'I've seen too much.' + +'But you can marry,' I said, 'however much you have seen, if you have +seen all the world.' + +He watched me steadily, like a strange creature looking at me. + +'What woman?' he said to me. + +'You can find a woman--there are plenty of women,' I said. + +'Not for me,' he said. 'I have known too many. I've known too much, I +can marry nobody.' + +'Do you dislike women?' I said. + +'No--quite otherwise. I don't think ill of them.' + +'Then why can't you marry? Why must you live alone?' + +'Why live with a woman?' he said to me, and he looked mockingly. 'Which +woman is it to be?' + +'You can find her,' I said. 'There are many women.' + +Again he shook his head in the stony, final fashion. + +'Not for me. I have known too much.' + +'But does that prevent you from marrying?' + +He looked at me steadily, finally. And I could see it was impossible for +us to understand each other, or for me to understand him. I could not +understand the strange white gleam of his eyes, where it came from. + +Also I knew he liked me very much, almost loved me, which again was +strange and puzzling. It was as if he were a fairy, a faun, and had no +soul. But he gave me a feeling of vivid sadness, a sadness that gleamed +like phosphorescence. He himself was not sad. There was a completeness +about him, about the pallid otherworld he inhabited, which excluded +sadness. It was too complete, too final, too defined. There was no +yearning, no vague merging off into mistiness.... He was clear and fine +as semi-transparent rock, as a substance in moonlight. He seemed like a +crystal that has achieved its final shape and has nothing more +to achieve. + +That night he slept on the floor of the sitting-room. In the morning he +was gone. But a week after he came again, to graft the vines. + +All the morning and the afternoon he was among the vines, crouching +before them, cutting them back with his sharp, bright knife, amazingly +swift and sure, like a god. It filled me with a sort of panic to see him +crouched flexibly, like some strange animal god, doubled on his +haunches, before the young vines, and swiftly, vividly, without thought, +cut, cut, cut at the young budding shoots, which fell unheeded on to the +earth. Then again he strode with his curious half-goatlike movement +across the garden, to prepare the lime. + +He mixed the messy stuff, cow-dung and lime and water and earth, +carefully with his hands, as if he understood that too. He was not a +worker. He was a creature in intimate communion with the sensible world, +knowing purely by touch the limey mess he mixed amongst, knowing as if +by relation between that soft matter and the matter of himself. + +Then again he strode over the earth, a gleaming piece of earth himself, +moving to the young vines. Quickly, with a few clean cuts of the knife, +he prepared the new shoot, which he had picked out of a handful which +lay beside him on the ground; he went finely to the quick of the plant, +inserted the graft, then bound it up, fast, hard. + +It was like God grafting the life of man upon the body of the earth, +intimately conjuring with his own flesh. + +All the while Paolo stood by, somehow excluded from the mystery, talking +to me, to Faustino. And Il Duro answered easily, as if his mind were +disengaged. It was his senses that were absorbed in the sensible life of +the plant, and the lime and the cow-dung he handled. + +Watching him, watching his absorbed, bestial, and yet godlike crouching +before the plant, as if he were the god of lower life, I somehow +understood his isolation, why he did not marry. Pan and the ministers of +Pan do not marry, the sylvan gods. They are single and isolated in +their being. + +It is in the spirit that marriage takes place. In the flesh there is +connexion, but only in the spirit is there a new thing created out of +two different antithetic things. In the body I am conjoined with the +woman. But in the spirit my conjunction with her creates a third thing, +an absolute, a Word, which is neither me nor her, nor of me nor of her, +but which is absolute. + +And Faustino had none of this spirit. In him sensation itself was +absolute--not spiritual consummation, but physical sensation. So he +could not marry, it was not for him. He belonged to the god Pan, to the +absolute of the senses. + +All the while his beauty, so perfect and so defined, fascinated me, a +strange static perfection about him. But his movements, whilst they +fascinated, also repelled. I can always see him crouched before the +vines on his haunches, his haunches doubled together in a complete +animal unconsciousness, his face seeming in its strange golden pallor +and its hardness of line, with the gleaming black of the fine hair on +the brow and temples, like something reflective, like the reflecting +surface of a stone that gleams out of the depths of night. It was like +darkness revealed in its steady, unchanging pallor. + +Again he stayed through the evening, having quarrelled once more with +the Maria about money. He quarrelled violently, yet coldly. There was +something terrifying in it. And as soon as the matter of dispute was +settled, all trace of interest or feeling vanished from him. + +Yet he liked, above all things, to be near the English signori. They +seemed to exercise a sort of magnetic attraction over him. It was +something of the purely physical world, as a magnetized needle swings +towards soft iron. He was quite helpless in the relation. Only by +mechanical attraction he gravitated into line with us. + +But there was nothing between us except our complete difference. It was +like night and day flowing together. + + + +_7_ + +JOHN + + +Besides Il Duro, we found another Italian who could speak English, this +time quite well. We had walked about four or five miles up the lake, +getting higher and higher. Then quite suddenly, on the shoulder of a +bluff far up, we came on a village, icy cold, and as if forgotten. + +We went into the inn to drink something hot. The fire of olive sticks +was burning in the open chimney, one or two men were talking at a table, +a young woman with a baby stood by the fire watching something boil in a +large pot. Another woman was seen in the house-place beyond. + +In the chimney-seats sat a young mule-driver, who had left his two mules +at the door of the inn, and opposite him an elderly stout man. They got +down and offered us the seats of honour, which we accepted with +due courtesy. + +The chimneys are like the wide, open chimney-places of old English +cottages, but the hearth is raised about a foot and a half or two feet +from the floor, so that the fire is almost level with the hands; and +those who sit in the chimney-seats are raised above the audience in the +room, something like two gods flanking the fire, looking out of the cave +of ruddy darkness into the open, lower world of the room. + +We asked for coffee with milk and rum. The stout landlord took a seat +near us below. The comely young woman with the baby took the tin +coffee-pot that stood among the grey ashes, put in fresh coffee among +the old bottoms, filled it with water, then pushed it more into +the fire. + +The landlord turned to us with the usual naïve, curious deference, and +the usual question: + +'You are Germans?' + +'English.' + +'Ah--_Inglesi_.' + +Then there is a new note of cordiality--or so I always imagine--and the +rather rough, cattle-like men who are sitting with their wine round the +table look up more amicably. They do not like being intruded upon. Only +the landlord is always affable. + +'I have a son who speaks English,' he says: he is a handsome, courtly +old man, of the Falstaff sort. + +'Oh!' + +'He has been in America.' + +'And where is he now?' + +'He is at home. O--Nicoletta, where is the Giovann'?' + +The comely young woman with the baby came in. + +'He is with the band,' she said. + +The old landlord looked at her with pride. + +'This is my daughter-in-law,' he said. + +She smiled readily to the Signora. + +'And the baby?' we asked. + +'_Mio figlio_,' cried the young woman, in the strong, penetrating voice +of these women. And she came forward to show the child to the Signora. + +It was a bonny baby: the whole company was united in adoration and +service of the bambino. There was a moment of suspension, when religious +submission seemed to come over the inn-room. + +Then the Signora began to talk, and it broke upon the Italian +child-reverence. + +'What is he called?' + +'Oscare,' came the ringing note of pride. And the mother talked to the +baby in dialect. All, men and women alike, felt themselves glorified by +the presence of the child. + +At last the coffee in the tin coffee-pot was boiling and frothing out of +spout and lid. The milk in the little copper pan was also hot, among the +ashes. So we had our drink at last. + +The landlord was anxious for us to see Giovanni, his son. There was a +village band performing up the street, in front of the house of a +colonel who had come home wounded from Tripoli. Everybody in the village +was wildly proud about the colonel and about the brass band, the music +of which was execrable. + +We just looked into the street. The band of uncouth fellows was playing +the same tune over and over again before a desolate, newish house. A +crowd of desolate, forgotten villagers stood round in the cold upper +air. It seemed altogether that the place was forgotten by God and man. + +But the landlord, burly, courteous, handsome, pointed out with a +flourish the Giovanni, standing in the band playing a cornet. The band +itself consisted only of five men, rather like beggars in the street. +But Giovanni was the strangest! He was tall and thin and somewhat +German-looking, wearing shabby American clothes and a very high double +collar and a small American crush hat. He looked entirely like a +ne'er-do-well who plays a violin in the street, dressed in the most +down-at-heel, sordid respectability. + +'That is he--you see, Signore--the young one under the balcony.' + +The father spoke with love and pride, and the father was a gentleman, +like Falstaff, a pure gentleman. The daughter-in-law also peered out to +look at Il Giovann', who was evidently a figure of repute, in his +sordid, degenerate American respectability. Meanwhile, this figure of +repute blew himself red in the face, producing staccato strains on his +cornet. And the crowd stood desolate and forsaken in the cold, upper +afternoon. + +Then there was a sudden rugged '_Evviva, Evviva_!' from the people, the +band stopped playing, somebody valiantly broke into a line of the song: + + _Tripoli, sarà italiana, + Sarà italiana al rombo del cannon'._ + +The colonel had appeared on the balcony, a smallish man, very yellow in +the face, with grizzled black hair and very shabby legs. They all seemed +so sordidly, hopelessly shabby. + +He suddenly began to speak, leaning forward, hot and feverish and +yellow, upon the iron rail of the balcony. There was something hot and +marshy and sick about him, slightly repulsive, less than human. He told +his fellow-villagers how he loved them, how, when he lay uncovered on +the sands of Tripoli, week after week, he had known they were watching +him from the Alpine height of the village, he could feel that where he +was they were all looking. When the Arabs came rushing like things gone +mad, and he had received his wound, he had known that in his own +village, among his own dear ones, there was recovery. Love would heal +the wounds, the home country was a lover who would heal all her sons' +wounds with love. + +Among the grey desolate crowd were sharp, rending 'Bravos!'--the people +were in tears--the landlord at my side was repeating softly, +abstractedly: '_Caro--caro--Ettore, caro colonello_--' and when it was +finished, and the little colonel with shabby, humiliated legs was gone +in, he turned to me and said, with challenge that almost frightened me: + +'_Un brav' uomo_.' + +'_Bravissimo_,' I said. + +Then we, too, went indoors. + +It was all, somehow, grey and hopeless and acrid, unendurable. + +The colonel, poor devil--we knew him afterwards--is now dead. It is +strange that he is dead. There is something repulsive to me in the +thought of his lying dead: such a humiliating, somehow degraded corpse. +Death has no beauty in Italy, unless it be violent. The death of man or +woman through sickness is an occasion of horror, repulsive. They belong +entirely to life, they are so limited to life, these people. + +Soon the Giovanni came home, and took his cornet upstairs. Then he came +to see us. He was an ingenuous youth, sordidly shabby and dirty. His +fair hair was long and uneven, his very high starched collar made one +aware that his neck and his ears were not clean, his American crimson +tie was ugly, his clothes looked as if they had been kicking about on +the floor for a year. + +Yet his blue eyes were warm and his manner and speech very gentle. + +'You will speak English with us,' I said. + +'Oh,' he said, smiling and shaking his head, 'I could speak English very +well. But it is two years that I don't speak it now, over two years now, +so I don't speak it.' + +'But you speak it very well.' + +'No. It is two years that I have not spoke, not a word--so, you see, I +have--' + +'You have forgotten it? No, you haven't. It will quickly come back.' + +'If I hear it--when I go to America--then I shall--I shall--' + +'You will soon pick it up.' + +'Yes--I shall pick it up.' + +The landlord, who had been watching with pride, now went away. The wife +also went away, and we were left with the shy, gentle, dirty, and +frowsily-dressed Giovanni. + +He laughed in his sensitive, quick fashion. + +'The women in America, when they came into the store, they said, "Where +is John, where is John?" Yes, they liked me.' + +And he laughed again, glancing with vague, warm blue eyes, very shy, +very coiled upon himself with sensitiveness. + +He had managed a store in America, in a smallish town. I glanced at his +reddish, smooth, rather knuckly hands, and thin wrists in the frayed +cuff. They were real shopman's hands. + +The landlord brought some special feast-day cake, so overjoyed he was to +have his Giovanni speaking English with the Signoria. + +When we went away, we asked 'John' to come down to our villa to see us. +We scarcely expected him to turn up. + +Yet one morning he appeared, at about half past nine, just as we were +finishing breakfast. It was sunny and warm and beautiful, so we asked +him please to come with us picnicking. + +He was a queer shoot, again, in his unkempt longish hair and slovenly +clothes, a sort of very vulgar down-at-heel American in appearance. And +he was transported with shyness. Yet ours was the world he had chosen as +his own, so he took his place bravely and simply, a hanger-on. + +We climbed up the water-course in the mountain-side, up to a smooth +little lawn under the olive trees, where daisies were flowering and +gladioli were in bud. It was a tiny little lawn of grass in a level +crevice, and sitting there we had the world below us--the lake, the +distant island, the far-off low Verona shore. + +Then 'John' began to talk, and he talked continuously, like a foreigner, +not saying the things he would have said in Italian, but following the +suggestion and scope of his limited English. + +In the first place, he loved his father--it was 'my father, my father' +always. His father had a little shop as well as the inn in the village +above. So John had had some education. He had been sent to Brescia and +then to Verona to school, and there had taken his examinations to become +a civil engineer. He was clever, and could pass his examinations. But he +never finished his course. His mother died, and his father, +disconsolate, had wanted him at home. Then he had gone back, when he was +sixteen or seventeen, to the village beyond the lake, to be with his +father and to look after the shop. + +'But didn't you mind giving up all your work?' I said. + +He did not quite understand. + +'My father wanted me to come back,' he said. + +It was evident that Giovanni had had no definite conception of what he +was doing or what he wanted to do. His father, wishing to make a +gentleman of him, had sent him to school in Verona. By accident he had +been moved on into the engineering course. When it all fizzled to an +end, and he returned half-baked to the remote, desolate village of the +mountain-side, he was not disappointed or chagrined. He had never +conceived of a coherent purposive life. Either one stayed in the +village, like a lodged stone, or one made random excursions into the +world, across the world. It was all aimless and purposeless. + +So he had stayed a while with his father, then he had gone, just as +aimlessly, with a party of men who were emigrating to America. He had +taken some money, had drifted about, living in the most comfortless, +wretched fashion, then he had found a place somewhere in Pennsylvania, +in a dry goods store. This was when he was seventeen or eighteen +years old. + +All this seemed to have happened to him without his being very much +affected, at least consciously. His nature was simple and self-complete. +Yet not so self-complete as that of Il Duro or Paolo. They had passed +through the foreign world and been quite untouched. Their souls were +static, it was the world that had flowed unstable by. + +But John was more sensitive, he had come more into contact with his new +surroundings. He had attended night classes almost every evening, and +had been taught English like a child. He had loved the American free +school, the teachers, the work. + +But he had suffered very much in America. With his curious, +over-sensitive, wincing laugh, he told us how the boys had followed him +and jeered at him, calling after him, 'You damn Dago, you damn Dago.' +They had stopped him and his friend in the street and taken away their +hats, and spat into them. So that at last he had gone mad. They were +youths and men who always tortured him, using bad language which +startled us very much as he repeated it, there on the little lawn under +the olive trees, above the perfect lake: English obscenities and abuse +so coarse and startling that we bit our lips, shocked almost into +laughter, whilst John, simple and natural, and somehow, for all his long +hair and dirty appearance, flower-like in soul, repeated to us these +things which may never be repeated in decent company. + +'Oh,' he said, 'at last, I get mad. When they come one day, shouting, +"You damn Dago, dirty dog," and will take my hat again, oh, I get mad, +and I would kill them, I would kill them, I am so mad. I run to them, +and throw one to the floor, and I tread on him while I go upon another, +the biggest. Though they hit me and kick me all over, I feel nothing, I +am mad. I throw the biggest to the floor, a man; he is older than I am, +and I hit him so hard I would kill him. When the others see it they are +afraid, they throw stones and hit me on the face. But I don't feel it--I +don't know nothing. I hit the man on the floor, I almost kill him. I +forget everything except I will kill him--' + +'But you didn't?' + +'No--I don't know--' and he laughed his queer, shaken laugh. 'The other +man that was with me, my friend, he came to me and we went away. Oh, I +was mad. I was completely mad. I would have killed them.' + +He was trembling slightly, and his eyes were dilated with a strange +greyish-blue fire that was very painful and elemental. He looked beside +himself. But he was by no means mad. + +We were shaken by the vivid, lambent excitement of the youth, we wished +him to forget. We were shocked, too, in our souls to see the pure +elemental flame shaken out of his gentle, sensitive nature. By his +slight, crinkled laugh we could see how much he had suffered. He had +gone out and faced the world, and he had kept his place, stranger and +Dago though he was. + +'They never came after me no more, not all the while I was there.' + +Then he said he became the foreman in the store--at first he was only +assistant. It was the best store in the town, and many English ladies +came, and some Germans. He liked the English ladies very much: they +always wanted him to be in the store. He wore white clothes there, and +they would say: + +'You look very nice in the white coat, John'; or else: + +'Let John come, he can find it'; or else they said: + +'John speaks like a born American.' + +This pleased him very much. + +In the end, he said, he earned a hundred dollars a month. He lived with +the extraordinary frugality of the Italians, and had quite a lot +of money. + +He was not like Il Duro. Faustino had lived in a state of miserliness +almost in America, but then he had had his debauches of shows and wine +and carousals. John went chiefly to the schools, in one of which he was +even asked to teach Italian. His knowledge of his own language was +remarkable and most unusual! + +'But what,' I asked, 'brought you back?' + +'It was my father. You see, if I did not come to have my military +service, I must stay till I am forty. So I think perhaps my father will +be dead, I shall never see him. So I came.' + +He had come home when he was twenty to fulfil his military duties. At +home he had married. He was very fond of his wife, but he had no +conception of love in the old sense. His wife was like the past, to +which he was wedded. Out of her he begot his child, as out of the past. +But the future was all beyond her, apart from her. He was going away +again, now, to America. He had been some nine months at home after his +military service was over. He had no more to do. Now he was leaving his +wife and child and his father to go to America. + +'But why,' I said, 'why? You are not poor, you can manage the shop in +your village.' + +'Yes,' he said. 'But I will go to America. Perhaps I shall go into the +store again, the same.' + +'But is it not just the same as managing the shop at home?' + +'No--no--it is quite different.' + +Then he told us how he bought goods in Brescia and in Said for the shop +at home, how he had rigged up a funicular with the assistance of the +village, an overhead wire by which you could haul the goods up the face +of the cliffs right high up, to within a mile of the village. He was +very proud of this. And sometimes he himself went down the funicular to +the water's edge, to the boat, when he was in a hurry. This also +pleased him. + +But he was going to Brescia this day to see about going again to +America. Perhaps in another month he would be gone. + +It was a great puzzle to me why he would go. He could not say himself. +He would stay four or five years, then he would come home again to see +his father--and his wife and child. + +There was a strange, almost frightening destiny upon him, which seemed +to take him away, always away from home, from the past, to that great, +raw America. He seemed scarcely like a person with individual choice, +more like a creature under the influence of fate which was +disintegrating the old life and precipitating him, a fragment +inconclusive, into the new chaos. + +He submitted to it all with a perfect unquestioning simplicity, never +even knowing that he suffered, that he must suffer disintegration from +the old life. He was moved entirely from within, he never questioned his +inevitable impulse. + +'They say to me, "Don't go--don't go"--' he shook his head. 'But I say I +will go.' + +And at that it was finished. + +So we saw him off at the little quay, going down the lake. He would +return at evening, and be pulled up in his funicular basket. And in a +month's time he would be standing on the same lake steamer going +to America. + +Nothing was more painful than to see him standing there in his degraded, +sordid American clothes, on the deck of the steamer, waving us good-bye, +belonging in his final desire to our world, the world of consciousness +and deliberate action. With his candid, open, unquestioning face, he +seemed like a prisoner being conveyed from one form of life to another, +or like a soul in trajectory, that has not yet found a resting-place. + +What were wife and child to him?--they were the last steps of the past. +His father was the continent behind him; his wife and child the +foreshore of the past; but his face was set outwards, away from it +all--whither, neither he nor anybody knew, but he called it America. + + + + +_Italians in Exile_ + + +When I was in Constance the weather was misty and enervating and +depressing, it was no pleasure to travel on the big flat desolate lake. + +When I went from Constance, it was on a small steamer down the Rhine to +Schaffhausen. That was beautiful. Still, the mist hung over the waters, +over the wide shallows of the river, and the sun, coming through the +morning, made lovely yellow lights beneath the bluish haze, so that it +seemed like the beginning of the world. And there was a hawk in the +upper air fighting with two crows, or two rooks. Ever they rose higher +and higher, the crow flickering above the attacking hawk, the fight +going on like some strange symbol in the sky, the Germans on deck +watching with pleasure. + +Then we passed out of sight between wooded banks and under bridges where +quaint villages of old romance piled their red and coloured pointed +roofs beside the water, very still, remote, lost in the vagueness of the +past. It could not be that they were real. Even when the boat put in to +shore, and the customs officials came to look, the village remained +remote in the romantic past of High Germany, the Germany of fairy tales +and minstrels and craftsmen. The poignancy of the past was almost +unbearable, floating there in colour upon the haze of the river. + +We went by some swimmers, whose white shadowy bodies trembled near the +side of the steamer under water. One man with a round, fair head lifted +his face and one arm from the water and shouted a greeting to us, as if +he were a Niebelung, saluting with bright arm lifted from the water, his +face laughing, the fair moustache hanging over his mouth. Then his white +body swirled in the water, and he was gone, swimming with the +side stroke. + +Schaffhausen the town, half old and bygone, half modern, with breweries +and industries, that is not very real. Schaffhausen Falls, with their +factory in the midst and their hotel at the bottom, and the general +cinematograph effect, they are ugly. + +It was afternoon when I set out to walk from the Falls to Italy, across +Switzerland. I remember the big, fat, rather gloomy fields of this part +of Baden, damp and unliving. I remember I found some apples under a tree +in a field near a railway embankment, then some mushrooms, and I ate +both. Then I came on to a long, desolate high-road, with dreary, +withered trees on either side, and flanked by great fields where groups +of men and women were working. They looked at me as I went by down the +long, long road, alone and exposed and out of the world. + +I remember nobody came at the border village to examine my pack, I +passed through unchallenged. All was quiet and lifeless and hopeless, +with big stretches of heavy land. + +Till sunset came, very red and purple, and suddenly, from the heavy +spacious open land I dropped sharply into the Rhine valley again, +suddenly, as if into another glamorous world. + +There was the river rushing along between its high, mysterious, romantic +banks, which were high as hills, and covered with vine. And there was +the village of tall, quaint houses flickering its lights on to the +deep-flowing river, and quite silent, save for the rushing of water. + +There was a fine covered bridge, very dark. I went to the middle and +looked through the opening at the dark water below, at the façade of +square lights, the tall village-front towering remote and silent above +the river. The hill rose on either side the flood; down here was a +small, forgotten, wonderful world that belonged to the date of isolated +village communities and wandering minstrels. + +So I went back to the inn of The Golden Stag, and, climbing some steps, +I made a loud noise. A woman came, and I asked for food. She led me +through a room where were enormous barrels, ten feet in diameter, lying +fatly on their sides; then through a large stone-clean kitchen, with +bright pans, ancient as the Meistersinger; then up some steps and into +the long guest-room, where a few tables were laid for supper. + +A few people were eating. I asked for Abendessen, and sat by the window +looking at the darkness of the river below, the covered bridge, the dark +hill opposite, crested with its few lights. + +Then I ate a very large quantity of knoedel soup and bread, and drank +beer, and was very sleepy. Only one or two village men came in, and +these soon went again; the place was dead still. Only at a long table on +the opposite side of the room were seated seven or eight men, ragged, +disreputable, some impudent--another came in late; the landlady gave +them all thick soup with dumplings and bread and meat, serving them in a +sort of brief disapprobation. They sat at the long table, eight or nine +tramps and beggars and wanderers out of work and they ate with a sort of +cheerful callousness and brutality for the most part, and as if +ravenously, looking round and grinning sometimes, subdued, cowed, like +prisoners, and yet impudent. At the end one shouted to know where he was +to sleep. The landlady called to the young serving-woman, and in a +classic German severity of disapprobation they were led up the stone +stairs to their room. They tramped off in threes and twos, making a bad, +mean, humiliated exit. It was not yet eight o'clock. The landlady sat +talking to one bearded man, staid and severe, whilst, with her work on +the table, she sewed steadily. + +As the beggars and wanderers went slinking out of the room, some called +impudently, cheerfully: + +'_Nacht, Frau Wirtin--G'Nacht, Wirtin--'te Nacht, Frau_,' to all of +which the hostess answered a stereotyped '_Gute Nacht_,' never turning +her head from her sewing, or indicating by the faintest movement that +she was addressing the men who were filing raggedly to the doorway. + +So the room was empty, save for the landlady and her sewing, the staid, +elderly villager to whom she was talking in the unbeautiful dialect, and +the young serving-woman who was clearing away the plates and basins of +the tramps and beggars. + +Then the villager also went. + +'_Gute Nacht, Frau Seidl_,' to the landlady; '_Gute Nacht_,' at random, +to me. + +So I looked at the newspaper. Then I asked the landlady for a cigarette, +not knowing how else to begin. So she came to my table, and we talked. + +It pleased me to take upon myself a sort of romantic, wandering +character; she said my German was '_schön_'; a little goes a long way. + +So I asked her who were the men who had sat at the long table. She +became rather stiff and curt. + +'They are the men looking for work,' she said, as if the subject were +disagreeable. + +'But why do they come here, so many?' I asked. + +Then she told me that they were going out of the country: this was +almost the last village of the border: that the relieving officer in +each village was empowered to give to every vagrant a ticket entitling +the holder to an evening meal, bed, and bread in the morning, at a +certain inn. This was the inn for the vagrants coming to this village. +The landlady received fourpence per head, I believe it was, for each of +these wanderers. + +'Little enough,' I said. + +'Nothing,' she replied. + +She did not like the subject at all. Only her respect for me made her +answer. + +'_Bettler, Lumpen, und Taugenichtse!_' I said cheerfully. + +'And men who are out of work, and are going back to their own parish,' +she said stiffly. + +So we talked a little, and I too went to bed. + +'_Gute Nacht, Frau Wirtin._' + +'_Gute Nacht, mein Herr._' + +So I went up more and more stone stairs, attended by the young woman. It +was a great, lofty, old deserted house, with many drab doors. + +At last, in the distant topmost floor, I had my bedroom, with two beds +and bare floor and scant furniture. I looked down at the river far +below, at the covered bridge, at the far lights on the hill above, +opposite. Strange to be here in this lost, forgotten place, sleeping +under the roof with tramps and beggars. I debated whether they would +steal my boots if I put them out. But I risked it. The door-latch made a +loud noise on the deserted landing, everywhere felt abandoned, +forgotten. I wondered where the eight tramps and beggars were asleep. +There was no way of securing the door. But somehow I felt that, if I +were destined to be robbed or murdered, it would not be by tramps and +beggars. So I blew out the candle and lay under the big feather bed, +listening to the running and whispering of the medieval Rhine. + +And when I waked up again it was sunny, it was morning on the hill +opposite, though the river deep below ran in shadow. + +The tramps and beggars were all gone: they must be cleared out by seven +o'clock in the morning. So I had the inn to myself, I, and the landlady, +and the serving-woman. Everywhere was very clean, full of the German +morning energy and brightness, which is so different from the Latin +morning. The Italians are dead and torpid first thing, the Germans are +energetic and cheerful. + +It was cheerful in the sunny morning, looking down on the swift river, +the covered, picturesque bridge, the bank and the hill opposite. Then +down the curving road of the facing hill the Swiss cavalry came riding, +men in blue uniforms. I went out to watch them. They came thundering +romantically through the dark cavern of the roofed-in bridge, and they +dismounted at the entrance to the village. There was a fresh +morning-cheerful newness everywhere, in the arrival of the troops, in +the welcome of the villagers. + +The Swiss do not look very military, neither in accoutrement nor +bearing. This little squad of cavalry seemed more like a party of common +men riding out in some business of their own than like an army. They +were very republican and very free. The officer who commanded them was +one of themselves, his authority was by consent. + +It was all very pleasant and genuine; there was a sense of ease and +peacefulness, quite different from the mechanical, slightly sullen +manoeuvring of the Germans. + +The village baker and his assistant came hot and floury from the +bakehouse, bearing between them a great basket of fresh bread. The +cavalry were all dismounted by the bridge-head, eating and drinking like +business men. Villagers came to greet their friends: one soldier kissed +his father, who came wearing a leathern apron. The school bell +tang-tang-tanged from above, school children merged timidly through the +grouped horses, up the narrow street, passing unwillingly with their +books. The river ran swiftly, the soldiers, very haphazard and slack in +uniform, real shack-bags, chewed their bread in large mouthfuls; the +young lieutenant, who seemed to be an officer only by consent of the +men, stood apart by the bridge-head, gravely. They were all serious and +self-contented, very unglamorous. It was like a business excursion on +horseback, harmless and uninspiring. The uniforms were almost ludicrous, +so ill-fitting and casual. + +So I shouldered my own pack and set off, through the bridge over the +Rhine, and up the hill opposite. + +There is something very dead about this country. I remember I picked +apples from the grass by the roadside, and some were very sweet. But for +the rest, there was mile after mile of dead, uninspired +country--uninspired, so neutral and ordinary that it was almost +destructive. + +One gets this feeling always in Switzerland, except high up: this +feeling of average, of utter soulless ordinariness, something +intolerable. Mile after mile, to Zurich, it was just the same. It was +just the same in the tram-car going into Zurich; it was just the same in +the town, in the shops, in the restaurant. All was the utmost level of +ordinariness and well-being, but so ordinary that it was like a blight. +All the picturesqueness of the town is nothing, it is like a most +ordinary, average, usual person in an old costume. The place was +soul-killing. + +So after two hours' rest, eating in a restaurant, wandering by the quay +and through the market, and sitting on a seat by the lake, I found a +steamer that would take me away. That is how I always feel in +Switzerland: the only possible living sensation is the sensation of +relief in going away, always going away. The horrible average +ordinariness of it all, something utterly without flower or soul or +transcendence, the horrible vigorous ordinariness, is too much. + +So I went on a steamer down the long lake, surrounded by low grey hills. +It was Saturday afternoon. A thin rain came on. I thought I would rather +be in fiery Hell than in this dead level of average life. + +I landed somewhere on the right bank, about three-quarters of the way +down the lake. It was almost dark. Yet I must walk away. I climbed a +long hill from the lake, came to the crest, looked down the darkness of +the valley, and descended into the deep gloom, down into a +soulless village. + +But it was eight o'clock, and I had had enough. One might as well sleep. +I found the Gasthaus zur Post. + +It was a small, very rough inn, having only one common room, with bare +tables, and a short, stout, grim, rather surly landlady, and a landlord +whose hair stood up on end, and who was trembling on the edge of +delirium tremens. + +They could only give me boiled ham: so I ate boiled ham and drank beer, +and tried to digest the utter cold materialism of Switzerland. + +As I sat with my back to the wall, staring blankly at the trembling +landlord, who was ready at any moment to foam at the mouth, and at the +dour landlady, who was quite capable of keeping him in order, there came +in one of those dark, showy Italian girls with a man. She wore a blouse +and skirt, and no hat. Her hair was perfectly dressed. It was really +Italy. The man was soft, dark, he would get stout later, _trapu_, he +would have somewhat the figure of Caruso. But as yet he was soft, +sensuous, young, handsome. + +They sat at the long side-table with their beer, and created another +country at once within the room. Another Italian came, fair and fat and +slow, one from the Venetian province; then another, a little thin young +man, who might have been a Swiss save for his vivid movement. + +This last was the first to speak to the Germans. The others had just +said '_Bier._' But the little newcomer entered into a conversation with +the landlady. + +At last there were six Italians sitting talking loudly and warmly at the +side-table. The slow, cold German-Swiss at the other tables looked at +them occasionally. The landlord, with his crazed, stretched eyes, glared +at them with hatred. But they fetched their beer from the bar with easy +familiarity, and sat at their table, creating a bonfire of life in the +callousness of the inn. + +At last they finished their beer and trooped off down the passage. The +room was painfully empty. I did not know what to do. + +Then I heard the landlord yelling and screeching and snarling from the +kitchen at the back, for all the world like a mad dog. But the Swiss +Saturday evening customers at the other tables smoked on and talked in +their ugly dialect, without trouble. Then the landlady came in, and soon +after the landlord, he collarless, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, +showing his loose throat, and accentuating his round pot-belly. His +limbs were thin and feverish, the skin of his face hung loose, his eyes +glaring, his hands trembled. Then he sat down to talk to a crony. His +terrible appearance was a fiasco; nobody heeded him at all, only the +landlady was surly. + +From the back came loud noises of pleasure and excitement and banging +about. When the room door was opened I could see down the dark passage +opposite another lighted door. Then the fat, fair Italian came in for +more beer. + +'What is all the noise?' I asked the landlady at last. + +'It is the Italians,' she said. + +'What are they doing?' + +'They are doing a play.' + +'Where?' + +She jerked her head: 'In the room at the back.' + +'Can I go and look at them?' + +'I should think so.' + +The landlord glaringly watched me go out. I went down the stone passage +and found a great, half-lighted room that might be used to hold +meetings, with forms piled at the side. At one end was raised platform +or stage. And on this stage was a table and a lamp, and the Italians +grouped round the light, gesticulating and laughing. Their beer mugs +were on the table and on the floor of the stage; the little sharp youth +was intently looking over some papers, the others were bending over the +table with him. + +They looked up as I entered from the distance, looked at me in the +distant twilight of the dusky room, as if I were an intruder, as if I +should go away when I had seen them. But I said in German: + +'May I look?' + +They were still unwilling to see or to hear me. + +'What do you say?' the small one asked in reply. + +The others stood and watched, slightly at bay, like suspicious animals. + +'If I might come and look,' I said in German; then, feeling very +uncomfortable, in Italian: 'You are doing a drama, the landlady +told me.' + +The big empty room was behind me, dark, the little company of Italians +stood above me in the light of the lamp which was on the table. They all +watched with unseeing, unwilling looks: I was merely an intrusion. + +'We are only learning it,' said the small youth. + +They wanted me to go away. But I wanted to stay. + +'May I listen?' I said. 'I don't want to stay in there.' And I +indicated, with a movement of the head, the inn-room beyond. + +'Yes,' said the young intelligent man. 'But we are only reading our +parts.' + +They had all become more friendly to me, they accepted me. + +'You are a German?' asked one youth. + +'No--English.' + +'English? But do you live in Switzerland?' + +'No--I am walking to Italy.' + +'On foot?' + +They looked with wakened eyes. + +'Yes.' + +So I told them about my journey. They were puzzled. They did not quite +understand why I wanted to walk. But they were delighted with the idea +of going to Lugano and Como and then to Milan. + +'Where do you come from?' I asked them. + +They were all from the villages between Verona and Venice. They had seen +the Garda. I told them of my living there. + +'Those peasants of the mountains,' they said at once, 'they are people +of little education. Rather wild folk.' + +And they spoke with good-humoured contempt. + +I thought of Paolo, and Il Duro, and the Signor Pietro, our padrone, and +I resented these factory-hands for criticizing them. + +So I sat on the edge of the stage whilst they rehearsed their parts. The +little thin intelligent fellow, Giuseppino, was the leader. The others +read their parts in the laborious, disjointed fashion of the peasant, +who can only see one word at a time, and has then to put the words +together, afterwards, to make sense. The play was an amateur melodrama, +printed in little penny booklets, for carnival production. This was only +the second reading they had given it, and the handsome, dark fellow, who +was roused and displaying himself before the girl, a hard, erect piece +of callousness, laughed and flushed and stumbled, and understood nothing +till it was transferred into him direct through Giuseppino. The fat, +fair, slow man was more conscientious. He laboured through his part. The +other two men were in the background more or less. + +The most confidential was the fat, fair, slow man, who was called +Alberto. His part was not very important, so he could sit by me and +talk to me. + +He said they were all workers in the factory--silk, I think it was--in +the village. They were a whole colony of Italians, thirty or more +families. They had all come at different times. + +Giuseppino had been longest in the village. He had come when he was +eleven, with his parents, and had attended the Swiss school. So he spoke +perfect German. He was a clever man, was married, and had two children. + +He himself, Alberto, had been seven years in the valley; the girl, la +Maddelena, had been here ten years; the dark man, Alfredo, who was +flushed with excitement of her, had been in the village about nine +years--he alone of all men was not married. + +The others had all married Italian wives, and they lived in the great +dwelling whose windows shone yellow by the rattling factory. They lived +entirely among themselves; none of them could speak German, more than a +few words, except the Giuseppino, who was like a native here. + +It was very strange being among these Italians exiled in Switzerland. +Alfredo, the dark one, the unmarried, was in the old tradition. Yet even +he was curiously subject to a new purpose, as if there were some greater +new will that included him, sensuous, mindless as he was. He seemed to +give his consent to something beyond himself. In this he was different +from Il Duro, in that he had put himself under the control of the +outside conception. + +It was strange to watch them on the stage, the Italians all lambent, +soft, warm, sensuous, yet moving subject round Giuseppino, who was +always quiet, always ready, always impersonal. There was a look of +purpose, almost of devotion on his face, that singled him out and made +him seem the one stable, eternal being among them. They quarrelled, and +he let them quarrel up to a certain point; then he called them back. He +let them do as they liked so long as they adhered more or less to the +central purpose, so long as they got on in some measure with the play. + +All the while they were drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. The +Alberto was barman: he went out continually with the glasses. The +Maddelena had a small glass. In the lamplight of the stage the little +party read and smoked and practised, exposed to the empty darkness of +the big room. Queer and isolated it seemed, a tiny, pathetic magicland +far away from the barrenness of Switzerland. I could believe in the old +fairy-tales where, when the rock was opened, a magic underworld +was revealed. + +The Alfredo, flushed, roused, handsome, but very soft and enveloping in +his heat, laughed and threw himself into his pose, laughed foolishly, +and then gave himself up to his part. The Alberto, slow and laborious, +yet with a spark of vividness and natural intensity flashing through, +replied and gesticulated; the Maddelena laid her head on the bosom of +Alfredo, the other men started into action, and the play proceeded +intently for half an hour. + +Quick, vivid, and sharp, the little Giuseppino was always central. But +he seemed almost invisible. When I think back, I can scarcely see him, I +can only see the others, the lamplight on their faces and on their full +gesticulating limbs. I can see--the Maddelena, rather coarse and hard +and repellent, declaiming her words in a loud, half-cynical voice, +falling on the breast of the Alfredo, who was soft and sensuous, more +like a female, flushing, with his mouth getting wet, his eyes moist, as +he was roused. I can see the Alberto, slow, laboured, yet with a kind of +pristine simplicity in all his movements, that touched his fat +commonplaceness with beauty. Then there were the two other men, shy, +inflammable, unintelligent, with their sudden Italian rushes of hot +feeling. All their faces are distinct in the lamplight, all their bodies +ate palpable and dramatic. + +But the face of the Giuseppino is like a pale luminousness, a sort of +gleam among all the ruddy glow, his body is evanescent, like a shadow. +And his being seemed to cast its influence over all the others, except +perhaps the woman, who was hard and resistant. The other men seemed all +overcast, mitigated, in part transfigured by the will of the little +leader. But they were very soft stuff, if inflammable. + +The young woman of the inn, niece of the landlady, came down and called +out across the room. + +'We will go away from here now,' said the Giuseppino to me. 'They close +at eleven. But we have another inn in the next parish that is open all +night. Come with us and drink some wine.' + +'But,' I said, 'you would rather be alone.' + +No; they pressed me to go, they wanted me to go with them, they were +eager, they wanted to entertain me. Alfredo, flushed, wet-mouthed, warm, +protested I must drink wine, the real Italian red wine, from their own +village at home. They would have no nay. + +So I told the landlady. She said I must be back by twelve o'clock. + +The night was very dark. Below the road the stream was rushing; there +was a great factory on the other side of the water, making faint +quivering lights of reflection, and one could see the working of +machinery shadowy through the lighted windows. Near by was the tall +tenement where the Italians lived. + +We went on through the straggling, raw village, deep beside the stream, +then over the small bridge, and up the steep hill down which I had come +earlier in the evening. + +So we arrived at the café. It was so different inside from the German +inn, yet it was not like an Italian café either. It was brilliantly +lighted, clean, new, and there were red-and-white cloths on the tables. +The host was in the room, and his daughter, a beautiful red-haired girl. + +Greetings were exchanged with the quick, intimate directness of Italy. +But there was another note also, a faint echo of reserve, as though they +reserved themselves from the outer world, making a special inner +community. + +Alfredo was hot: he took off his coat. We all sat freely at a long +table, whilst the red-haired girl brought a quart of red wine. At other +tables men were playing cards, with the odd Neapolitan cards. They too +were talking Italian. It was a warm, ruddy bit of Italy within the cold +darkness of Switzerland. + +'When you come to Italy,' they said to me, 'salute it from us, salute +the sun, and the earth, _l'Italia_.' + +So we drank in salute of Italy. They sent their greeting by me. + +'You know in Italy there is the sun, the sun,' said Alfredo to me, +profoundly moved, wet-mouthed, tipsy. + +I was reminded of Enrico Persevalli and his terrifying cry at the end of +_Ghosts_: + +'_Il sole, il sole!_' + +So we talked for a while of Italy. They had a pained tenderness for it, +sad, reserved. + +'Don't you want to go back?' I said, pressing them to tell me +definitely. 'Won't you go back some time?' + +'Yes,' they said, 'we will go back.' + +But they spoke reservedly, without freedom. We talked about Italy, about +songs, and Carnival; about the food, polenta, and salt. They laughed at +my pretending to cut the slabs of polenta with a string: that rejoiced +them all: it took them back to the Italian mezzo-giorno, the bells +jangling in the campanile, the eating after the heavy work on the land. + +But they laughed with the slight pain and contempt and fondness which +every man feels towards his past, when he has struggled away from that +past, from the conditions which made it. + +They loved Italy passionately; but they would not go back. All their +blood, all their senses were Italian, needed the Italian sky, the +speech, the sensuous life. They could hardly live except through the +senses. Their minds were not developed, mentally they were children, +lovable, naïve, almost fragile children. But sensually they were men: +sensually they were accomplished. + +Yet a new tiny flower was struggling to open in them, the flower of a +new spirit. The substratum of Italy has always been pagan, sensuous, the +most potent symbol the sexual symbol. The child is really a +non-Christian symbol: it is the symbol of mans's triumph of eternal life +in procreation. The worship of the Cross never really held good in +Italy. The Christianity of Northern Europe has never had any +place there. + +And now, when Northern Europe is turning back on its own Christianity, +denying it all, the Italians are struggling with might and main against +the sensuous spirit which still dominates them. When Northern Europe, +whether it hates Nietzsche or not, is crying out for the Dionysic +ecstasy, practising on itself the Dionysic ecstasy, Southern Europe is +breaking free from Dionysus, from the triumphal affirmation of life over +death, immortality through procreation. + +I could see these sons of Italy would never go back. Men like Paolo and +Il Duro broke away only to return. The dominance of the old form was too +strong for them. Call it love of country or love of the village, +campanilismo, or what not, it was the dominance of the old pagan form, +the old affirmation of immortality through procreation, as opposed to +the Christian affirmation of immortality through self-death and +social love. + +But 'John' and these Italians in Switzerland were a generation younger, +and they would not go back, at least not to the old Italy. Suffer as +they might, and they did suffer, wincing in every nerve and fibre from +the cold material insentience of the northern countries and of America, +still they would endure this for the sake of something else they wanted. +They would suffer a death in the flesh, as 'John' had suffered in +fighting the street crowd, as these men suffered year after year cramped +in their black gloomy cold Swiss valley, working in the factory. But +there would come a new spirit out of it. + +Even Alfredo was submitted to the new process; though he belonged +entirely by nature to the sort of Il Duro, he was purely sensuous and +mindless. But under the influence of Giuseppino he was thrown down, as +fallow to the new spirit that would come. + +And then, when the others were all partially tipsy, the Giuseppino began +to talk to me. In him was a steady flame burning, burning, burning, a +flame of the mind, of the spirit, something new and clear, something +that held even the soft, sensuous Alfredo in submission, besides all the +others, who had some little development of mind. + +'_Sa signore_,' said the Giuseppino to me, quiet, almost invisible or +inaudible, as it seemed, like a spirit addressing me, '_l'uomo non ha +patria_--a man has no country. What has the Italian Government to do +with us. What does a Government mean? It makes us work, it takes part of +our wages away from us, it makes us soldiers--and what for? What is +government for?' + +'Have you been a soldier?' I interrupted him. + +He had not, none of them had: that was why they could not really go back +to Italy. Now this was out; this explained partly their curious +reservation in speaking about their beloved country. They had forfeited +parents as well as homeland. + +'What does the Government do? It takes taxes; it has an army and police, +and it makes roads. But we could do without an army, and we could be our +own police, and we could make our own roads. What is this Government? +Who wants it? Only those who are unjust, and want to have advantage over +somebody else. It is an instrument of injustice and of wrong. + +'Why should we have a Government? Here, in this village, there are +thirty families of Italians. There is no government for them, no Italian +Government. And we live together better than in Italy. We are richer and +freer, we have no policemen, no poor laws. We help each other, and there +are no poor. + +'Why are these Governments always doing what we don't want them to do? +We should not be fighting in the Cirenaica if we were all Italians. It +is the Government that does it. They talk and talk and do things with +us: but we don't want them.' + +The others, tipsy, sat round the table with the terrified gravity of +children who are somehow responsible for things they do not understand. +They stirred in their seats, turning aside, with gestures almost of +pain, of imprisonment. Only Alfredo, laying his hand on mine, was +laughing, loosely, floridly. He would upset all the Government with a +jerk of his well-built shoulder, and then he would have a spree--such a +spree. He laughed wetly to me. + +The Giuseppino waited patiently during this tipsy confidence, but his +pale clarity and beauty was something constant star-like in comparison +with the flushed, soft handsomeness of the other. He waited patiently, +looking at me. + +But I did not want him to go on: I did not want to answer. I could feel +a new spirit in him, something strange and pure and slightly +frightening. He wanted something which was beyond me. And my soul was +somewhere in tears, crying helplessly like an infant in the night. I +could not respond: I could not answer. He seemed to look at me, me, an +Englishman, an educated man, for corroboration. But I could not +corroborate him. I knew the purity and new struggling towards birth of a +true star-like spirit. But I could not confirm him in his utterance: my +soul could not respond. I did not believe in the perfectibility of man. +I did not believe in infinite harmony among men. And this was his star, +this belief. + +It was nearly midnight. A Swiss came in and asked for beer. The Italians +gathered round them a curious darkness of reserve. And then I must go. + +They shook hands with me warmly, truthfully, putting a sort of implicit +belief in me, as representative of some further knowledge. But there was +a fixed, calm resolve over the face of the Giuseppino, a sort of steady +faith, even in disappointment. He gave me a copy of a little Anarchist +paper published in Geneva. _L'Anarchista_, I believe it was called. I +glanced at it. It was in Italian, naïve, simple, rather rhetorical. So +they were all Anarchists, these Italians. + +I ran down the hill in the thick Swiss darkness to the little bridge, +and along the uneven cobbled street. I did not want to think, I did not +want to know. I wanted to arrest my activity, to keep it confined to the +moment, to the adventure. + +When I came to the flight of stone steps which led up to the door of the +inn, at the side I saw in the darkness two figures. They said a low good +night and parted; the girl began to knock at the door, the man +disappeared. It was the niece of the landlady parting from her lover. + +We waited outside the locked door, at the top of the stone steps, in the +darkness of midnight. The stream rustled below. Then came a shouting and +an insane snarling within the passage; the bolts were not withdrawn. + +'It is the gentleman, it is the strange gentleman,' called the girl. + +Then came again the furious shouting snarls, and the landlord's mad +voice: + +'Stop out, stop out there. The door won't be opened again.' + +'The strange gentleman is here,' repeated the girl. + +Then more movement was heard, and the door was suddenly opened, and the +landlord rushed out upon us, wielding a broom. It was a strange sight, +in the half-lighted passage. I stared blankly in the doorway. The +landlord dropped the broom he was waving and collapsed as if by magic, +looking at me, though he continued to mutter madly, unintelligibly. The +girl slipped past me, and the landlord snarled. Then he picked up the +brush, at the same time crying: + +'You are late, the door was shut, it will not be opened. We shall have +the police in the house. We said twelve o'clock; at twelve o'clock the +door must be shut, and must not be opened again. If you are late you +stay out--' + +So he went snarling, his voice rising higher and higher, away into the +kitchen. + +'You are coming to your room?' the landlady said to me coldly. And she +led me upstairs. + +The room was over the road, clean, but rather ugly, with a large tin, +that had once contained lard or Swiss-milk, to wash in. But the bed was +good enough, which was all that mattered. + +I heard the landlord yelling, and there was a long and systematic +thumping somewhere, thump, thump, thump, and banging. I wondered where +it was. I could not locate it at all, because my room lay beyond another +large room: I had to go through a large room, by the foot of two beds, +to get to my door; so I could not quite tell where anything was. + +But I went to sleep whilst I was wondering. + +I woke in the morning and washed in the tin. I could see a few people in +the street, walking in the Sunday morning leisure. It felt like Sunday +in England, and I shrank from it. I could see none of the Italians. The +factory stood there, raw and large and sombre, by the stream, and the +drab-coloured stone tenements were close by. Otherwise the village was a +straggling Swiss street, almost untouched. + +The landlord was quiet and reasonable, even friendly, in the morning. He +wanted to talk to me: where had I bought my boots, was his first +question. I told him in Munich. And how much had they cost? I told him +twenty-eight marks. He was much impressed by them: such good boots, of +such soft, strong, beautiful leather; he had not seen such boots for a +long time. + +Then I knew it was he who had cleaned my boots. I could see him +fingering them and wondering over them. I rather liked him. I could see +he had had imagination once, and a certain fineness of nature. Now he +was corrupted with drink, too far gone to be even a human being. I hated +the village. + +They set bread and butter and a piece of cheese weighing about five +pounds, and large, fresh, sweet cakes for breakfast. I ate and was +thankful: the food was good. + +A couple of village youths came in, in their Sunday clothes. They had +the Sunday stiffness. It reminded me of the stiffness and curious +self-consciousness that comes over life in England on a Sunday. But the +Landlord sat with his waistcoat hanging open over his shirt, +pot-bellied, his ruined face leaning forward, talking, always talking, +wanting to know. + +So in a few minutes I was out on the road again, thanking God for the +blessing of a road that belongs to no man, and travels away from +all men. + +I did not want to see the Italians. Something had got tied up in me, and +I could not bear to see them again. I liked them so much; but, for some +reason or other, my mind stopped like clockwork if I wanted to think of +them and of what their lives would be, their future. It was as if some +curious negative magnetism arrested my mind, prevented it from working, +the moment I turned it towards these Italians. + +I do not know why it was. But I could never write to them, or think of +them, or even read the paper they gave me though it lay in my drawer for +months, in Italy, and I often glanced over six lines of it. And often, +often my mind went back to the group, the play they were rehearsing, the +wine in the pleasant café, and the night. But the moment my memory +touched them, my whole soul stopped and was null; I could not go on. +Even now I cannot really consider them in thought. + +I shrink involuntarily away. I do not know why this is. + + + + +_The Return Journey_ + + +When one walks, one must travel west or south. If one turns northward or +eastward it is like walking down a cul-de-sac, to the blind end. + +So it has been since the Crusaders came home satiated, and the +Renaissance saw the western sky as an archway into the future. So it is +still. We must go westwards and southwards. + +It is a sad and gloomy thing to travel even from Italy into France. But +it is a joyful thing to walk south to Italy, south and west. It is so. +And there is a certain exaltation in the thought of going west, even to +Cornwall, to Ireland. It is as if the magnetic poles were south-west and +north-east, for our spirits, with the south-west, under the sunset, as +the positive pole. So whilst I walk through Switzerland, though it is a +valley of gloom and depression, a light seems to flash out under every +footstep, with the joy of progression. + +It was Sunday morning when I left the valley where the Italians lived. I +went quickly over the stream, heading for Lucerne. It was a good thing +to be out of doors, with one's pack on one's back, climbing uphill. But +the trees were thick by the roadside; I was not yet free. It was Sunday +morning, very still. + +In two hours I was at the top of the hill, looking out over the +intervening valley at the long lake of Zurich, spread there beyond with +its girdle of low hills, like a relief-map. I could not bear to look at +it, it was so small and unreal. I had a feeling as if it were false, a +large relief-map that I was looking down upon, and which I wanted to +smash. It seemed to intervene between me and some reality. I could not +believe that that was the real world. It was a figment, a fabrication, +like a dull landscape painted on a wall, to hide the real landscape. + +So I went on, over to the other side of the hill, and I looked out +again. Again there were the smoky-looking hills and the lake like a +piece of looking-glass. But the hills were higher: that big one was the +Rigi. I set off down the hill. + +There was fat agricultural land and several villages. And church was +over. The churchgoers were all coming home: men in black broadcloth and +old chimney-pot silk hats, carrying their umbrellas; women in ugly +dresses, carrying books and umbrellas. The streets were dotted with +these black-clothed men and stiff women, all reduced to a Sunday +nullity. I hated it. It reminded me of that which I knew in my boyhood, +that stiff, null 'propriety' which used to come over us, like a sort of +deliberate and self-inflicted cramp, on Sundays. I hated these elders in +black broadcloth, with their neutral faces, going home piously to their +Sunday dinners. I hated the feeling of these villages, comfortable, +well-to-do, clean, and proper. + +And my boot was chafing two of my toes. That always happens. I had come +down to a wide, shallow valley-bed, marshy. So about a mile out of the +village I sat down by a stone bridge, by a stream, and tore up my +handkerchief, and bound up the toes. And as I sat binding my toes, two +of the elders in black, with umbrellas under their arms, approached from +the direction of the village. + +They made me so furious, I had to hasten to fasten my boot, to hurry on +again, before they should come near me. I could not bear the way they +walked and talked, so crambling and material and mealy-mouthed. + +Then it did actually begin to rain. I was just going down a short hill. +So I sat under a bush and watched the trees drip. I was so glad to be +there, homeless, without place or belonging, crouching under the leaves +in the copse by the road, that I felt I had, like the meek, inherited +the earth. Some men went by, with their coat-collars turned up, and the +rain making still blacker their black broadcloth shoulders. They did not +see me. I was as safe and separate as a ghost. So I ate the remains of +my food that I had bought in Zurich, and waited for the rain. + +Later, in the wet Sunday afternoon, I went on to the little lake, past +many inert, neutral, material people, down an ugly road where trams ran. +The blight of Sunday was almost intolerable near the town. + +So on I went, by the side of the steamy, reedy lake, walking the length +of it. Then suddenly I went in to a little villa by the water for tea. +In Switzerland every house is a villa. + +But this villa, was kept by two old ladies and a delicate dog, who must +not get his feet wet. I was very happy there. I had good jam and strange +honey-cakes for tea, that I liked, and the little old ladies pattered +round in a great stir, always whirling like two dry leaves after the +restless dog. + +'Why must he not go out?' I said. + +'Because it is wet,' they answered, 'and he coughs and sneezes.' + +'Without a handkerchief, that is not _angenehm_' I said. + +So we became bosom friends. + +'You are Austrian?' they said to me. + +I said I was from Graz; that my father was a doctor in Graz, and that I +was walking for my pleasure through the countries of Europe. + +I said this because I knew a doctor from Graz who was always wandering +about, and because I did not want to be myself, an Englishman, to these +two old ladies. I wanted to be something else. So we exchanged +confidences. + +They told me, in their queer, old, toothless fashion, about their +visitors, a man who used to fish all day, every day for three weeks, +fish every hour of the day, though many a day he caught nothing--nothing +at all--still he fished from the boat; and so on, such trivialities. +Then they told me of a third sister who had died, a third little old +lady. One could feel the gap in the house. They cried; and I, being an +Austrian from Graz, to my astonishment felt my tears slip over on to the +table. I also _was_ sorry, and I would have kissed the little old ladies +to comfort them. + +'Only in heaven it is warm, and it doesn't rain, and no one dies,' I +said, looking at the wet leaves. + +Then I went away. I would have stayed the night at this house: I wanted +to. But I had developed my Austrian character too far. + +So I went on to a detestable brutal inn in the town. And the next day I +climbed over the back of the detestable Rigi, with its vile hotel, to +come to Lucerne. There, on the Rigi, I met a lost young Frenchman who +could speak no German, and who said he could not find people to speak +French. So we sat on a stone and became close friends, and I promised +faithfully to go and visit him in his barracks in Algiers: I was to sail +from Naples to Algiers. He wrote me the address on his card, and told me +he had friends in the regiment, to whom I should be introduced, and we +could have a good time, if I would stay a week or two, down there +in Algiers. + +How much more real Algiers was than the rock on the Rigi where we sat, +or the lake beneath, or the mountains beyond. Algiers is very real, +though I have never seen it, and my friend is my friend for ever, though +I have lost his card and forgotten his name. He was a Government clerk +from Lyons, making this his first foreign tour before he began his +military service. He showed me his 'circular excursion ticket'. Then at +last we parted, for he must get to the top of the Rigi, and I must get +to the bottom. + +Lucerne and its lake were as irritating as ever--like the wrapper round +milk chocolate. I could not sleep even one night there: I took the +steamer down the lake, to the very last station. There I found a good +German inn, and was happy. + +There was a tall thin young man, whose face was red and inflamed from +the sun. I thought he was a German tourist. He had just come in; and he +was eating bread and milk. He and I were alone in the eating-room. He +was looking at an illustrated paper. + +'Does the steamer stop here all night?' I asked him in German, hearing +the boat bustling and blowing her steam on the water outside, and +glancing round at her lights, red and white, in the pitch darkness. + +He only shook his head over his bread and milk, and did not lift his +face. + +'Are you English, then?' I said. + +No one but an Englishman would have hidden his face in a bowl of milk, +and have shaken his red ears in such painful confusion. + +'Yes,' he said, 'I am.' + +And I started almost out of my skin at the unexpected London accent. It +was as if one suddenly found oneself in the Tube. + +'So am I,' I said. 'Where have you come from?' + +Then he began, like a general explaining his plans, to tell me. He had +walked round over the Furka Pass, had been on foot four or five days. He +had walked tremendously. Knowing no German, and nothing of the +mountains, he had set off alone on this tour: he had a fortnight's +holiday. So he had come over the Rhône Glacier across the Furka and down +from Andermatt to the Lake. On this last day he had walked about thirty +mountain miles. + +'But weren't you tired?' I said, aghast. + +He was. Under the inflamed redness of his sun- and wind- and snow-burned +face he was sick with fatigue. He had done over a hundred miles in the +last four days. + +'Did you enjoy it?' I asked. + +'Oh yes. I wanted to do it all.' He wanted to do it, and he _had_ done +it. But God knows what he wanted to do it for. He had now one day at +Lucerne, one day at Interlaken and Berne, then London. + +I was sorry for him in my soul, he was so cruelly tired, so perishingly +victorious. + +'Why did you do so much?' I said. 'Why did you come on foot all down the +valley when you could have taken the train? Was it worth it?' + +'I think so,' he said. + +Yet he was sick with fatigue and over-exhaustion. His eyes were quite +dark, sightless: he seemed to have lost the power of seeing, to be +virtually blind. He hung his head forward when he had to write a post +card, as if he felt his way. But he turned his post card so that I +should not see to whom it was addressed; not that I was interested; only +I noticed his little, cautious, English movement of privacy. + +'What time will you be going on?' I asked. + +'When is the first steamer?' he said, and he turned out a guide-book +with a time-table. He would leave at about seven. + +'But why so early?' I said to him. + +He must be in Lucerne at a certain hour, and at Interlaken in the +evening. + +'I suppose you will rest when you get to London?' I said. + +He looked at me quickly, reservedly. + +I was drinking beer: I asked him wouldn't he have something. He thought +a moment, then said he would have another glass of hot milk. The +landlord came--'And bread?' he asked. + +The Englishman refused. He could not eat, really. Also he was poor; he +had to husband his money. The landlord brought the milk and asked me, +when would the gentleman want to go away. So I made arrangements between +the landlord and the stranger. But the Englishman was slightly +uncomfortable at my intervention. He did not like me to know what he +would have for breakfast. + +I could feel so well the machine that had him in its grip. He slaved for +a year, mechanically, in London, riding in the Tube, working in the +office. Then for a fortnight he was let free. So he rushed to +Switzerland, with a tour planned out, and with just enough money to see +him through, and to buy presents at Interlaken: bits of the edelweiss +pottery: I could see him going home with them. + +So he arrived, and with amazing, pathetic courage set forth on foot in a +strange land, to face strange landlords, with no language but English at +his command, and his purse definitely limited. Yet he wanted to go among +the mountains, to cross a glacier. So he had walked on and on, like one +possessed, ever forward. His name might have been Excelsior, indeed. + +But then, when he reached his Furka, only to walk along the ridge and to +descend on the same side! My God, it was killing to the soul. And here +he was, down again from the mountains, beginning his journey home again: +steamer and train and steamer and train and Tube, till he was back in +the machine. + +It hadn't let him go, and he knew it. Hence his cruel self-torture of +fatigue, his cruel exercise of courage. He who hung his head in his milk +in torment when I asked him a question in German, what courage had he +not needed to take this his very first trip out of England, alone, +on foot! + +His eyes were dark and deep with unfathomable courage. Yet he was going +back in the morning. He was going back. All he had courage for was to go +back. He would go back, though he died by inches. Why not? It was +killing him, it was like living loaded with irons. But he had the +courage to submit, to die that way, since it was the way allotted +to him. + +The way he sank on the table in exhaustion, drinking his milk, his will, +nevertheless, so perfect and unblemished, triumphant, though his body +was broken and in anguish, was almost too much to bear. My heart was +wrung for my countryman, wrung till it bled. + +I could not bear to understand my countryman, a man who worked for his +living, as I had worked, as nearly all my countrymen work. He would not +give in. On his holiday he would walk, to fulfil his purpose, walk on; +no matter how cruel the effort were, he would not rest, he would not +relinquish his purpose nor abate his will, not by one jot or tittle. His +body must pay whatever his will demanded, though it were torture. + +It all seemed to me so foolish. I was almost in tears. He went to bed. I +walked by the dark lake, and talked to the girl in the inn. She was a +pleasant girl: it was a pleasant inn, a homely place. One could be +happy there. + +In the morning it was sunny, the lake was blue. By night I should be +nearly at the crest of my journey. I was glad. + +The Englishman had gone. I looked for his name in the book. It was +written in a fair, clerkly hand. He lived at Streatham. Suddenly I hated +him. The dogged fool, to keep his nose on the grindstone like that. What +was all his courage but the very tip-top of cowardice? What a vile +nature--almost Sadish, proud, like the infamous Red Indians, of being +able to stand torture. + +The landlord came to talk to me. He was fat and comfortable and too +respectful. But I had to tell him all the Englishman had done, in the +way of a holiday, just to shame his own fat, ponderous, inn-keeper's +luxuriousness that was too gross. Then all I got out of his enormous +comfortableness was: + +'Yes, that's a _very_ long step to take.' + +So I set off myself, up the valley between the close, snow-topped +mountains, whose white gleamed above me as I crawled, small as an +insect, along the dark, cold valley below. + +There had been a cattle fair earlier in the morning, so troops of cattle +were roving down the road, some with bells tang-tanging, all with soft +faces and startled eyes and a sudden swerving of horns. The grass was +very green by the roads and by the streams; the shadows of the mountain +slopes were very dark on either hand overhead, and the sky with snowy +flanks and tips was high up. + +Here, away from the world, the villages were quiet and obscure--left +behind. They had the same fascinating atmosphere of being forgotten, +left out of the world, that old English villages have. And buying apples +and cheese and bread in a little shop that sold everything and smelled +of everything, I felt at home again. + +But climbing gradually higher, mile after mile, always between the +shadows of the high mountains, I was glad I did not live in the Alps. +The villages on the slopes, the people there, seemed, as if they _must_ +gradually, bit by bit, slide down and tumble to the water-course, and be +rolled on away, away to the sea. Straggling, haphazard little villages +ledged on the slope, high up, beside their wet, green, hanging meadows, +with pine trees behind and the valley bottom far below, and rocks right +above, on both sides, seemed like little temporary squattings of outcast +people. It seemed impossible that they should persist there, with great +shadows wielded over them, like a menace, and gleams of brief sunshine, +like a window. There was a sense of momentariness and expectation. It +seemed as though some dramatic upheaval must take place, the mountains +fall down into their own shadows. The valley beds were like deep graves, +the sides of the mountains like the collapsing walls of a grave. The +very mountain-tops above, bright with transcendent snow, seemed like +death, eternal death. + +There, it seemed, in the glamorous snow, was the source of death, which +fell down in great waves of shadow and rock, rushing to the level earth. +And all the people of the mountains, on the slopes, in the valleys, +seemed to live upon this great, rushing wave of death, of breaking-down, +of destruction. + +The very pure source of breaking-down, decomposition, the very quick of +cold death, is the snowy mountain-peak above. There, eternally, goes on +the white foregathering of the crystals, out of the deathly cold of the +heavens; this is the static nucleus where death meets life in its +elementality. And thence, from their white, radiant nucleus of death in +life, flows the great flux downwards, towards life and warmth. And we +below, we cannot think of the flux upwards, that flows from the +needle-point of snow to the unutterable cold and death. + +The people under the mountains, they seem to live in the flux of death, +the last, strange, overshadowed units of life. Big shadows wave over +them, there is the eternal noise of water falling icily downwards from +the source of death overhead. + +And the people under the shadows, dwelling in the tang of snow and the +noise of icy water, seem dark, almost sordid, brutal. There is no +flowering or coming to flower, only this persistence, in the ice-touched +air, of reproductive life. + +But it is difficult to get a sense of a native population. Everywhere +are the hotels and the foreigners, the parasitism. Yet there is, unseen, +this overshadowed, overhung, sordid mountain population, ledged on the +slopes and in the crevices. In the wider valleys there is still a sense +of cowering among the people. But they catch a new tone from their +contact with the foreigners. And in the towns are nothing but +tradespeople. + +So I climbed slowly up, for a whole day, first along the highroad, +sometimes above and sometimes below the twisting, serpentine railway, +then afterwards along a path on the side of the hill--a path that went +through the crew-yards of isolated farms and even through the garden of +a village priest. The priest was decorating an archway. He stood on a +chair in the sunshine, reaching up with a garland, whilst the +serving-woman stood below, talking loudly. + +The valley here seemed wider, the great flanks of the mountains gave +place, the peaks above were further back. So one was happier. I was +pleased as I sat by the thin track of single flat stones that dropped +swiftly downhill. + +At the bottom was a little town with a factory or quarry, or a foundry, +some place with long, smoking chimneys; which made me feel quite at home +among the mountains. + +It is the hideous rawness of the world of men, the horrible, desolating +harshness of the advance of the industrial world upon the world of +nature, that is so painful. It looks as though the industrial spread of +mankind were a sort of dry disintegration advancing and advancing, a +process of dry disintegration. If only we could learn to take thought +for the whole world instead of for merely tiny bits of it. + +I went through the little, hideous, crude factory-settlement in the high +valley, where the eternal snows gleamed, past the enormous +advertisements for chocolate and hotels, up the last steep slope of the +pass to where the tunnel begins. Göschenen, the village at the mouth of +the tunnel, is all railway sidings and haphazard villas for tourists, +post cards, and touts and weedy carriages; disorder and sterile chaos, +high up. How should any one stay there! + +I went on up the pass itself. There were various parties of visitors on +the roads and tracks, people from towns incongruously walking and +driving. It was drawing on to evening. I climbed slowly, between the +great cleft in the rock where are the big iron gates, through which the +road winds, winds half-way down the narrow gulley of solid, living rock, +the very throat of the path, where hangs a tablet in memory of many +Russians killed. + +Emerging through the dark rocky throat of the pass I came to the upper +world, the level upper world. It was evening, livid, cold. On either +side spread the sort of moorland of the wide pass-head. I drew near +along the high-road, to Andermatt. + +Everywhere were soldiers moving about the livid, desolate waste of this +upper world. I passed the barracks and the first villas for visitors. +Darkness was coming on; the straggling, inconclusive street of Andermatt +looked as if it were some accident--houses, hotels, barracks, +lodging-places tumbled at random as the caravan of civilization crossed +this high, cold, arid bridge of the European world. + +I bought two post cards and wrote them out of doors in the cold, livid +twilight. Then I asked a soldier where was the post-office. He directed +me. It was something like sending post cards from Skegness or Bognor, +there in the post-office. + +I was trying to make myself agree to stay in Andermatt for the night. +But I could not. The whole place was so terribly raw and flat and +accidental, as if great pieces of furniture had tumbled out of a +pantechnicon and lay discarded by the road. I hovered in the street, in +the twilight, trying to make myself stay. I looked at the announcements +of lodgings and boarding for visitors. It was no good. I could not go +into one of these houses. + +So I passed on, through the old, low, broad-eaved houses that cringe +down to the very street, out into the open again. The air was fierce and +savage. On one side was a moorland, level; on the other a sweep of naked +hill, curved concave, and sprinkled with snow. I could see how wonderful +it would all be, under five or six feet of winter snow, skiing and +tobogganing at Christmas. But it needed the snow. In the summer there is +to be seen nothing but the winter's broken detritus. + +The twilight deepened, though there was still the strange, glassy +translucency of the snow-lit air. A fragment of moon was in the sky. A +carriage-load of French tourists passed me. There was the loud noise of +water, as ever, something eternal and maddening in its sound, like the +sound of Time itself, rustling and rushing and wavering, but never for a +second ceasing. The rushing of Time that continues throughout eternity, +this is the sound of the icy streams of Switzerland, something that +mocks and destroys our warm being. + +So I came, in the early darkness, to the little village with the broken +castle that stands for ever frozen at the point where the track parts, +one way continuing along the ridge, to the Furka Pass, the other +swerving over the hill to the left, over the Gotthardt. + +In this village I must stay. I saw a woman looking hastily, furtively +from a doorway. I knew she was looking for visitors. I went on up the +hilly street. There were only a few wooden houses and a gaily lighted +wooden inn, where men were laughing, and strangers, men, standing +talking loudly in the doorway. + +It was very difficult to go to a house this night. I did not want to +approach any of them. I turned back to the house of the peering woman. +She had looked hen-like and anxious. She would be glad of a visitor to +help her pay her rent. + +It was a clean, pleasant wooden house, made to keep out the cold. That +seemed its one function: to defend the inmates from the cold. It was +furnished like a hut, just tables and chairs and bare wooden walls. One +felt very close and secure in the room, as in a hut, shut away from the +outer world. + +The hen-like woman came. + +'Can I have a bed,' I said, 'for the night?' + +'_Abendessen, ja!_' she replied. 'Will you have soup and boiled beef and +vegetables?' + +I said I would, so I sat down to wait, in the utter silence. I could +scarcely hear the ice-stream, the silence seemed frozen, the house +empty. The woman seemed to be flitting aimlessly, scurriedly, in reflex +against the silence. One could almost touch the stillness as one could +touch the walls, or the stove, or the table with white American +oil-cloth. + +Suddenly she appeared again. + +'What will you drink?' + +She watched my face anxiously, and her voice was pathetic, slightly +pleading in its quickness. + +'Wine or beer?' she said. + +I would not trust the coldness of beer. + +'A half of red wine,' I said. + +I knew she was going to keep me an indefinite time. + +She appeared with the wine and bread. + +'Would you like omelette after the beef?' she asked. 'Omelette with +cognac--I can make it _very_ good.' + +I knew I should be spending too much, but I said yes. After all, why +should I not eat, after the long walk? + +So she left me again, whilst I sat in the utter isolation and stillness, +eating bread and drinking the wine, which was good. And I listened for +any sound: only the faint noise of the stream. And I wondered, Why am I +here, on this ridge of the Alps, in the lamp-lit, wooden, close-shut +room, alone? Why am I here? + +Yet somehow I was glad, I was happy even: such splendid silence and +coldness and clean isolation. It was something eternal, unbroachable: I +was free, in this heavy, ice-cold air, this upper world, alone. London, +far away below, beyond, England, Germany, France--they were all so +unreal in the night. It was a sort of grief that this continent all +beneath was so unreal, false, non-existent in its activity. Out of the +silence one looked down on it, and it seemed to have lost all +importance, all significance. It was so big, yet it had no significance. +The kingdom of the world had no significance: what could one do but +wander about? + +The woman came with my soup. I asked her, did not many people come in +the summer. But she was scared away, she did not answer, she went like a +leaf in the wind. However, the soup was good and plentiful. + +She was a long time before she came with the next course. Then she put +the tray on the table, and looking at me, then looking away, +shrinking, she said: + +'You must excuse me if I don't answer you--I don't hear well--I am +rather deaf.' + +I looked at her, and I winced also. She shrank in such simple pain from +the fact of her defect. I wondered if she were bullied because of it, or +only afraid lest visitors would dislike it. + +She put the dishes in order, set me my plate, quickly, nervously, and +was gone again, like a scared chicken. Being tired, I wanted to weep +over her, the nervous, timid hen, so frightened by her own deafness. The +house was silent of her, empty. It was perhaps her deafness which +created this empty soundlessness. + +When she came with the omelette, I said to her loudly: + +'That was very good, the soup and meat.' So she quivered nervously, and +said, 'Thank you,' and I managed to talk to her. She was like most deaf +people, in that her terror of not hearing made her six times worse than +she actually was. + +She spoke with a soft, strange accent, so I thought she was perhaps a +foreigner. But when I asked her she misunderstood, and I had not the +heart to correct her. I can only remember she said her house was always +full in the winter, about Christmas-time. People came for the winter +sport. There were two young English ladies who always came to her. + +She spoke of them warmly. Then, suddenly afraid, she drifted off again. +I ate the omelette with cognac, which was very good, then I looked in +the street. It was very dark, with bright stars, and smelled of snow. +Two village men went by. I was tired, I did not want to go to the inn. + +So I went to bed, in the silent, wooden house. I had a small bedroom, +clean and wooden and very cold. Outside, the stream was rushing. I +covered myself with a great depth of featherbed, and looked at the +stars, and the shadowy upper world, and went to sleep. + +In the morning I washed in the ice-cold water, and was glad to set out. +An icy mist was over the noisy stream, there were a few meagre, shredded +pine-trees. I had breakfast and paid my bill: it was seven francs--more +than I could afford; but that did not matter, once I was out in the air. + +The sky was blue and perfect, it was a ringing morning, the village was +very still. I went up the hill till I came to the signpost. I looked +down the direction of the Furka, and thought of my tired Englishman from +Streatham, who would be on his way home. Thank God I need not go home: +never, perhaps. I turned up the track to the left, to the Gothard. + +Standing looking round at the mountain-tops, at the village and the +broken castle below me, at the scattered debris of Andermatt on the moor +in the distance, I was jumping in my soul with delight. Should one ever +go down to the lower world? + +Then I saw another figure striding along, a youth with knee-breeches and +Alpine hat and braces over his shirt, walking manfully, his coat slung +in his rucksack behind. I laughed, and waited. He came my way. + +'Are you going over the Gothard?' I said. + +'Yes,' he replied. 'Are you also?' + +'Yes' I said. 'We will go together.' + +So we set off, climbing a track up the heathy rocks. + +He was a pale, freckled town youth from Basel, seventeen years old. He +was a clerk in a baggage-transport firm--Gondrand Frères, I believe. He +had a week's holiday, in which time he was going to make a big circular +walk, something like the Englishman's. But he was accustomed to this +mountain walking: he belonged to a Sportverein. Manfully he marched in +his thick hob-nailed boots, earnestly he scrambled up the rocks. + +We were in the crest of the pass. Broad snow-patched slopes came down +from the pure sky; the defile was full of stones, all bare stones, +enormous ones as big as a house, and small ones, pebbles. Through these +the road wound in silence, through this upper, transcendent desolation, +wherein was only the sound of the stream. Sky and snow-patched slopes, +then the stony, rocky bed of the defile, full of morning sunshine: this +was all. We were crossing in silence from the northern world to +the southern. + +But he, Emil, was going to take the train back, through the tunnel, in +the evening, to resume his circular walk at Göschenen. + +I, however, was going on, over the ridge of the world, from the north +into the south. So I was glad. + +We climbed up the gradual incline for a long time. The slopes above +became lower, they began to recede. The sky was very near, we were +walking under the sky. + +Then the defile widened out, there was an open place before us, the very +top of the pass. Also there were low barracks, and soldiers. We heard +firing. Standing still, we saw on the slopes of snow, under the radiant +blue heaven, tiny puffs of smoke, then some small black figures crossing +the snow patch, then another rattle of rifle-fire, rattling dry and +unnatural in the upper, skyey air, between the rocks. + +'_Das ist schön_,' said my companion, in his simple admiration. + +'_Hübsch_,' I said. + +'But that would be splendid, to be firing up there, manoeuvring up in +the snow.' + +And he began to tell me how hard a soldier's life was, how hard the +soldier was drilled. + +'You don't look forward to it?' I said. + +'Oh yes, I do. I want to be a soldier, I want to serve my time.' + +'Why?'I said. + +'For the exercise, the life, the drilling. One becomes strong.' + +'Do all the Swiss want to serve their time in the army?' I asked. + +'Yes--they all want to. It is good for every man, and it keeps us all +together. Besides, it is only for a year. For a year it is very good. +The Germans have three years--that is too long, that is bad.' + +I told him how the soldiers in Bavaria hated the military service. + +'Yes,' he said, 'that is true of Germans. The system is different. Ours +is much better; in Switzerland a man enjoys his time as a soldier. I +want to go.' + +So we watched the black dots of soldiers crawling over the high snow, +listened to the unnatural dry rattle of guns, up there. + +Then we were aware of somebody whistling, of soldiers yelling down the +road. We were to come on, along the level, over the bridge. So we +marched quickly forward, away from the slopes, towards the hotel, once a +monastery, that stood in the distance. The light was blue and clear on +the reedy lakes of this upper place; it was a strange desolation of +water and bog and rocks and road, hedged by the snowy slopes round the +rim, under the very sky. + +The soldier was yelling again. I could not tell what he said. + +'He says if we don't run we can't come at all,' said Emil. + +'I won't run,' I said. + +So we hurried forwards, over the bridge, where the soldier on guard was +standing. + +'Do you want to be shot?' he said angrily, as we came up. + +'No, thanks,' I said. + +Emil was very serious. + +'How long should we have had to wait if we hadn't got through now?' he +asked the soldier, when we were safely out of danger. + +'Till one o'clock,' was the reply. + +'Two hours!' said Emil, strangely elated. 'We should have had to wait +two hours before we could come on. He was riled that we didn't run,' and +he laughed with glee. + +So we marched over the level to the hotel. We called in for a glass of +hot milk. I asked in German. But the maid, a pert hussy, elegant and +superior, was French. She served us with great contempt, as two +worthless creatures, poverty-stricken. It abashed poor Emil, but we +managed to laugh at her. This made her very angry. In the smoking-room +she raised up her voice in French: + +'_Du lait chaud pour les chameaux._' + +'Some hot milk for the camels, she says,' I translated for Emil. He was +covered with confusion and youthful anger. + +But I called to her, tapped the table and called: + +'_Mademoiselle!_' + +She appeared flouncingly in the doorway. + +'_Encore du lait pour les chameaux_,' I said. + +And she whisked our glasses off the table, and flounced out without a +word. + +But she would not come in again with the milk. A German girl brought it. +We laughed, and she smiled primly. + +When we set forth again, Emil rolled up his sleeves and turned back his +shirt from his neck and breast, to do the thing thoroughly. Besides, it +was midday, and the sun was hot; and, with his bulky pack on his back, +he suggested the camel of the French maid more than ever. + +We were on the downward slope. Only a short way from the hotel, and +there was the drop, the great cleft in the mountains running down from +this shallow pot among the peaks. + +The descent on the south side is much more precipitous and wonderful +than the ascent from the north. On the south, the rocks are craggy and +stupendous; the little river falls headlong down; it is not a stream, it +is one broken, panting cascade far away in the gulley below, in +the darkness. + +But on the slopes the sun pours in, the road winds down with its tail in +its mouth, always in endless loops returning on itself. The mules that +travel upward seem to be treading in a mill. + +Emil took the narrow tracks, and, like the water, we cascaded down, +leaping from level to level, leaping, running, leaping, descending +headlong, only resting now and again when we came down on to another +level of the high-road. + +Having begun, we could not help ourselves, we were like two stones +bouncing down. Emil was highly elated. He waved his thin, bare, white +arms as he leapt, his chest grew pink with the exercise. Now he felt he +was doing something that became a member of his Sportverein. Down we +went, jumping, running, britching. + +It was wonderful on this south side, so sunny, with feathery trees and +deep black shadows. It reminded me of Goethe, of the romantic period: + + _Kennst du das Land, wo die Citronen blühen?_ + +So we went tumbling down into the south, very swiftly, along with the +tumbling stream. But it was very tiring. We went at a great pace down +the gully, between the sheer rocks. Trees grew in the ledges high over +our heads, trees grew down below. And ever we descended. + +Till gradually the gully opened, then opened into a wide valley-head, +and we saw Airolo away below us, the railway emerging from its hole, the +whole valley like a cornucopia full of sunshine. + +Poor Emil was tired, more tired than I was. And his big boots had hurt +his feet in the descent. So, having come to the open valley-head, we +went more gently. He had become rather quiet. + +The head of the valley had that half-tamed, ancient aspect that reminded +me of the Romans. I could only expect the Roman legions to be encamped +down there; and the white goats feeding on the bushes belonged to a +Roman camp. + +But no, we saw again the barracks of the Swiss soldiery, and again we +were in the midst of rifle-fire and manoeuvres. But we went evenly, +tired now, and hungry. We had nothing to eat. + +It is strange how different the sun-dried, ancient, southern slopes of +the world are, from the northern slopes. It is as if the god Pan really +had his home among these sun-bleached stones and tough, sun-dark trees. +And one knows it all in one's blood, it is pure, sun-dried memory. So I +was content, coming down into Airolo. + +We found the streets were Italian, the houses sunny outside and dark +within, like Italy, there were laurels in the road. Poor Emil was a +foreigner all at once. He rolled down his shirt sleeves and fastened his +shirt-neck, put on his coat and collar, and became a foreigner in his +soul, pale and strange. + +I saw a shop with vegetables and grapes, a real Italian shop, a dark +cave. + +'_Quanto costa l'uva?_' were my first words in the south. + +'_Sessanta al chilo_,' said the girl. + +And it was as pleasant as a drink of wine, the Italian. + +So Emil and I ate the sweet black grapes as we went to the station. + +He was very poor. We went into the third-class restaurant at the +station. He ordered beer and bread and sausage; I ordered soup and +boiled beef and vegetables. + +They brought me a great quantity, so, whilst the girl was serving +coffee-with-rum to the men at the bar, I took another spoon and knife +and fork and plates for Emil, and we had two dinners from my one. When +the girl--she was a woman of thirty-five--came back, she looked at us +sharply. I smiled at her coaxingly; so she gave a small, kindly smile +in reply. + +'_Ja, dies ist reizend_,' said Emil, _sotto voce_, exulting. He was very +shy. But we were curiously happy, in that railway restaurant. + +Then we sat very still, on the platform, and waited for the train. It +was like Italy, pleasant and social to wait in the railway station, all +the world easy and warm in its activity, with the sun shining. + +I decided to take a franc's worth of train-journey. So I chose my +station. It was one franc twenty, third class. Then my train came, and +Emil and I parted, he waving to me till I was out of sight. I was sorry +he had to go back, he did so want to venture forth. + +So I slid for a dozen miles or more, sleepily, down the Ticino valley, +sitting opposite two fat priests in their feminine black. + +When I got out at my station I felt for the first time ill at ease. Why +was I getting out at this wayside place, on to the great, raw high-road? +I did not know. But I set off walking. It was nearly tea-time. + +Nothing in the world is more ghastly than these Italian roads, new, +mechanical, belonging to a machine life. The old roads are wonderful, +skilfully aiming their way. But these new great roads are desolating, +more desolating than all the ruins in the world. + +I walked on and on, down the Ticino valley, towards Bellinzona. The +valley was perhaps beautiful: I don't know. I can only remember the +road. It was broad and new, and it ran very often beside the railway. It +ran also by quarries and by occasional factories, also through villages. +And the quality of its sordidness is something that does not bear +thinking of, a quality that has entered Italian life now, if it was not +there before. + +Here and there, where there were quarries or industries, great +lodging-houses stood naked by the road, great, grey, desolate places; +and squalid children were playing round the steps, and dirty men +slouched in. Everything seemed under a weight. + +Down the road of the Ticino valley I felt again my terror of this new +world which is coming into being on top of us. One always feels it in a +suburb, on the edge of a town, where the land is being broken under the +advance of houses. But this is nothing, in England, to the terror one +feels on the new Italian roads, where these great blind cubes of +dwellings rise stark from the destroyed earth, swarming with a sort of +verminous life, really verminous, purely destructive. + +It seems to happen when the peasant suddenly leaves his home and becomes +a workman. Then an entire change comes over everywhere. Life is now a +matter of selling oneself to slave-work, building roads or labouring in +quarries or mines or on the railways, purposeless, meaningless, really +slave-work, each integer doing his mere labour, and all for no purpose, +except to have money, and to get away from the old system. + +These Italian navvies work all day long, their whole life is engaged in +the mere brute labour. And they are the navvies of the world. And whilst +they are navvying, they are almost shockingly indifferent to their +circumstances, merely callous to the dirt and foulness. + +It is as if the whole social form were breaking down, and the human +element swarmed within the disintegration, like maggots in cheese. The +roads, the railways are built, the mines and quarries are excavated, but +the whole organism of life, the social organism, is slowly crumbling and +caving in, in a kind of process of dry rot, most terrifying to see. So +that it seems as though we should be left at last with a great system of +roads and railways and industries, and a world of utter chaos seething +upon these fabrications: as if we had created a steel framework, and the +whole body of society were crumbling and rotting in between. It is most +terrifying to realize; and I have always felt this terror upon a new +Italian high-road--more there than anywhere. + +The remembrance of the Ticino valley is a sort of nightmare to me. But +it was better when at last, in the darkness of night, I got into +Bellinzona. In the midst of the town one felt the old organism still +living. It is only at its extremities that it is falling to pieces, as +in dry rot. + +In the morning, leaving Bellinzona, again I went in terror of the new, +evil high-road, with its skirting of huge cubical houses and its +seething navvy population. Only the peasants driving in with fruit were +consoling. But I was afraid of them: the same spirit had set in in them. + +I was no longer happy in Switzerland, not even when I was eating great +blackberries and looking down at the Lago Maggiore, at Locarno, lying by +the lake; the terror of the callous, disintegrating process was too +strong in me. + +At a little inn a man was very good to me. He went into his garden and +fetched me the first grapes and apples and peaches, bringing them in +amongst leaves, and heaping them before me. He was Italian-Swiss; he had +been in a bank in Bern; now he had retired, had bought his paternal +home, and was a free man. He was about fifty years old; he spent all his +time in his garden; his daughter attended to the inn. + +He talked to me, as long as I stayed, about Italy and Switzerland and +work and life. He was retired, he was free. But he was only nominally +free. He had only achieved freedom from labour. He knew that the system +he had escaped at last, persisted, and would consume his sons and his +grandchildren. He himself had more or less escaped back to the old form; +but as he came with me on to the hillside, looking down the high-road at +Lugano in the distance, he knew that his old order was collapsing by a +slow process of disintegration. + +Why did he talk to me as if I had any hope, as if I represented any +positive truth as against this great negative truth that was advancing +up the hill-side. Again I was afraid. I hastened down the high-road, +past the houses, the grey, raw crystals of corruption. + +I saw a girl with handsome bare legs, ankles shining like brass in the +sun. She was working in a field, on the edge of a vineyard. I stopped to +look at her, suddenly fascinated by her handsome naked flesh that shone +like brass. + +Then she called out to me, in a jargon I could not understand, something +mocking and challenging. And her voice was raucous and challenging; I +went on, afraid. + +In Lugano I stayed at a German hotel. I remember sitting on a seat in +the darkness by the lake, watching the stream of promenaders patrolling +the edge of the water, under the trees and the lamps. I can still see +many of their faces: English, German, Italian, French. And it seemed +here, here in this holiday-place, was the quick of the disintegration, +the dry-rot, in this dry, friable flux of people backwards and forwards +on the edge of the lake, men and women from the big hotels, in evening +dress, curiously sinister, and ordinary visitors, and tourists, and +workmen, youths, men of the town, laughing, jeering. It was curiously +and painfully sinister, almost obscene. + +I sat a long time among them, thinking of the girl with her limbs of +glowing brass. Then at last I went up to the hotel, and sat in the +lounge looking at the papers. It was the same here as down below, though +not so intense, the feeling of horror. + +So I went to bed. The hotel was on the edge of a steep declivity. I +wondered why the whole hills did not slide down, in some great natural +catastrophe. + +In the morning I walked along the side of the Lake of Lugano, to where I +could take a steamer to ferry me down to the end. The lake is not +beautiful, only picturesque. I liked most to think of the Romans +coming to it. + +So I steamed down to the lower end of the water. When I landed and went +along by a sort of railway I saw a group of men. Suddenly they began to +whoop and shout. They were hanging on to an immense pale bullock, which +was slung up to be shod; and it was lunging and kicking with terrible +energy. It was strange to see that mass of pale, soft-looking flesh +working with such violent frenzy, convulsed with violent, active frenzy, +whilst men and women hung on to it with ropes, hung on and weighed it +down. But again it scattered some of them in its terrible convulsion. +Human beings scattered into the road, the whole place was covered with +hot dung. And when the bullock began to lunge again, the men set up a +howl, half of triumph, half of derision. + +I went on, not wanting to see. I went along a very dusty road. But it +was not so terrifying, this road. Perhaps it was older. + +In dreary little Chiasso I drank coffee, and watched the come and go +through the Customs. The Swiss and the Italian Customs officials had +their offices within a few yards of each other, and everybody must stop. +I went in and showed my rucksack to the Italian, then I mounted a tram, +and went to the Lake of Como. + +In the tram were dressed-up women, fashionable, but business-like. They +had come by train to Chiasso, or else had been shopping in the town. + +When we came to the terminus a young miss, dismounting before me, left +behind her parasol. I had been conscious of my dusty, grimy appearance +as I sat in the tram, I knew they thought me a workman on the roads. +However, I forgot that when it was time to dismount. + +'_Pardon, Mademoiselle_,' I said to the young miss. She turned and +withered me with a rather overdone contempt--'_bourgeoise_,' I said to +myself, as I looked at her--'_Vous avez laissé votre parasol_.' + +She turned, and with a rapacious movement darted upon her parasol. How +her soul was in her possessions! I stood and watched her. Then she went +into the road and under the trees, haughty, a demoiselle. She had on +white kid boots. + +I thought of the Lake of Como what I had thought of Lugano: it must have +been wonderful when the Romans came there. Now it is all villas. I think +only the sunrise is still wonderful, sometimes. + +I took the steamer down to Como, and slept in a vast old stone cavern of +an inn, a remarkable place, with rather nice people. In the morning I +went out. The peace and the bygone beauty of the cathedral created the +glow of the great past. And in the market-place they were selling +chestnuts wholesale, great heaps of bright, brown chestnuts, and sacks +of chestnuts, and peasants very eager selling and buying. I thought of +Como, it must have been wonderful even a hundred years ago. Now it is +cosmopolitan, the cathedral is like a relic, a museum object, everywhere +stinks of mechanical money-pleasure. I dared not risk walking to Milan: +I took a train. And there, in Milan, sitting in the Cathedral Square, on +Saturday afternoon, drinking Bitter Campari and watching the swarm of +Italian city-men drink and talk vivaciously, I saw that here the life +was still vivid, here the process of disintegration was vigorous, and +centred in a multiplicity of mechanical activities that engage the human +mind as well as the body. But always there was the same purpose stinking +in it all, the mechanizing, the perfect mechanizing of human life. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Twilight in Italy, by D. H. Lawrence + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT IN ITALY *** + +***** This file should be named 9497-8.txt or 9497-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/4/9/9497/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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H. Lawrence + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: justify; font-size: 80%; font-style: italic;} + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + .xx-small {font-size: 60%;} + .x-small {font-size: 75%;} + .small {font-size: 85%;} + .large {font-size: 115%;} + .x-large {font-size: 130%;} + .indent5 { margin-left: 5%;} + .indent10 { margin-left: 10%;} + .indent15 { margin-left: 15%;} + .indent20 { margin-left: 20%;} + .indent25 { margin-left: 25%;} + .indent30 { margin-left: 30%;} + .indent35 { margin-left: 35%;} + .indent40 { margin-left: 40%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; right: 1%; font-size: 0.6em; + font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; + text-align: right; background-color: #FFFACD; + border: 1px solid; padding: 0.3em;text-indent: 0em;} + .side { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 15%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + .head { float: left; font-size: 90%; width: 98%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0} + span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 0.8 } + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Twilight in Italy, by D. H. Lawrence + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Twilight in Italy + +Author: D. H. Lawrence + + +Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9497] +First Posted: October 6, 2003 +Last Updated: April 19, 2019 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT IN ITALY *** + + + + +Etext produced by Joshua Hutchinson and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + TWILIGHT IN ITALY + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By D. H. Lawrence + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + 1916 + </h3> + <hr /> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>THE CRUCIFIX ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS</b> </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>ON THE LAGO DI GARDA</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> THE SPINNER AND THE MONKS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> THE LEMON GARDENS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE THEATRE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> SAN GAUDENZIO </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE DANCE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> IL DURO </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> JOHN </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> <b>ITALIANS IN EXILE</b> </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> <b>THE RETURN JOURNEY</b> </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE CRUCIFIX ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS + </h2> + <p> + The imperial road to Italy goes from Munich across the Tyrol, through + Innsbruck and Bozen to Verona, over the mountains. Here the great + processions passed as the emperors went South, or came home again from + rosy Italy to their own Germany. + </p> + <p> + And how much has that old imperial vanity clung to the German soul? Did + not the German kings inherit the empire of bygone Rome? It was not a very + real empire, perhaps, but the sound was high and splendid. + </p> + <p> + Maybe a certain Grössenwahn is inherent in the German nature. If only + nations would realize that they have certain natural characteristics, if + only they could understand and agree to each other's particular nature, + how much simpler it would all be. + </p> + <p> + The imperial procession no longer crosses the mountains, going South. That + is almost forgotten, the road has almost passed out of mind. But still it + is there, and its signs are standing. + </p> + <p> + The crucifixes are there, not mere attributes of the road, yet still + having something to do with it. The imperial processions, blessed by the + Pope and accompanied by the great bishops, must have planted the holy idol + like a new plant among the mountains, there where it multiplied and grew + according to the soil, and the race that received it. + </p> + <p> + As one goes among the Bavarian uplands and foothills, soon one realizes + here is another land, a strange religion. It is a strange country, remote, + out of contact. Perhaps it belongs to the forgotten, imperial processions. + </p> + <p> + Coming along the clear, open roads that lead to the mountains, one + scarcely notices the crucifixes and the shrines. Perhaps one's interest is + dead. The crucifix itself is nothing, a factory-made piece of + sentimentalism. The soul ignores it. + </p> + <p> + But gradually, one after another looming shadowily under their hoods, the + crucifixes seem to create a new atmosphere over the whole of the + countryside, a darkness, a weight in the air that is so unnaturally bright + and rare with the reflection from the snows above, a darkness hovering + just over the earth. So rare and unearthly the light is, from the + mountains, full of strange radiance. Then every now and again recurs the + crucifix, at the turning of an open, grassy road, holding a shadow and a + mystery under its pointed hood. + </p> + <p> + I was startled into consciousness one evening, going alone over a marshy + place at the foot of the mountains, when the sky was pale and unearthly, + invisible, and the hills were nearly black. At a meeting of the tracks was + a crucifix, and between the feet of the Christ a handful of withered + poppies. It was the poppies I saw, then the Christ. + </p> + <p> + It was an old shrine, the wood-sculpture of a Bavarian peasant. The Christ + was a peasant of the foot of the Alps. He had broad cheekbones and sturdy + limbs. His plain, rudimentary face stared fixedly at the hills, his neck + was stiffened, as if in resistance to the fact of the nails and the cross, + which he could not escape. It was a man nailed down in spirit, but set + stubbornly against the bondage and the disgrace. He was a man of middle + age, plain, crude, with some of the meanness of the peasant, but also with + a kind of dogged nobility that does not yield its soul to the + circumstance. Plain, almost blank in his soul, the middle-aged peasant of + the crucifix resisted unmoving the misery of his position. He did not + yield. His soul was set, his will was fixed. He was himself, let his + circumstances be what they would, his life fixed down. + </p> + <p> + Across the marsh was a tiny square of orange-coloured light, from the + farm-house with the low, spreading roof. I remembered how the man and his + wife and the children worked on till dark, silent and intent, carrying the + hay in their arms out of the streaming thunder-rain into the shed, working + silent in the soaking rain. + </p> + <p> + The body bent forward towards the earth, closing round on itself; the arms + clasped full of hay, clasped round the hay that presses soft and close to + the breast and the body, that pricks heat into the arms and the skin of + the breast, and fills the lungs with the sleepy scent of dried herbs: the + rain that falls heavily and wets the shoulders, so that the shirt clings + to the hot, firm skin and the rain comes with heavy, pleasant coldness on + the active flesh, running in a trickle down towards the loins, secretly; + this is the peasant, this hot welter of physical sensation. And it is all + intoxicating. It is intoxicating almost like a soporific, like a sensuous + drug, to gather the burden to one's body in the rain, to stumble across + the living grass to the shed, to relieve one's arms of the weight, to + throw down the hay on to the heap, to feel light and free in the dry shed, + then to return again into the chill, hard rain, to stoop again under the + rain, and rise to return again with the burden. + </p> + <p> + It is this, this endless heat and rousedness of physical sensation which + keeps the body full and potent, and flushes the mind with a blood heat, a + blood sleep. And this sleep, this heat of physical experience, becomes at + length a bondage, at last a crucifixion. It is the life and the fulfilment + of the peasant, this flow of sensuous experience. But at last it drives + him almost mad, because he cannot escape. + </p> + <p> + For overhead there is always the strange radiance of the mountains, there + is the mystery of the icy river rushing through its pink shoals into the + darkness of the pine-woods, there is always the faint tang of ice on the + air, and the rush of hoarse-sounding water. + </p> + <p> + And the ice and the upper radiance of snow are brilliant with timeless + immunity from the flux and the warmth of life. Overhead they transcend all + life, all the soft, moist fire of the blood. So that a man must needs live + under the radiance of his own negation. + </p> + <p> + There is a strange, clear beauty of form about the men of the Bavarian + highlands, about both men and women. They are large and clear and handsome + in form, with blue eyes very keen, the pupil small, tightened, the iris + keen, like sharp light shining on blue ice. Their large, full-moulded + limbs and erect bodies are distinct, separate, as if they were perfectly + chiselled out of the stuff of life, static, cut off. Where they are + everything is set back, as in a clear frosty air. + </p> + <p> + Their beauty is almost this, this strange, clean-cut isolation, as if each + one of them would isolate himself still further and for ever from the rest + of his fellows. + </p> + <p> + Yet they are convivial, they are almost the only race with the souls of + artists. Still they act the mystery plays with instinctive fullness of + interpretation, they sing strangely in the mountain fields, they love + make-belief and mummery, their processions and religious festivals are + profoundly impressive, solemn, and rapt. + </p> + <p> + It is a race that moves on the poles of mystic sensual delight. Every + gesture is a gesture from the blood, every expression is a symbolic + utterance. + </p> + <p> + For learning there is sensuous experience, for thought there is myth and + drama and dancing and singing. Everything is of the blood, of the senses. + There is no mind. The mind is a suffusion of physical heat, it is not + separated, it is kept submerged. + </p> + <p> + At the same time, always, overhead, there is the eternal, negative + radiance of the snows. Beneath is life, the hot jet of the blood playing + elaborately. But above is the radiance of changeless not-being. And life + passes away into this changeless radiance. Summer and the prolific + blue-and-white flowering of the earth goes by, with the labour and the + ecstasy of man, disappears, and is gone into brilliance that hovers + overhead, the radiant cold which waits to receive back again all that + which has passed for the moment into being. + </p> + <p> + The issue is too much revealed. It leaves the peasant no choice. The fate + gleams transcendent above him, the brightness of eternal, unthinkable + not-being. And this our life, this admixture of labour and of warm + experience in the flesh, all the time it is steaming up to the changeless + brilliance above, the light of the everlasting snows. This is the eternal + issue. + </p> + <p> + Whether it is singing or dancing or play-acting or physical transport of + love, or vengeance or cruelty, or whether it is work or sorrow or + religion, the issue is always the same at last, into the radiant negation + of eternity. Hence the beauty and completeness, the finality of the + highland peasant. His figure, his limbs, his face, his motion, it is all + formed in beauty, and it is all completed. There is no flux nor hope nor + becoming, all is, once and for all. The issue is eternal, timeless, and + changeless. All being and all passing away is part of the issue, which is + eternal and changeless. Therefore there is no becoming and no passing + away. Everything is, now and for ever. Hence the strange beauty and + finality and isolation of the Bavarian peasant. + </p> + <p> + It is plain in the crucifixes. Here is the essence rendered in sculpture + of wood. The face is blank and stiff, almost expressionless. One realizes + with a start how unchanging and conventionalized is the face of the living + man and woman of these parts, handsome, but motionless as pure form. There + is also an underlying meanness, secretive, cruel. It is all part of the + beauty, the pure, plastic beauty. The body also of the Christus is stiff + and conventionalized, yet curiously beautiful in proportion, and in the + static tension which makes it unified into one clear thing. There is no + movement, no possible movement. The being is fixed, finally. The whole + body is locked in one knowledge, beautiful, complete. It is one with the + nails. Not that it is languishing or dead. It is stubborn, knowing its own + undeniable being, sure of the absolute reality of the sensuous experience. + Though he is nailed down upon an irrevocable fate, yet, within that fate + he has the power and the delight of all sensuous experience. So he accepts + the fate and the mystic delight of the senses with one will, he is + complete and final. His sensuous experience is supreme, a consummation of + life and death at once. + </p> + <p> + It is the same at all times, whether it is moving with the scythe on the + hill-slopes, or hewing the timber, or steering the raft down the river + which is all effervescent with ice; whether it is drinking in the + Gasthaus, or making love, or playing some mummer's part, or hating + steadily and cruelly, or whether it is kneeling in spellbound subjection + in the incense-filled church, or walking in the strange, dark, + subject-procession to bless the fields, or cutting the young birch-trees + for the feast of Frohenleichnam, it is always the same, the dark, powerful + mystic, sensuous experience is the whole of him, he is mindless and bound + within the absoluteness of the issue, the unchangeability of the great icy + not-being which holds good for ever, and is supreme. + </p> + <p> + Passing further away, towards Austria, travelling up the Isar, till the + stream becomes smaller and whiter and the air is colder, the full glamour + of the northern hills, which are so marvellously luminous and gleaming + with flowers, wanes and gives way to a darkness, a sense of ominousness. + Up there I saw another little Christ, who seemed the very soul of the + place. The road went beside the river, that was seething with snowy + ice-bubbles, under the rocks and the high, wolf-like pine-trees, between + the pinkish shoals. The air was cold and hard and high, everything was + cold and separate. And in a little glass case beside the road sat a small, + hewn Christ, the head resting on the hand; and he meditates, half-wearily, + doggedly, the eyebrows lifted in strange abstraction, the elbow resting on + the knee. Detached, he sits and dreams and broods, wearing his little + golden crown of thorns, and his little cloak of red flannel that some + peasant woman has stitched for him. + </p> + <p> + No doubt he still sits there, the small, blank-faced Christ in the cloak + of red flannel, dreaming, brooding, enduring, persisting. There is a + wistfulness about him, as if he knew that the whole of things was too much + for him. There was no solution, either, in death. Death did not give the + answer to the soul's anxiety. That which is, is. It does not cease to be + when it is cut. Death cannot create nor destroy. What is, is. + </p> + <p> + The little brooding Christ knows this. What is he brooding, then? His + static patience and endurance is wistful. What is it that he secretly + yearns for, amid all the placidity of fate? 'To be, or not to be,' this + may be the question, but is it not a question for death to answer. It is + not a question of living or not-living. It is a question of being—to + be or not to be. To persist or not to persist, that is not the question; + neither is it to endure or not to endure. The issue, is it eternal + not-being? If not, what, then, is being? For overhead the eternal radiance + of the snow gleams unfailing, it receives the efflorescence of all life + and is unchanged, the issue is bright and immortal, the snowy not-being. + What, then, is being? + </p> + <p> + As one draws nearer to the turning-point of the Alps, towards the + culmination and the southern slope, the influence of the educated world is + felt once more. Bavaria is remote in spirit, as yet unattached. Its + crucifixes are old and grey and abstract, small like the kernel of the + truth. Further into Austria they become new, they are painted white, they + are larger, more obtrusive. They are the expressions of a later, newer + phase, more introspective and self-conscious. But still they are genuine + expressions of the people's soul. + </p> + <p> + Often one can distinguish the work of a particular artist here and there + in a district. In the Zemm valley, in the heart of the Tyrol, behind + Innsbruck, there are five or six crucifixes by one sculptor. He is no + longer a peasant working out an idea, conveying a dogma. He is an artist, + trained and conscious, probably working in Vienna. He is consciously + trying to convey a <i>feeling</i>, he is no longer striving awkwardly to + render a truth, a religious fact. + </p> + <p> + The chief of his crucifixes stands deep in the Klamm, in the dank gorge + where it is always half-night. The road runs under the rock and the trees, + half-way up the one side of the pass. Below, the stream rushes + ceaselessly, embroiled among great stones, making an endless loud noise. + The rock face opposite rises high overhead, with the sky far up. So that + one is walking in a half-night, an underworld. And just below the path, + where the pack-horses go climbing to the remote, infolded villages, in the + cold gloom of the pass hangs the large, pale Christ. He is larger than + life-size. He has fallen forward, just dead, and the weight of the + full-grown, mature body hangs on the nails of the hands. So the dead, + heavy body drops forward, sags, as if it would tear away and fall under + its own weight. + </p> + <p> + It is the end. The face is barren with a dead expression of weariness, and + brutalized with pain and bitterness. The rather ugly, passionate mouth is + set for ever in the disillusionment of death. Death is the complete + disillusionment, set like a seal over the whole body and being, over the + suffering and weariness and the bodily passion. + </p> + <p> + The pass is gloomy and damp, the water roars unceasingly, till it is + almost like a constant pain. The driver of the pack-horses, as he comes up + the narrow path in the side of the gorge, cringes his sturdy cheerfulness + as if to obliterate himself, drawing near to the large, pale Christ, and + he takes his hat off as he passes, though he does not look up, but keeps + his face averted from the crucifix. He hurries by in the gloom, climbing + the steep path after his horses, and the large white Christ hangs extended + above. + </p> + <p> + The driver of the pack-horses is afraid. The fear is always there in him, + in spite of his sturdy, healthy robustness. His soul is not sturdy. It is + blenched and whitened with fear. The mountains are dark overhead, the + water roars in the gloom below. His heart is ground between the + mill-stones of dread. When he passes the extended body of the dead Christ + he takes off his hat to the Lord of Death. Christ is the Deathly One, He + is Death incarnate. + </p> + <p> + And the driver of the pack-horses acknowledges this deathly Christ as + supreme Lord. The mountain peasant seems grounded upon fear, the fear of + death, of physical death. Beyond this he knows nothing. His supreme + sensation is in physical pain, and in its culmination. His great climax, + his consummation, is death. Therefore he worships it, bows down before it, + and is fascinated by it all the while. It is his fulfilment, death, and + his approach to fulfilment is through physical pain. + </p> + <p> + And so these monuments to physical death are found everywhere in the + valleys. By the same hand that carved the big Christ, a little further on, + at the end of a bridge, was another crucifix, a small one. This Christ had + a fair beard, and was thin, and his body was hanging almost lightly, + whereas the other Christ was large and dark and handsome. But in this, as + well as in the other, was the same neutral triumph of death, complete, + negative death, so complete as to be abstract, beyond cynicism in its + completeness of leaving off. + </p> + <p> + Everywhere is the same obsession with the fact of physical pain, accident, + and sudden death. Wherever a misfortune has befallen a man, there is + nailed up a little memorial of the event, in propitiation of the God of + hurt and death. A man is standing up to his waist in water, drowning in + full stream, his arms in the air. The little painting in its wooden frame + is nailed to the tree, the spot is sacred to the accident. Again, another + little crude picture fastened to a rock: a tree, falling on a man's leg, + smashes it like a stalk, while the blood flies up. Always there is the + strange ejaculation of anguish and fear, perpetuated in the little + paintings nailed up in the place of the disaster. + </p> + <p> + This is the worship, then, the worship of death and the approaches to + death, physical violence, and pain. There is something crude and sinister + about it, almost like depravity, a form of reverting, turning back along + the course of blood by which we have come. + </p> + <p> + Turning the ridge on the great road to the south, the imperial road to + Rome, a decisive change takes place. The Christs have been taking on + various different characters, all of them more or less realistically + conveyed. One Christus is very elegant, combed and brushed and foppish on + his cross, as Gabriele D'Annunzio's son posing as a martyred saint. The + martyrdom of this Christ is according to the most polite convention. The + elegance is very important, and very Austrian. One might almost imagine + the young man had taken up this striking and original position to create a + delightful sensation among the ladies. It is quite in the Viennese spirit. + There is something brave and keen in it, too. The individual pride of body + triumphs over every difficulty in the situation. The pride and + satisfaction in the clean, elegant form, the perfectly trimmed hair, the + exquisite bearing, are more important than the fact of death or pain. This + may be foolish, it is at the same time admirable. + </p> + <p> + But the tendency of the crucifix, as it nears the ridge to the south, is + to become weak and sentimental. The carved Christs turn up their faces and + roll back their eyes very piteously, in the approved Guido Reni fashion. + They are overdoing the pathetic turn. They are looking to heaven and + thinking about themselves, in self-commiseration. Others again are + beautiful as elegies. It is dead Hyacinth lifted and extended to view, in + all his beautiful, dead youth. The young, male body droops forward on the + cross, like a dead flower. It looks as if its only true nature were to be + dead. How lovely is death, how poignant, real, satisfying! It is the true + elegiac spirit. + </p> + <p> + Then there are the ordinary, factory-made Christs, which are not very + significant. They are as null as the Christs we see represented in + England, just vulgar nothingness. But these figures have gashes of red, a + red paint of blood, which is sensational. + </p> + <p> + Beyond the Brenner, I have only seen vulgar or sensational crucifixes. + There are great gashes on the breast and the knees of the Christ-figure, + and the scarlet flows out and trickles down, till the crucified body has + become a ghastly striped thing of red and white, just a sickly thing of + striped red. + </p> + <p> + They paint the rocks at the corners of the tracks, among the mountains; a + blue and white ring for the road to Ginzling, a red smear for the way to + St Jakob. So one follows the blue and white ring, or the three stripes of + blue and white, or the red smear, as the case may be. And the red on the + rocks, the dabs of red paint, are of just the same colour as the red upon + the crucifixes; so that the red upon the crucifixes is paint, and the + signs on the rocks are sensational, like blood. + </p> + <p> + I remember the little brooding Christ of the Isar, in his little cloak of + red flannel and his crown of gilded thorns, and he remains real and dear + to me, among all this violence of representation. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Couvre-toi de gloire, Tartarin—couvre-toi de flanelle.</i>' Why + should it please me so that his cloak is of red flannel? + </p> + <p> + In a valley near St Jakob, just over the ridge, a long way from the + railway, there is a very big, important shrine by the roadside. It is a + chapel built in the baroque manner, florid pink and cream outside, with + opulent small arches. And inside is the most startling sensational + Christus I have ever seen. He is a big, powerful man, seated after the + crucifixion, perhaps after the resurrection, sitting by the grave. He sits + sideways, as if the extremity were over, finished, the agitation done + with, only the result of the experience remaining. There is some blood on + his powerful, naked, defeated body, that sits rather hulked. But it is the + face which is so terrifying. It is slightly turned over the hulked, + crucified shoulder, to look. And the look of this face, of which the body + has been killed, is beyond all expectation horrible. The eyes look at one, + yet have no seeing in them, they seem to see only their own blood. For + they are bloodshot till the whites are scarlet, the iris is purpled. These + red, bloody eyes with their stained pupils, glancing awfully at all who + enter the shrine, looking as if to see through the blood of the late + brutal death, are terrible. The naked, strong body has known death, and + sits in utter dejection, finished, hulked, a weight of shame. And what + remains of life is in the face, whose expression is sinister and gruesome, + like that of an unrelenting criminal violated by torture. The criminal + look of misery and hatred on the fixed, violated face and in the bloodshot + eyes is almost impossible. He is conquered, beaten, broken, his body is a + mass of torture, an unthinkable shame. Yet his will remains obstinate and + ugly, integral with utter hatred. + </p> + <p> + It is a great shock to find this figure sitting in a handsome, baroque, + pink-washed shrine in one of those Alpine valleys which to our thinking + are all flowers and romance, like the picture in the Tate Gallery. 'Spring + in the Austrian Tyrol' is to our minds a vision of pristine loveliness. It + contains also this Christ of the heavy body defiled by torture and death, + the strong, virile life overcome by physical violence, the eyes still + looking back bloodshot in consummate hate and misery. + </p> + <p> + The shrine was well kept and evidently much used. It was hung with ex-voto + limbs and with many gifts. It was a centre of worship, of a sort of almost + obscene worship. Afterwards the black pine-trees and the river of that + valley seemed unclean, as if an unclean spirit lived there. The very + flowers seemed unnatural, and the white gleam on the mountain-tops was a + glisten of supreme, cynical horror. + </p> + <p> + After this, in the populous valleys, all the crucifixes were more or less + tainted and vulgar. Only high up, where the crucifix becomes smaller and + smaller, is there left any of the old beauty and religion. Higher and + higher, the monument becomes smaller and smaller, till in the snows it + stands out like a post, or a thick arrow stuck barb upwards. The crucifix + itself is a small thing under the pointed hood, the barb of the arrow. The + snow blows under the tiny shed, upon the little, exposed Christ. All round + is the solid whiteness of snow, the awful curves and concaves of pure + whiteness of the mountain top, the hollow whiteness between the peaks, + where the path crosses the high, extreme ridge of the pass. And here + stands the last crucifix, half buried, small and tufted with snow. The + guides tramp slowly, heavily past, not observing the presence of the + symbol, making no salute. Further down, every mountain peasant lifted his + hat. But the guide tramps by without concern. His is a professional + importance now. + </p> + <p> + On a small mountain track on the Jaufen, not far from Meran, was a fallen + Christus. I was hurrying downhill to escape from an icy wind which almost + took away my consciousness, and I was looking up at the gleaming, + unchanging snow-peaks all round. They seemed like blades immortal in the + sky. So I almost ran into a very old Martertafel. It leaned on the cold, + stony hillside surrounded by the white peaks in the upper air. + </p> + <p> + The wooden hood was silver-grey with age, and covered, on the top, with a + thicket of lichen, which stuck up in hoary tufts. But on the rock at the + foot of the post was the fallen Christ, armless, who had tumbled down and + lay in an unnatural posture, the naked, ancient wooden sculpture of the + body on the naked, living rock. It was one of the old uncouth Christs hewn + out of bare wood, having the long, wedge-shaped limbs and thin flat legs + that are significant of the true spirit, the desire to convey a religious + truth, not a sensational experience. + </p> + <p> + The arms of the fallen Christ had broken off at the shoulders, and they + hung on their nails, as ex-voto limbs hang in the shrines. But these arms + dangled from the palms, one at each end of the cross, the muscles, carved + sparely in the old wood, looking all wrong, upside down. And the icy wind + blew them backwards and forwards, so that they gave a painful impression, + there in the stark, sterile place of rock and cold. Yet I dared not touch + the fallen body of the Christ, that lay on its back in so grotesque a + posture at the foot of the post. I wondered who would come and take the + broken thing away, and for what purpose. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ON THE LAGO DI GARDA + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE SPINNER AND THE MONKS + </h2> + <p> + The Holy Spirit is a Dove, or an Eagle. In the Old Testament it was an + Eagle; in the New Testament it is a Dove. + </p> + <p> + And there are, standing over the Christian world, the Churches of the Dove + and the Churches of the Eagle. There are, moreover, the Churches which do + not belong to the Holy Spirit at all, but which are built to pure fancy + and logic; such as the Wren Churches in London. + </p> + <p> + The Churches of the Dove are shy and hidden: they nestle among trees, and + their bells sound in the mellowness of Sunday; or they are gathered into a + silence of their own in the very midst of the town, so that one passes + them by without observing them; they are as if invisible, offering no + resistance to the storming of the traffic. + </p> + <p> + But the Churches of the Eagle stand high, with their heads to the skies, + as if they challenged the world below. They are the Churches of the Spirit + of David, and their bells ring passionately, imperiously, falling on the + subservient world below. + </p> + <p> + The Church of San Francesco was a Church of the Dove. I passed it several + times in the dark, silent little square, without knowing it was a church. + Its pink walls were blind, windowless, unnoticeable, it gave no sign, + unless one caught sight of the tan curtain hanging in the door, and the + slit of darkness beneath. Yet it was the chief church of the village. + </p> + <p> + But the Church of San Tommaso perched over the village. Coming down the + cobbled, submerged street, many a time I looked up between the houses and + saw the thin old church standing above in the light, as if it perched on + the house-roofs. Its thin grey neck was held up stiffly, beyond was a + vision of dark foliage, and the high hillside. + </p> + <p> + I saw it often, and yet for a long time it never occurred to me that it + actually existed. It was like a vision, a thing one does not expect to + come close to. It was there standing away upon the house-tops, against a + glamour of foliaged hillside. I was submerged in the village, on the + uneven, cobbled street, between old high walls and cavernous shops and the + houses with flights of steps. + </p> + <p> + For a long time I knew how the day went, by the imperious clangour of + midday and evening bells striking down upon the houses and the edge of the + lake. Yet it did not occur to me to ask where these bells rang. Till at + last my everyday trance was broken in upon, and I knew the ringing of the + Church of San Tommaso. The church became a living connexion with me. + </p> + <p> + So I set out to find it, I wanted to go to it. It was very near. I could + see it from the piazza by the lake. And the village itself had only a few + hundreds of inhabitants. The church must be within a stone's throw. + </p> + <p> + Yet I could not find it. I went out of the back door of the house, into + the narrow gully of the back street. Women glanced down at me from the top + of the flights of steps, old men stood, half-turning, half-crouching under + the dark shadow of the walls, to stare. It was as if the strange creatures + of the under-shadow were looking at me. I was of another element. + </p> + <p> + The Italian people are called 'Children of the Sun'. They might better be + called 'Children of the Shadow'. Their souls are dark and nocturnal. If + they are to be easy, they must be able to hide, to be hidden in lairs and + caves of darkness. Going through these tiny chaotic backways of the + village was like venturing through the labyrinth made by furtive + creatures, who watched from out of another element. And I was pale, and + clear, and evanescent, like the light, and they were dark, and close, and + constant, like the shadow. + </p> + <p> + So I was quite baffled by the tortuous, tiny, deep passages of the + village. I could not find my way. I hurried towards the broken end of a + street, where the sunshine and the olive trees looked like a mirage before + me. And there above me I saw the thin, stiff neck of old San Tommaso, grey + and pale in the sun. Yet I could not get up to the church, I found myself + again on the piazza. + </p> + <p> + Another day, however, I found a broken staircase, where weeds grew in the + gaps the steps had made in falling, and maidenhair hung on the darker side + of the wall. I went up unwillingly, because the Italians used this old + staircase as a privy, as they will any deep side-passage. + </p> + <p> + But I ran up the broken stairway, and came out suddenly, as by a miracle, + clean on the platform of my San Tommaso, in the tremendous sunshine. + </p> + <p> + It was another world, the world of the eagle, the world of fierce + abstraction. It was all clear, overwhelming sunshine, a platform hung in + the light. Just below were the confused, tiled roofs of the village, and + beyond them the pale blue water, down below; and opposite, opposite my + face and breast, the clear, luminous snow of the mountain across the lake, + level with me apparently, though really much above. + </p> + <p> + I was in the skies now, looking down from my square terrace of cobbled + pavement, that was worn like the threshold of the ancient church. Round + the terrace ran a low, broad wall, the coping of the upper heaven where I + had climbed. + </p> + <p> + There was a blood-red sail like a butterfly breathing down on the blue + water, whilst the earth on the near side gave off a green-silver smoke of + olive trees, coming up and around the earth-coloured roofs. + </p> + <p> + It always remains to me that San Tommaso and its terrace hang suspended + above the village, like the lowest step of heaven, of Jacob's ladder. + Behind, the land rises in a high sweep. But the terrace of San Tommaso is + let down from heaven, and does not touch the earth. + </p> + <p> + I went into the church. It was very dark, and impregnated with centuries + of incense. It affected me like the lair of some enormous creature. My + senses were roused, they sprang awake in the hot, spiced darkness. My skin + was expectant, as if it expected some contact, some embrace, as if it were + aware of the contiguity of the physical world, the physical contact with + the darkness and the heavy, suggestive substance of the enclosure. It was + a thick, fierce darkness of the senses. But my soul shrank. + </p> + <p> + I went out again. The pavemented threshold was clear as a jewel, the + marvellous clarity of sunshine that becomes blue in the height seemed to + distil me into itself. + </p> + <p> + Across, the heavy mountain crouched along the side of the lake, the upper + half brilliantly white, belonging to the sky, the lower half dark and + grim. So, then, that is where heaven and earth are divided. From behind + me, on the left, the headland swept down out of a great, pale-grey, arid + height, through a rush of russet and crimson, to the olive smoke and the + water of the level earth. And between, like a blade of the sky cleaving + the earth asunder, went the pale-blue lake, cleaving mountain from + mountain with the triumph of the sky. + </p> + <p> + Then I noticed that a big, blue-checked cloth was spread on the parapet + before me, over the parapet of heaven. I wondered why it hung there. + </p> + <p> + Turning round, on the other side of the terrace, under a caper-bush that + hung like a blood-stain from the grey wall above her, stood a little grey + woman whose fingers were busy. Like the grey church, she made me feel as + if I were not in existence. I was wandering by the parapet of heaven, + looking down. But she stood back against the solid wall, under the + caper-bush, unobserved and unobserving. She was like a fragment of earth, + she was a living stone of the terrace, sun-bleached. She took no notice of + me, who was hesitating looking down at the earth beneath. She stood back + under the sun-bleached solid wall, like a stone rolled down and stayed in + a crevice. + </p> + <p> + Her head was tied in a dark-red kerchief, but pieces of hair, like dirty + snow, quite short, stuck out over her ears. And she was spinning. I + wondered so much, that I could not cross towards her. She was grey, and + her apron, and her dress, and her kerchief, and her hands and her face + were all sun-bleached and sun-stained, greyey, bluey, browny, like stones + and half-coloured leaves, sunny in their colourlessness. In my black coat, + I felt myself wrong, false, an outsider. + </p> + <p> + She was spinning, spontaneously, like a little wind. Under her arm she + held a distaff of dark, ripe wood, just a straight stick with a clutch at + the end, like a grasp of brown fingers full of a fluff of blackish, rusty + fleece, held up near her shoulder. And her fingers were plucking + spontaneously at the strands of wool drawn down from it. And hanging near + her feet, spinning round upon a black thread, spinning busily, like a + thing in a gay wind, was her shuttle, her bobbin wound fat with the + coarse, blackish worsted she was making. + </p> + <p> + All the time, like motion without thought, her fingers teased out the + fleece, drawing it down to a fairly uniform thickness: brown, old, natural + fingers that worked as in a sleep, the thumb having a long grey nail; and + from moment to moment there was a quick, downward rub, between thumb and + forefinger, of the thread that hung in front of her apron, the heavy + bobbin spun more briskly, and she felt again at the fleece as she drew it + down, and she gave a twist to the thread that issued, and the bobbin spun + swiftly. + </p> + <p> + Her eyes were clear as the sky, blue, empyrean, transcendent. They were + dear, but they had no looking in them. Her face was like a sun-worn stone. + </p> + <p> + 'You are spinning,' I said to her. + </p> + <p> + Her eyes glanced over me, making no effort of attention. + </p> + <p> + 'Yes,' she said. + </p> + <p> + She saw merely a man's figure, a stranger standing near. I was a bit of + the outside, negligible. She remained as she was, clear and sustained like + an old stone upon the hillside. She stood short and sturdy, looking for + the most part straight in front, unseeing, but glancing from time to time, + with a little, unconscious attention, at the thread. She was slightly more + animated than the sunshine and the stone and the motionless caper-bush + above her. Still her fingers went along the strand of fleece near her + breast. + </p> + <p> + 'That is an old way of spinning,' I said. + </p> + <p> + 'What?' + </p> + <p> + She looked up at me with eyes clear and transcendent as the heavens. But + she was slightly roused. There was the slight motion of the eagle in her + turning to look at me, a faint gleam of rapt light in her eyes. It was my + unaccustomed Italian. + </p> + <p> + 'That is an old way of spinning,' I repeated. + </p> + <p> + 'Yes—an old way,' she repeated, as if to say the words so that they + should be natural to her. And I became to her merely a transient + circumstance, a man, part of the surroundings. We divided the gift of + speech, that was all. + </p> + <p> + She glanced at me again, with her wonderful, unchanging eyes, that were + like the visible heavens, unthinking, or like two flowers that are open in + pure clear unconsciousness. To her I was a piece of the environment. That + was all. Her world was clear and absolute, without consciousness of self. + She was not self-conscious, because she was not aware that there was + anything in the universe except <i>her</i> universe. In her universe I was + a stranger, a foreign <i>signore</i>. That I had a world of my own, other + than her own, was not conceived by her. She did not care. + </p> + <p> + So we conceive the stars. We are told that they are other worlds. But the + stars are the clustered and single gleaming lights in the night-sky of our + world. When I come home at night, there are the stars. When I cease to + exist as the microcosm, when I begin to think of the cosmos, then the + stars are other worlds. Then the macrocosm absorbs me. But the macrocosm + is not me. It is something which I, the microcosm, am not. + </p> + <p> + So that there is something which is unknown to me and which nevertheless + exists. I am finite, and my understanding has limits. The universe is + bigger than I shall ever see, in mind or spirit. There is that which is + not me. + </p> + <p> + If I say 'The planet Mars is inhabited,' I do not know what I mean by + 'inhabited', with reference to the planet Mars. I can only mean that that + world is not my world. I can only know there is that which is not me. I am + the microcosm, but the macrocosm is that also which I am not. + </p> + <p> + The old woman on the terrace in the sun did not know this. She was herself + the core and centre to the world, the sun, and the single firmament. She + knew that I was an inhabitant of lands which she had never seen. But what + of that! There were parts of her own body which she had never seen, which + physiologically she could never see. They were none the less her own + because she had never seen them. The lands she had not seen were corporate + parts of her own living body, the knowledge she had not attained was only + the hidden knowledge of her own self. She <i>was</i> the substance of the + knowledge, whether she had the knowledge in her mind or not. There was + nothing which was not herself, ultimately. Even the man, the male, was + part of herself. He was the mobile, separate part, but he was none the + less herself because he was sometimes severed from her. If every apple in + the world were cut in two, the apple would not be changed. The reality is + the apple, which is just the same in the half-apple as in the whole. + </p> + <p> + And she, the old spinning-woman, was the apple, eternal, unchangeable, + whole even in her partiality. It was this which gave the wonderful clear + unconsciousness to her eyes. How could she be conscious of herself when + all was herself? + </p> + <p> + She was talking to me of a sheep that had died, but I could not understand + because of her dialect. It never occurred to her that I could not + understand. She only thought me different, stupid. And she talked on. The + ewes had lived under the house, and a part was divided off for the + he-goat, because the other people brought their she-goats to be covered by + the he-goat. But how the ewe came to die I could not make out. + </p> + <p> + Her fingers worked away all the time in a little, half-fretful movement, + yet spontaneous as butterflies leaping here and there. She chattered + rapidly on in her Italian that I could not understand, looking meanwhile + into my face, because the story roused her somewhat. Yet not a feature + moved. Her eyes remained candid and open and unconscious as the skies. + Only a sharp will in them now and then seemed to gleam at me, as if to + dominate me. + </p> + <p> + Her shuttle had caught in a dead chicory plant, and spun no more. She did + not notice. I stooped and broke off the twigs. There was a glint of blue + on them yet. Seeing what I was doing, she merely withdrew a few inches + from the plant. Her bobbin hung free. + </p> + <p> + She went on with her tale, looking at me wonderfully. She seemed like the + Creation, like the beginning of the world, the first morning. Her eyes + were like the first morning of the world, so ageless. + </p> + <p> + Her thread broke. She seemed to take no notice, but mechanically picked up + the shuttle, wound up a length of worsted, connected the ends from her + wool strand, set the bobbin spinning again, and went on talking, in her + half-intimate, half-unconscious fashion, as if she were talking to her own + world in me. + </p> + <p> + So she stood in the sunshine on the little platform, old and yet like the + morning, erect and solitary, sun-coloured, sun-discoloured, whilst I at + her elbow, like a piece of night and moonshine, stood smiling into her + eyes, afraid lest she should deny me existence. + </p> + <p> + Which she did. She had stopped talking, did not look at me any more, but + went on with her spinning, the brown shuttle twisting gaily. So she stood, + belonging to the sunshine and the weather, taking no more notice of me + than of the dark-stained caper-bush which hung from the wall above her + head, whilst I, waiting at her side, was like the moon in the daytime sky, + overshone, obliterated, in spite of my black clothes. + </p> + <p> + 'How long has it taken you to do that much?' I asked. + </p> + <p> + She waited a minute, glanced at her bobbin. + </p> + <p> + 'This much? I don't know. A day or two.' + </p> + <p> + 'But you do it quickly.' + </p> + <p> + She looked at me, as if suspiciously and derisively. Then, quite suddenly, + she started forward and went across the terrace to the great + blue-and-white checked cloth that was drying on the wall. I hesitated. She + had cut off her consciousness from me. So I turned and ran away, taking + the steps two at a time, to get away from her. In a moment I was between + the walls, climbing upwards, hidden. + </p> + <p> + The schoolmistress had told me I should find snowdrops behind San Tommaso. + If she had not asserted such confident knowledge I should have doubted her + translation of <i>perce-neige</i>. She meant Christmas roses all the + while. + </p> + <p> + However, I went looking for snowdrops. The walls broke down suddenly, and + I was out in a grassy olive orchard, following a track beside pieces of + fallen overgrown masonry. So I came to skirt the brink of a steep little + gorge, at the bottom of which a stream was rushing down its steep slant to + the lake. Here I stood to look for my snowdrops. The grassy, rocky bank + went down steep from my feet. I heard water tittle-tattling away in deep + shadow below. There were pale flecks in the dimness, but these, I knew, + were primroses. So I scrambled down. + </p> + <p> + Looking up, out of the heavy shadow that lay in the cleft, I could see, + right in the sky, grey rocks shining transcendent in the pure empyrean. + 'Are they so far up?' I thought. I did not dare to say, 'Am I so far + down?' But I was uneasy. Nevertheless it was a lovely place, in the cold + shadow, complete; when one forgot the shining rocks far above, it was a + complete, shadowless world of shadow. Primroses were everywhere in nests + of pale bloom upon the dark, steep face of the cleft, and tongues of fern + hanging out, and here and there under the rods and twigs of bushes were + tufts of wrecked Christmas roses, nearly over, but still, in the coldest + corners, the lovely buds like handfuls of snow. There had been such + crowded sumptuous tufts of Christmas roses everywhere in the + stream-gullies, during the shadow of winter, that these few remaining + flowers were hardly noticeable. + </p> + <p> + I gathered instead the primroses, that smelled of earth and of the + weather. There were no snowdrops. I had found the day before a bank of + crocuses, pale, fragile, lilac-coloured flowers with dark veins, pricking + up keenly like myriad little lilac-coloured flames among the grass, under + the olive trees. And I wanted very much to find the snowdrops hanging in + the gloom. But there were not any. + </p> + <p> + I gathered a handful of primroses, then I climbed suddenly, quickly out of + the deep watercourse, anxious to get back to the sunshine before the + evening fell. Up above I saw the olive trees in the sunny golden grass, + and sunlit grey rocks immensely high up. I was afraid lest the evening + would fall whilst I was groping about like an otter in the damp and the + darkness, that the day of sunshine would be over. + </p> + <p> + Soon I was up in the sunshine again, on the turf under the olive trees, + reassured. It was the upper world of glowing light, and I was safe again. + </p> + <p> + All the olives were gathered, and the mills were going night and day, + making a great, acrid scent of olive oil in preparation, by the lake. The + little stream rattled down. A mule driver 'Hued!' to his mules on the + Strada Vecchia. High up, on the Strada Nuova, the beautiful, new, military + high-road, which winds with beautiful curves up the mountain-side, + crossing the same stream several times in clear-leaping bridges, + travelling cut out of sheer slope high above the lake, winding beautifully + and gracefully forward to the Austrian frontier, where it ends: high up on + the lovely swinging road, in the strong evening sunshine, I saw a bullock + wagon moving like a vision, though the clanking of the wagon and the crack + of the bullock whip responded close in my ears. + </p> + <p> + Everything was clear and sun-coloured up there, clear-grey rocks partaking + of the sky, tawny grass and scrub, browny-green spires of cypresses, and + then the mist of grey-green olives fuming down to the lake-side. There was + no shadow, only clear sun-substance built up to the sky, a bullock wagon + moving slowly in the high sunlight, along the uppermost terrace of the + military road. It sat in the warm stillness of the transcendent afternoon. + </p> + <p> + The four o'clock steamer was creeping down the lake from the Austrian end, + creeping under the cliffs. Far away, the Verona side, beyond the Island, + lay fused in dim gold. The mountain opposite was so still, that my heart + seemed to fade in its beating as if it too would be still. All was + perfectly still, pure substance. The little steamer on the floor of the + world below, the mules down the road cast no shadow. They too were pure + sun-substance travelling on the surface of the sun-made world. + </p> + <p> + A cricket hopped near me. Then I remembered that it was Saturday + afternoon, when a strange suspension comes over the world. And then, just + below me, I saw two monks walking in their garden between the naked, bony + vines, walking in their wintry garden of bony vines and olive trees, their + brown cassocks passing between the brown vine-stocks, their heads bare to + the sunshine, sometimes a glint of light as their feet strode from under + their skirts. + </p> + <p> + It was so still, everything so perfectly suspended, that I felt them + talking. They marched with the peculiar march of monks, a long, loping + stride, their heads together, their skirts swaying slowly, two brown monks + with hidden hands, sliding under the bony vines and beside the cabbages, + their heads always together in hidden converse. It was as if I were + attending with my dark soul to their inaudible undertone. All the time I + sat still in silence, I was one with them, a partaker, though I could hear + no sound of their voices. I went with the long stride of their skirted + feet, that slid springless and noiseless from end to end of the garden, + and back again. Their hands were kept down at their sides, hidden in the + long sleeves, and the skirts of their robes. They did not touch each + other, nor gesticulate as they walked. There was no motion save the long, + furtive stride and the heads leaning together. Yet there was an eagerness + in their conversation. Almost like shadow-creatures ventured out of their + cold, obscure element, they went backwards and forwards in their wintry + garden, thinking nobody could see them. + </p> + <p> + Across, above them, was the faint, rousing dazzle of snow. They never + looked up. But the dazzle of snow began to glow as they walked, the + wonderful, faint, ethereal flush of the long range of snow in the heavens, + at evening, began to kindle. Another world was coming to pass, the cold, + rare night. It was dawning in exquisite, icy rose upon the long + mountain-summit opposite. The monks walked backwards and forwards, + talking, in the first undershadow. + </p> + <p> + And I noticed that up above the snow, frail in the bluish sky, a frail + moon had put forth, like a thin, scalloped film of ice floated out on the + slow current of the coming night. And a bell sounded. + </p> + <p> + And still the monks were pacing backwards and forwards, backwards and + forwards, with a strange, neutral regularity. + </p> + <p> + The shadows were coming across everything, because of the mountains in the + west. Already the olive wood where I sat was extinguished. This was the + world of the monks, the rim of pallor between night and day. Here they + paced, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, in the neutral, + shadowless light of shadow. + </p> + <p> + Neither the flare of day nor the completeness of night reached them, they + paced the narrow path of the twilight, treading in the neutrality of the + law. Neither the blood nor the spirit spoke in them, only the law, the + abstraction of the average. The infinite is positive and negative. But the + average is only neutral. And the monks trod backward and forward down the + line of neutrality. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, on the length of mountain-ridge, the snow grew + rosy-incandescent, like heaven breaking into blossom. After all, eternal + not-being and eternal being are the same. In the rosy snow that shone in + heaven over a darkened earth was the ecstasy of consummation. Night and + day are one, light and dark are one, both the same in the origin and in + the issue, both the same in the moment, of ecstasy, light fused in + darkness and darkness fused in light, as in the rosy snow above the + twilight. + </p> + <p> + But in the monks it was not ecstasy, in them it was neutrality, the under + earth. Transcendent, above the shadowed, twilit earth was the rosy snow of + ecstasy. But spreading far over us, down below, was the neutrality of the + twilight, of the monks. The flesh neutralizing the spirit, the spirit + neutralizing the flesh, the law of the average asserted, this was the + monks as they paced backward and forward. + </p> + <p> + The moon climbed higher, away from the snowy, fading ridge, she became + gradually herself. Between the roots of the olive tree was a rosy-tipped + daisy just going to sleep. I gathered it and put it among the frail, moony + little bunch of primroses, so that its sleep should warm the rest. Also I + put in some little periwinkles, that were very blue, reminding me of the + eyes of the old woman. + </p> + <p> + The day was gone, the twilight was gone, and the snow was invisible as I + came down to the side of the lake. Only the moon, white and shining, was + in the sky, like a woman glorying in her own loveliness as she loiters + superbly to the gaze of all the world, looking sometimes through the + fringe of dark olive leaves, sometimes looking at her own superb, + quivering body, wholly naked in the water of the lake. + </p> + <p> + My little old woman was gone. She, all day-sunshine, would have none of + the moon. Always she must live like a bird, looking down on all the world + at once, so that it lay all subsidiary to herself, herself the wakeful + consciousness hovering over the world like a hawk, like a sleep of + wakefulness. And, like a bird, she went to sleep as the shadows came. + </p> + <p> + She did not know the yielding up of the senses and the possession of the + unknown, through the senses, which happens under a superb moon. The + all-glorious sun knows none of these yieldings up. He takes his way. And + the daisies at once go to sleep. And the soul of the old spinning-woman + also closed up at sunset, the rest was a sleep, a cessation. + </p> + <p> + It is all so strange and varied: the dark-skinned Italians ecstatic in the + night and the moon, the blue-eyed old woman ecstatic in the busy sunshine, + the monks in the garden below, who are supposed to unite both, passing + only in the neutrality of the average. Where, then, is the meeting-point: + where in mankind is the ecstasy of light and dark together, the supreme + transcendence of the afterglow, day hovering in the embrace of the coming + night like two angels embracing in the heavens, like Eurydice in the arms + of Orpheus, or Persephone embraced by Pluto? + </p> + <p> + Where is the supreme ecstasy in mankind, which makes day a delight and + night a delight, purpose an ecstasy and a concourse in ecstasy, and single + abandon of the single body and soul also an ecstasy under the moon? Where + is the transcendent knowledge in our hearts, uniting sun and darkness, day + and night, spirit and senses? Why do we not know that the two in + consummation are one; that each is only part; partial and alone for ever; + but that the two in consummation are perfect, beyond the range of + loneliness or solitude? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE LEMON GARDENS + </h2> + <p> + The padrone came just as we were drinking coffee after dinner. It was two + o'clock, because the steamer going down the lake to Desenzano had bustled + through the sunshine, and the rocking of the water still made lights that + danced up and down upon the wall among the shadows by the piano. + </p> + <p> + The signore was very apologetic. I found him bowing in the hall, cap in + one hand, a slip of paper in the other, protesting eagerly, in broken + French, against disturbing me. + </p> + <p> + He is a little, shrivelled man, with close-cropped grey hair on his skull, + and a protruding jaw, which, with his gesticulations, always makes me + think of an ancient, aristocratic monkey. The signore is a gentleman, and + the last, shrivelled representative of his race. His only outstanding + quality, according to the villagers, is his avarice. + </p> + <p> + <i>'Mais—mais, monsieur—je crains que—que—que je + vous dérange—'</i> + </p> + <p> + He spreads wide his hands and bows, looking up at me with implicit brown + eyes, so ageless in his wrinkled, monkey's face, like onyx. He loves to + speak French, because then he feels grand. He has a queer, naïve, ancient + passion to be grand. As the remains of an impoverished family, he is not + much better than a well-to-do peasant. But the old spirit is eager and + pathetic in him. + </p> + <p> + He loves to speak French to me. He holds his chin and waits, in his + anxiety for the phrase to come. Then it stammers forth, a little rush, + ending in Italian. But his pride is all on edge: we must continue in + French. + </p> + <p> + The hall is cold, yet he will not come into the large room. This is not a + courtesy visit. He is not here in his quality of gentleman. He is only an + anxious villager. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Voyez, monsieur—cet—cet—qu'est-ce que—qu'est-ce + que veut dire cet—cela?</i>' + </p> + <p> + He shows me the paper. It is an old scrap of print, the picture of an + American patent door-spring, with directions: 'Fasten the spring either + end up. Wind it up. Never unwind.' + </p> + <p> + It is laconic and American. The signore watches me anxiously, waiting, + holding his chin. He is afraid he ought to understand my English. I + stutter off into French, confounded by the laconic phrases of the + directions. Nevertheless, I make it clear what the paper says. + </p> + <p> + He cannot believe me. It must say something else as well. He has not done + anything contrary to these directions. He is most distressed. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Mais, monsieur, la porte—la porte—elle ferme</i> pas—<i>elle + s'ouvre</i>—' + </p> + <p> + He skipped to the door and showed me the whole tragic mystery. The door, + it is shut—<i>ecco</i>! He releases the catch, and pouf!—she + flies open. She flies <i>open</i>. It is quite final. + </p> + <p> + The brown, expressionless, ageless eyes, that remind me of a monkey's, or + of onyx, wait for me. I feel the responsibility devolve upon me. I am + anxious. + </p> + <p> + 'Allow me,' I said, 'to come and look at the door.' + </p> + <p> + I feel uncomfortably like Sherlock Holmes. The padrone protests—<i>non, + monsieur, non, cela vous dérange</i>—that he only wanted me to + translate the words, he does not want to disturb me. Nevertheless, we go. + I feel I have the honour of mechanical England in my hands. + </p> + <p> + The Casa di Paoli is quite a splendid place. It is large, pink and cream, + rising up to a square tower in the centre, throwing off a painted loggia + at either extreme of the façade. It stands a little way back from the + road, just above the lake, and grass grows on the bay of cobbled pavement + in front. When at night the moon shines full on this pale façade, the + theatre is far outdone in staginess. + </p> + <p> + The hall is spacious and beautiful, with great glass doors at either end, + through which shine the courtyards where bamboos fray the sunlight and + geraniums glare red. The floor is of soft red tiles, oiled and polished + like glass, the walls are washed grey-white, the ceiling is painted with + pink roses and birds. This is half-way between the outer world and the + interior world, it partakes of both. + </p> + <p> + The other rooms are dark and ugly. There is no mistake about their being + interior. They are like furnished vaults. The red-tiled, polished floor in + the drawing-room seems cold and clammy, the carved, cold furniture stands + in its tomb, the air has been darkened and starved to death, it is + perished. + </p> + <p> + Outside, the sunshine runs like birds singing. Up above, the grey rocks + build the sun-substance in heaven, San Tommaso guards the terrace. But + inside here is the immemorial shadow. + </p> + <p> + Again I had to think of the Italian soul, how it is dark, cleaving to the + eternal night. It seems to have become so, at the Renaissance, after the + Renaissance. + </p> + <p> + In the Middle Ages Christian Europe seems to have been striving, out of a + strong, primitive, animal nature, towards the self-abnegation and the + abstraction of Christ. This brought about by itself a great sense of + completeness. The two halves were joined by the effort towards the one as + yet unrealized. There was a triumphant joy in the Whole. + </p> + <p> + But the movement all the time was in one direction, towards the + elimination of the flesh. Man wanted more and more to become purely free + and abstract. Pure freedom was in pure abstraction. The Word was absolute. + When man became as the Word, a pure law, then he was free. + </p> + <p> + But when this conclusion was reached, the movement broke. Already + Botticelli painted Aphrodite, queen of the senses, supreme along with + Mary, Queen of Heaven. And Michelangelo suddenly turned back on the whole + Christian movement, back to the flesh. The flesh was supreme and god-like, + in the oneness of the flesh, in the oneness of our physical being, we are + one with God, with the Father. God the Father created man in the flesh, in + His own image. Michelangelo swung right back to the old Mosaic position. + Christ did not exist. To Michelangelo there was no salvation in the + spirit. There was God the Father, the Begetter, the Author of all flesh. + And there was the inexorable law of the flesh, the Last Judgement, the + fall of the immortal flesh into Hell. + </p> + <p> + This has been the Italian position ever since. The mind, that is the + Light; the senses, they are the Darkness. Aphrodite, the queen of the + senses, she, born of the sea-foam, is the luminousness of the gleaming + senses, the phosphorescence of the sea, the senses become a conscious aim + unto themselves; she is the gleaming darkness, she is the luminous night, + she is goddess of destruction, her white, cold fire consumes and does not + create. + </p> + <p> + This is the soul of the Italian since the Renaissance. In the sunshine he + basks asleep, gathering up a vintage into his veins which in the + night-time he will distil into ecstatic sensual delight, the intense, + white-cold ecstasy of darkness and moonlight, the raucous, cat-like, + destructive enjoyment, the senses conscious and crying out in their + consciousness in the pangs of the enjoyment, which has consumed the + southern nation, perhaps all the Latin races, since the Renaissance. + </p> + <p> + It is a lapse back, back to the original position, the Mosaic position, of + the divinity of the flesh, and the absoluteness of its laws. But also + there is the Aphrodite-worship. The flesh, the senses, are now + self-conscious. They know their aim. Their aim is in supreme sensation. + They seek the maximum of sensation. They seek the reduction of the flesh, + the flesh reacting upon itself, to a crisis, an ecstasy, a phosphorescent + transfiguration in ecstasy. + </p> + <p> + The mind, all the time, subserves the senses. As in a cat, there is + subtlety and beauty and the dignity of the darkness. But the fire is cold, + as in the eyes of a cat, it is a green fire. It is fluid, electric. At its + maximum it is the white ecstasy of phosphorescence, in the darkness, + always amid the darkness, as under the black fur of a cat. Like the feline + fire, it is destructive, always consuming and reducing to the ecstasy of + sensation, which is the end in itself. + </p> + <p> + There is the I, always the I. And the mind is submerged, overcome. But the + senses are superbly arrogant. The senses are the absolute, the god-like. + For I can never have another man's senses. These are me, my senses + absolutely me. And all that is can only come to me through my senses. So + that all is me, and is administered unto me. The rest, that is not me, is + nothing, it is something which is nothing. So the Italian, through + centuries, has avoided our Northern purposive industry, because it has + seemed to him a form of nothingness. + </p> + <p> + It is the spirit of the tiger. The tiger is the supreme manifestation of + the senses made absolute. This is the + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Tiger, tiger burning bright, + In the forests of the night +</pre> + <p> + of Blake. It does indeed burn within the darkness. But the <i>essential</i> + fate, of the tiger is cold and white, a white ecstasy. It is seen in the + white eyes of the blazing cat. This is the supremacy of the flesh, which + devours all, and becomes transfigured into a magnificent brindled flame, a + burning bush indeed. + </p> + <p> + This is one way of transfiguration into the eternal flame, the + transfiguration through ecstasy in the flesh. Like the tiger in the night, + I devour all flesh, I drink all blood, until this fuel blazes up in me to + the consummate fire of the Infinite. In the ecstacy I am Infinite, I + become again the great Whole, I am a flame of the One White Flame which is + the Infinite, the Eternal, the Originator, the Creator, the Everlasting + God. In the sensual ecstasy, having drunk all blood and devoured all + flesh, I am become again the eternal Fire, I am infinite. + </p> + <p> + This is the way of the tiger; the tiger is supreme. His head is flattened + as if there were some great weight on the hard skull, pressing, pressing, + pressing the mind into a stone, pressing it down under the blood, to serve + the blood. It is the subjugate instrument of the blood. The will lies + above the loins, as it were at the base of the spinal column, there is the + living will, the living mind of the tiger, there in the slender loins. + That is the node, there in the spinal cord. + </p> + <p> + So the Italian, so the soldier. This is the spirit of the soldier. He, + too, walks with his consciousness concentrated at the base of the spine, + his mind subjugated, submerged. The will of the soldier is the will of the + great cats, the will to ecstasy in destruction, in absorbing life into his + own life, always his own life supreme, till the ecstasy burst into the + white, eternal flame, the Infinite, the Flame of the Infinite. Then he is + satisfied, he has been consummated in the Infinite. + </p> + <p> + This is the true soldier, this is the immortal climax of the senses. This + is the acme of the flesh, the one superb tiger who has devoured all living + flesh, and now paces backwards and forwards in the cage of its own + infinite, glaring with blind, fierce, absorbed eyes at that which is + nothingness to it. + </p> + <p> + The eyes of the tiger cannot see, except with the light from within + itself, by the light of its own desire. Its own white, cold light is so + fierce that the other warm light of day is outshone, it is not, it does + not exist. So the white eyes of the tiger gleam to a point of concentrated + vision, upon that which does not exist. Hence its terrifying + sightlessness. The something which I know I am is hollow space to its + vision, offers no resistance to the tiger's looking. It can only see of me + that which it knows I am, a scent, a resistance, a voluptuous solid, a + struggling warm violence that it holds overcome, a running of hot blood + between its Jaws, a delicious pang of live flesh in the mouth. This it + sees. The rest is not. + </p> + <p> + And what is the rest, that which is-not the tiger, that which the tiger + is-not? What is this? + </p> + <p> + What is that which parted ways with the terrific eagle-like angel of the + senses at the Renaissance? The Italians said, 'We are one in the Father: + we will go back.' The Northern races said, 'We are one in Christ: we will + go on.' + </p> + <p> + What <i>is</i> the consummation in Christ? Man knows satisfaction when he + surpasses all conditions and becomes, to himself, consummate in the + Infinite, when he reaches a state of infinity. In the supreme ecstasy of + the flesh, the Dionysic ecstasy, he reaches this state. But how does it + come to pass in Christ? + </p> + <p> + It is not the mystic ecstasy. The mystic ecstasy is a special sensual + ecstasy, it is the senses satisfying themselves with a self-created + object. It is self-projection into the self, the sensuous self satisfied + in a projected self. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. + + Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for + theirs is the kingdom of heaven. +</pre> + <p> + The kingdom of heaven is this Infinite into which we may be consummated, + then, if we are poor in spirit or persecuted for righteousness' sake. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other + also. + + Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that + hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and + persecute you. + + Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is + perfect. +</pre> + <p> + To be perfect, to be one with God, to be infinite and eternal, what shall + we do? We must turn the other cheek, and love our enemies. + </p> + <p> + Christ is the lamb which the eagle swoops down upon, the dove taken by the + hawk, the deer which the tiger devours. + </p> + <p> + What then, if a man come to me with a sword, to kill me, and I do not + resist him, but suffer his sword and the death from his sword, what am I? + Am I greater than he, am I stronger than he? Do I know a consummation in + the Infinite, I, the prey, beyond the tiger who devours me? By my + non-resistance I have robbed him of his consummation. For a tiger knows no + consummation unless he kill a violated and struggling prey. There is no + consummation merely for the butcher, nor for a hyena. I can rob the tiger + of his ecstasy, his consummation, his very __my non-resistance. In my + non-resistance the tiger is infinitely destroyed. + </p> + <p> + But I, what am I? 'Be ye therefore perfect.' Wherein am I perfect in this + submission? Is there an affirmation, behind my negation, other than the + tiger's affirmation of his own glorious infinity? + </p> + <p> + What is the Oneness to which I subscribe, I who offer no resistance in the + flesh? + </p> + <p> + Have I only the negative ecstasy of being devoured, of becoming thus part + of the Lord, the Great Moloch, the superb and terrible God? I have this + also, this subject ecstasy of consummation. But is there nothing else? + </p> + <p> + The Word of the tiger is: my senses are supremely Me, and my senses are + God in me. But Christ said: God is in the others, who are not-me. In all + the multitude of the others is God, and this is the great God, greater + than the God which is Me. God is that which is Not-Me. + </p> + <p> + And this is the Christian truth, a truth complementary to the pagan + affirmation: 'God is that which is Me.' + </p> + <p> + God is that which is Not-Me. In realizing the Not-Me I am consummated, I + become infinite. In turning the other cheek I submit to God who is greater + than I am, other than I am, who is in that which is not me. This is the + supreme consummation. To achieve this consummation I love my neighbour as + myself. My neighbour is all that is not me. And if I love all this, have I + not become one with the Whole, is not my consummation complete, am I not + one with God, have I not achieved the Infinite? + </p> + <p> + After the Renaissance the Northern races continued forward to put into + practice this religious belief in the God which is Not-Me. Even the idea + of the saving of the soul was really negative: it was a question of + escaping damnation. The Puritans made the last great attack on the God who + is Me. When they beheaded Charles the First, the king by Divine Right, + they destroyed, symbolically, for ever, the supremacy of the Me who am the + image of God, the Me of the flesh, of the senses, Me, the tiger burning + bright, me the king, the Lord, the aristocrat, me who am divine because I + am the body of God. + </p> + <p> + After the Puritans, we have been gathering data for the God who is not-me. + When Pope said 'Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper + study of mankind is Man,' he was stating the proposition: A man is right, + he is consummated, when he is seeking to know Man, the great abstract; and + the method of knowledge is by the analysis, which is the destruction, of + the Self. The proposition up to that time was, a man is the epitome of the + universe. He has only to express himself, to fulfil his desires, to + satisfy his supreme senses. + </p> + <p> + Now the change has come to pass. The individual man is a limited being, + finite in himself. Yet he is capable of apprehending that which is not + himself. 'The proper study of mankind is Man.' This is another way of + saying, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' Which means, a man is + consummated in his knowledge of that which is not himself, the abstract + Man. Therefore the consummation lies in seeking that other, in knowing + that other. Whereas the Stuart proposition was: 'A man is consummated in + expressing his own Self.' + </p> + <p> + The new spirit developed into the empirical and ideal systems of + philosophy. Everything that is, is consciousness. And in every man's + consciousness, Man is great and illimitable, whilst the individual is + small and fragmentary. Therefore the individual must sink himself in the + great whole of Mankind. + </p> + <p> + This is the spirituality of Shelley, the perfectibility of man. This is + the way in which we fulfil the commandment, 'Be ye therefore perfect, even + as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.' This is Saint Paul's, 'Now + I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am known.' + </p> + <p> + When a man knows everything and understands everything, then he will be + perfect, and life will be blessed. He is capable of knowing everything and + understanding everything. Hence he is justified in his hope of infinite + freedom and blessedness. + </p> + <p> + The great inspiration of the new religion was the inspiration of freedom. + When I have submerged or distilled away my concrete body and my limited + desires, when I am like the skylark dissolved in the sky yet filling + heaven and earth with song, then I am perfect, consummated in the + Infinite. When I am all that is not-me, then I have perfect liberty, I + know no limitation. Only I must eliminate the Self. + </p> + <p> + It was this religious belief which expressed itself in science. Science + was the analysis of the outer self, the elementary substance of the self, + the outer world. And the machine is the great reconstructed selfless + power. Hence the active worship to which we were given at the end of the + last century, the worship of mechanized force. + </p> + <p> + Still we continue to worship that which is not-me, the Selfless world, + though we would fain bring in the Self to help us. We are shouting the + Shakespearean advice to warriors: 'Then simulate the action of the tiger.' + We are trying to become again the tiger, the supreme, imperial, warlike + Self. At the same time our ideal is the selfless world of equity. + </p> + <p> + We continue to give service to the Selfless God, we worship the great + selfless oneness in the spirit, oneness in service of the great humanity, + that which is Not-Me. This selfless God is He who works for all alike, + without consideration. And His image is the machine which dominates and + cows us, we cower before it, we run to serve it. For it works for all + humanity alike. + </p> + <p> + At the same time, we want to be warlike tigers. That is the horror: the + confusing of the two ends. We warlike tigers fit ourselves out with + machinery, and our blazing tiger wrath is emitted through a machine. It is + a horrible thing to see machines hauled about by tigers, at the mercy of + tigers, forced to express the tiger. It is a still more horrible thing to + see tigers caught up and entangled and torn in machinery. It is horrible, + a chaos beyond chaos, an unthinkable hell. + </p> + <p> + The tiger is not wrong, the machine is not wrong, but we, liars, + lip-servers, duplicate fools, we are unforgivably wrong. We say: 'I will + be a tiger because I love mankind; out of love for other people, out of + selfless service to that which is not me, I will even become a tiger.' + Which is absurd. A tiger devours because it is consummated in devouring, + it achieves its absolute self in devouring. It does not devour because its + unselfish conscience bids it do so, for the sake of the other deer and + doves, or the other tigers. + </p> + <p> + Having arrived at the one extreme of mechanical selflessness, we + immediately embrace the other extreme of the transcendent Self. But we try + to be both at once. We do not cease to be the one before we become the + other. We do not even play the roles in turn. We want to be the tiger and + the deer both in one. Which is just ghastly nothingness. We try to say, + 'The tiger is the lamb and the lamb is the tiger.' Which is nil, nihil, + nought. + </p> + <p> + The padrone took me into a small room almost contained in the thickness of + the wall. There the Signora's dark eyes glared with surprise and + agitation, seeing me intrude. She is younger than the Signore, a mere + village tradesman's daughter, and, alas, childless. + </p> + <p> + It was quite true, the door stood open. Madame put down the screw-driver + and drew herself erect. Her eyes were a flame of excitement. This question + of a door-spring that made the door fly open when it should make it close + roused a vivid spark in her soul. It was she who was wrestling with the + angel of mechanism. + </p> + <p> + She was about forty years old, and flame-like and fierily sad. I think she + did not know she was sad. But her heart was eaten by some impotence in her + life. + </p> + <p> + She subdued her flame of life to the little padrone. He was strange and + static, scarcely human, ageless, like a monkey. She supported him with her + flame, supported his static, ancient, beautiful form, kept it intact. But + she did not believe in him. + </p> + <p> + Now, the Signora Gemma held her husband together whilst he undid the screw + that fixed the spring. If they had been alone, she would have done it, + pretending to be under his direction. But since I was there, he did it + himself; a grey, shaky, highly-bred little gentleman, standing on a chair + with a long screw-driver, whilst his wife stood behind him, her hands + half-raised to catch him if he should fall. Yet he was strangely absolute, + with a strange, intact force in his breeding. + </p> + <p> + They had merely adjusted the strong spring to the shut door, and stretched + it slightly in fastening it to the door-jamb, so that it drew together the + moment the latch was released, and the door flew open. + </p> + <p> + We soon made it right. There was a moment of anxiety, the screw was fixed. + And the door swung to. They were delighted. The Signora Gemma, who roused + in me an electric kind of melancholy, clasped her hands together in + ecstasy as the door swiftly shut itself. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Ecco!</i>' she cried, in her vibrating, almost warlike woman's voice: + '<i>Ecco!</i>' + </p> + <p> + Her eyes were aflame as they looked at the door. She ran forward to try it + herself. She opened the door expectantly, eagerly. Pouf!—it shut + with a bang. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Ecco!</i>' she cried, her voice quivering like bronze, overwrought but + triumphant. + </p> + <p> + I must try also. I opened the door. Pouf! It shut with a bang. We all + exclaimed with joy. + </p> + <p> + Then the Signor di Paoli turned to me, with a gracious, bland, formal + grin. He turned his back slightly on the woman, and stood holding his + chin, his strange horse-mouth grinning almost pompously at me. It was an + affair of gentlemen. His wife disappeared as if dismissed. Then the + padrone broke into cordial motion. We must drink. + </p> + <p> + He would show me the estate. I had already seen the house. We went out by + the glass doors on the left, into the domestic courtyard. + </p> + <p> + It was lower than the gardens round it, and the sunshine came through the + trellised arches on to the flagstones, where the grass grew fine and green + in the cracks, and all was deserted and spacious and still. There were one + or two orange-tubs in the light. + </p> + <p> + Then I heard a noise, and there in the corner, among all the pink + geraniums and the sunshine, the Signora Gemma sat laughing with a baby. It + was a fair, bonny thing of eighteen months. The Signora was concentrated + upon the child as he sat, stolid and handsome, in his little white cap, + perched on a bench picking at the pink geraniums. + </p> + <p> + She laughed, bent forward her dark face out of the shadow, swift into a + glitter of sunshine near the sunny baby, laughing again excitedly, making + mother-noises. The child took no notice of her. She caught him swiftly + into the shadow, and they were obscured; her dark head was against the + baby's wool jacket, she was kissing his neck, avidly, under the creeper + leaves. The pink geraniums still frilled joyously in the sunshine. + </p> + <p> + I had forgotten the padrone. Suddenly I turned to him inquiringly. + </p> + <p> + 'The Signora's nephew,' he explained, briefly, curtly, in a small voice. + It was as if he were ashamed, or too deeply chagrined. + </p> + <p> + The woman had seen us watching, so she came across the sunshine with the + child, laughing, talking to the baby, not coming out of her own world to + us, not acknowledging us, except formally. + </p> + <p> + The Signor Pietro, queer old horse, began to laugh and neigh at the child, + with strange, rancorous envy. The child twisted its face to cry. The + Signora caught it away, dancing back a few yards from her old husband. + </p> + <p> + 'I am a stranger,' I said to her across the distance. 'He is afraid of a + stranger.' + </p> + <p> + 'No, no,' she cried back, her eyes flaring up. 'It is the man. He always + cries at the men.' + </p> + <p> + She advanced again, laughing and roused, with the child in her arms. Her + husband stood as if overcast, obliterated. She and I and the baby, in the + sunshine, laughed a moment. Then I heard the neighing, forced laugh of the + old man. He would not be left out. He seemed to force himself forward. He + was bitter, acrid with chagrin and obliteration, struggling as if to + assert his own existence. He was nullified. + </p> + <p> + The woman also was uncomfortable. I could see she wanted to go away with + the child, to enjoy him alone, with palpitating, pained enjoyment. It was + her brother's boy. And the old padrone was as if nullified by her ecstasy + over the baby. He held his chin, gloomy, fretful, unimportant. + </p> + <p> + He was annulled. I was startled when I realized it. It was as though his + reality were not attested till he had a child. It was as if his <i>raison + d'être</i> had been to have a son. And he had no children. Therefore he + had no <i>raison d'être</i>. He was nothing, a shadow that vanishes into + nothing. And he was ashamed, consumed by his own nothingness. + </p> + <p> + I was startled. This, then, is the secret of Italy's attraction for us, + this phallic worship. To the Italian the phallus is the symbol of + individual creative immortality, to each man his own Godhead. The child is + but the evidence of the Godhead. + </p> + <p> + And this is why the Italian is attractive, supple, and beautiful, because + he worships the Godhead in the flesh. We envy him, we feel pale and + insignificant beside him. Yet at the same time we feel superior to him, as + if he were a child and we adult. + </p> + <p> + Wherein are we superior? Only because we went beyond the phallus in the + search of the Godhead, the creative origin. And we found the physical + forces and the secrets of science. + </p> + <p> + We have exalted Man far above the man who is in each one of us. Our aim is + a perfect humanity, a perfect and equable human consciousness, selfless. + And we obtain it in the subjection, reduction, analysis, and destruction + of the Self. So on we go, active in science and mechanics, and social + reform. + </p> + <p> + But we have exhausted ourselves in the process. We have found great + treasures, and we are now impotent to use them. So we have said: 'What + good are these treasures, they are vulgar nothings.' We have said: 'Let us + go back from this adventuring, let us enjoy our own flesh, like the + Italian.' But our habit of life, our very constitution, prevents our being + quite like the Italian. The phallus will never serve us as a Godhead, + because we do not believe in it: no Northern race does. Therefore, either + we set ourselves to serve our children, calling them 'the future', or else + we turn perverse and destructive, give ourselves joy in the destruction of + the flesh. + </p> + <p> + The children are not the future. The living truth is the future. Time and + people do not make the future. Retrogression is not the future. Fifty + million children growing up purposeless, with no purpose save the + attainment of their own individual desires, these are not the future, they + are only a disintegration of the past. The future is in living, growing + truth, in advancing fulfilment. + </p> + <p> + But it is no good. Whatever we do, it is within the greater will towards + self-reduction and a perfect society, analysis on the one hand, and + mechanical construction on the other. This will dominates us as a whole, + and until the whole breaks down, the will must persist. So that now, + continuing in the old, splendid will for a perfect selfless humanity, we + have become inhuman and unable to help ourselves, we are but attributes of + the great mechanized society we have created on our way to perfection. And + this great mechanized society, being selfless, is pitiless. It works on + mechanically and destroys us, it is our master and our God. + </p> + <p> + It is past the time to leave off, to cease entirely from what we are + doing, and from what we have been doing for hundreds of years. It is past + the time to cease seeking one Infinite, ignoring, striving to eliminate + the other. The Infinite is twofold, the Father and the Son, the Dark and + the Light, the Senses and the Mind, the Soul and the Spirit, the self and + the not-self, the Eagle and the Dove, the Tiger and the Lamb. The + consummation of man is twofold, in the Self and in Selflessness. By great + retrogression back to the source of darkness in me, the Self, deep in the + senses, I arrive at the Original, Creative Infinite. By projection forth + from myself, by the elimination of my absolute sensual self, I arrive at + the Ultimate Infinite, Oneness in the Spirit. They are two Infinites, + twofold approach to God. And man must know both. + </p> + <p> + But he must never confuse them. They are eternally separate. The lion + shall never lie down with the lamb. The lion eternally shall devour the + lamb, the lamb eternally shall be devoured. Man knows the great + consummation in the flesh, the sensual ecstasy, and that is eternal. Also + the spiritual ecstasy of unanimity, that is eternal. But the two are + separate and never to be confused. To neutralize the one with the other is + unthinkable, an abomination. Confusion is horror and nothingness. + </p> + <p> + The two Infinites, negative and positive, they are always related, but + they are never identical. They are always opposite, but there exists a + relation between them. This is the Holy Ghost of the Christian Trinity. + And it is this, the relation which is established between the two + Infinites, the two natures of God, which we have transgressed, forgotten, + sinned against. The Father is the Father, and the Son is the Son. I may + know the Son and deny the Father, or know the Father and deny the Son. But + that which I may never deny, and which I have denied, is the Holy Ghost + which relates the dual Infinites into One Whole, which relates and keeps + distinct the dual natures of God. To say that the two are one, this is the + inadmissible lie. The two are related, by the intervention of the Third, + into a Oneness. + </p> + <p> + There are two ways, there is not only One. There are two opposite ways to + consummation. But that which relates them, like the base of the triangle, + this is the constant, the Absolute, this makes the Ultimate Whole. And in + the Holy Spirit I know the Two Ways, the Two Infinites, the Two + Consummations. And knowing the Two, I admit the Whole. But excluding One, + I exclude the Whole. And confusing the two, I make nullity nihil. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Mais</i>,' said the Signore, starting from his scene of ignominy, + where his wife played with another man's child, '<i>mais—voulez-vous + vous promener dans mes petites terres?</i>' + </p> + <p> + It came out fluently, he was so much roused in self-defence and + self-assertion. + </p> + <p> + We walked under the pergola of bony vine-stocks, secure in the sunshine + within the walls, only the long mountain, parallel with us, looking in. + </p> + <p> + I said how I liked the big vine-garden, I asked when it ended. The pride + of the padrone came back with a click. He pointed me to the terrace, to + the great shut lemon-houses above. They were all his. But—he + shrugged his Italian shoulders—it was nothing, just a little garden, + <i>vous savez, monsieur</i>. I protested it was beautiful, that I loved + it, and that it seemed to me <i>very</i> large indeed. He admitted that + today, perhaps, it was beautiful. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Perchè—parce que—il fait un tempo—così—très + bell'—très beau, ecco!</i>' + </p> + <p> + He alighted on the word <i>beau</i> hurriedly, like a bird coming to + ground with a little bounce. + </p> + <p> + The terraces of the garden are held up to the sun, the sun falls full upon + them, they are like a vessel slanted up, to catch the superb, heavy light. + Within the walls we are remote, perfect, moving in heavy spring sunshine, + under the bony avenue of vines. The padrone makes little exclamatory + noises that mean nothing, and teaches me the names of vegetables. The land + is rich and black. + </p> + <p> + Opposite us, looking down on our security, is the long, arched mountain of + snow. We climbed one flight of steps, and we could see the little villages + on the opposite side of the lake. We climbed again, and could see the + water rippling. + </p> + <p> + We came to a great stone building that I had thought was a storehouse, for + open-air storage, because the walls are open halfway up, showing the + darkness inside and the corner pillar very white and square and distinct + in front of it. + </p> + <p> + Entering carelessly into the dimness, I started, for at my feet was a + great floor of water, clear and green in its obscurity, going down between + the walls, a reservoir in the gloom. The Signore laughed at my surprise. + It was for irrigating the land, he said. It stank, slightly, with a raw + smell; otherwise, I said, what a wonderful bath it would make. The old + Signore gave his little neighing laugh at the idea. + </p> + <p> + Then we climbed into a great loft of leaves, ruddy brown, stored in a + great bank under the roof, seeming to give off a little red heat, as they + gave off the lovely perfume of the hills. We passed through, and stood at + the foot of the lemon-house. The big, blind building rose high in the + sunshine before us. + </p> + <p> + All summer long, upon the mountain slopes steep by the lake, stands the + rows of naked pillars rising out of the green foliage like ruins of + temples: white, square pillars of masonry, standing forlorn in their + colonnades and squares, rising up the mountain-sides here and there, as if + they remained from some great race that had once worshipped here. And + still, in the winter, some are seen, standing away in lonely places where + the sun streams full, grey rows of pillars rising out of a broken wall, + tier above tier, naked to the sky, forsaken. + </p> + <p> + They are the lemon plantations, and the pillars are to support the heavy + branches of the trees, but finally to act as scaffolding of the great + wooden houses that stand blind and ugly, covering the lemon trees in the + winter. + </p> + <p> + In November, when cold winds came down and snow had fallen on the + mountains, from out of the storehouses the men were carrying timber, and + we heard the clang of falling planks. Then, as we walked along the + military road on the mountain-side, we saw below, on the top of the lemon + gardens, long, thin poles laid from pillar to pillar, and we heard the two + men talking and singing as they walked across perilously, placing the + poles. In their clumsy zoccoli they strode easily across, though they had + twenty or thirty feet to fall if they slipped. But the mountain-side, + rising steeply, seemed near, and above their heads the rocks glowed high + into the sky, so that the sense of elevation must have been taken away. At + any rate, they went easily from pillar-summit to pillar-summit, with a + great cave of space below. Then again was the rattle and clang of planks + being laid in order, ringing from the mountain-side over the blue lake, + till a platform of timber, old and brown, projected from the + mountain-side, a floor when seen from above, a hanging roof when seen from + below. And we, on the road above, saw the men sitting easily on this + flimsy hanging platform, hammering the planks. And all day long the sound + of hammering echoed among the rocks and olive woods, and came, a faint, + quick concussion, to the men on the boats far out. When the roofs were on + they put in the fronts, blocked in between the white pillars withhold, + dark wood, in roughly made panels. And here and there, at irregular + intervals, was a panel of glass, pane overlapping pane in the long strip + of narrow window. So that now these enormous, unsightly buildings bulge + out on the mountain-sides, rising in two or three receding tiers, blind, + dark, sordid-looking places. + </p> + <p> + In the morning I often lie in bed and watch the sunrise. The lake lies dim + and milky, the mountains are dark blue at the back, while over them the + sky gushes and glistens with light. At a certain place on the mountain + ridge the light burns gold, seems to fuse a little groove on the hill's + rim. It fuses and fuses at this point, till of a sudden it comes, the + intense, molten, living light. The mountains melt suddenly, the light + steps down, there is a glitter, a spangle, a clutch of spangles, a great + unbearable sun-track flashing across the milky lake, and the light falls + on my face. Then, looking aside, I hear the little slotting noise which + tells me they are opening the lemon gardens, a long panel here and there, + a long slot of darkness at irregular intervals between the brown wood and + the glass stripes. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Voulez-vous</i>'—the Signore bows me in with outstretched hand—'<i>voulez-vous + entrer, monsieur?</i>' + </p> + <p> + I went into the lemon-house, where the poor threes seem to mope in the + darkness. It is an immense, dark, cold place. Tall lemon trees, heavy with + half-visible fruit, crowd together, and rise in the gloom. They look like + ghosts in the darkness of the underworld, stately, and as if in life, but + only grand shadows of themselves. And lurking here and there, I see one of + the pillars, But he, too, seems a shadow, not one of the dazzling white + fellows I knew. Here we are trees, men, pillars, the dark earth, the sad + black paths, shut in in this enormous box. It is true, there are long + strips of window and slots of space, so that the front is striped, and an + occasional beam of light fingers the leaves of an enclosed tree and the + sickly round lemons. But it is nevertheless very gloomy. + </p> + <p> + 'But it is much colder in here than outside,' I said. + </p> + <p> + 'Yes,' replied the Signore, 'now. But at night—I <i>think</i>—' + </p> + <p> + I almost wished it were night to try. I wanted to imagine the trees cosy. + They seemed now in the underworld. Between the lemon trees, beside the + path, were little orange trees, and dozens of oranges hanging like hot + coals in the twilight. When I warm my hands at them the Signore breaks me + off one twig after another, till I have a bunch of burning oranges among + dark leaves, a heavy bouquet. Looking down the Hades of the lemon-house, + the many ruddy-clustered oranges beside the path remind me of the lights + of a village along the lake at night, while the pale lemons above are the + stars. There is a subtle, exquisite scent of lemon flowers. Then I notice + a citron. He hangs heavy and bloated upon so small a tree, that he seems a + dark green enormity. There is a great host of lemons overhead, + half-visible, a swarm of ruddy oranges by the paths, and here and there a + fat citron. It is almost like being under the sea. + </p> + <p> + At the corners of the path were round little patches of ash and stumps of + charred wood, where fires had been kindled inside the house on cold + nights. For during the second and third weeks in January the snow came + down so low on the mountains that, after climbing for an hour, I found + myself in a snow lane, and saw olive orchards on lawns of snow. + </p> + <p> + The padrone says that all lemons and sweet oranges are grafted on a + bitter-orange stock. The plants raised from seed, lemon and sweet orange, + fell prey to disease, so the cultivators found it safe only to raise the + native bitter orange, and then graft upon it. + </p> + <p> + And the maestra—she is the schoolmistress, who wears black gloves + while she teaches us Italian—says that the lemon was brought by St + Francis of Assisi, who came to the Garda here and founded a church and a + monastery. Certainly the church of San Francesco is very old and + dilapidated, and its cloisters have some beautiful and original carvings + of leaves and fruit upon the pillars, which seem to connect San Francesco + with the lemon. I imagine him wandering here with a lemon in his pocket. + Perhaps he made lemonade in the hot summer. But Bacchus had been before + him in the drink trade. + </p> + <p> + Looking at his lemons, the Signore sighed. I think he hates them. They are + leaving him in the lurch. They are sold retail at a halfpenny each all the + year round. 'But that is as dear, or dearer, than in England,' I say. 'Ah, + but,' says the maestra, 'that is because your lemons are outdoor fruit + from Sicily. <i>Però</i>—one of our lemons is as good as <i>two</i> + from elsewhere.' + </p> + <p> + It is true these lemons have an exquisite fragrance and perfume, but + whether their force as lemons is double that of an ordinary fruit is a + question. Oranges are sold at fourpence halfpenny the kilo—it comes + about five for twopence, small ones. The citrons are sold also by weight + in Salò for the making of that liqueur known as 'Cedro'. One citron + fetches sometimes a shilling or more, but then the demand is necessarily + small. So that it is evident, from these figures, the Lago di Garda cannot + afford to grow its lemons much longer. The gardens are already many of + them in ruins, and still more 'Da Vendere'. + </p> + <p> + We went out of the shadow of the lemon-house on to the roof of the section + below us. When we came to the brink of the roof I sat down. The padrone + stood behind me, a shabby, shaky little figure on his roof in the sky, a + little figure of dilapidation, dilapidated as the lemon-houses themselves. + </p> + <p> + We were always level with the mountain-snow opposite. A film of pure blue + was on the hills to the right and the left. There had been a wind, but it + was still now. The water breathed an iridescent dust on the far shore, + where the villages were groups of specks. + </p> + <p> + On the low level of the world, on the lake, an orange-sailed boat leaned + slim to the dark-blue water, which had flecks of foam. A woman went + down-hill quickly, with two goats and a sheep. Among the olives a man was + whistling. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Voyez</i>,' said the padrone, with distant, perfect melancholy. 'There + was once a lemon garden also there—you see the short pillars, cut + off to make a pergola for the vine. Once there were twice as many lemons + as now. Now we must have vine instead. From that piece of land I had two + hundred lire a year, in lemons. From the vine I have only eighty.' + </p> + <p> + 'But wine is a valuable crop,' I said. + </p> + <p> + 'Ah—<i>così-così</i>! For a man who grows much. For me—<i>poco, + poco—peu</i>.' + </p> + <p> + Suddenly his face broke into a smile of profound melancholy, almost a + grin, like a gargoyle. It was the real Italian melancholy, very deep, + static. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Vous voyez, monsieur</i>—the lemon, it is all the year, all the + year. But the vine—one crop—?' + </p> + <p> + He lifts his shoulders and spreads his hands with that gesture of finality + and fatality, while his face takes the blank, ageless look of misery, like + a monkey's. There is no hope. There is the present. Either that is enough, + the present, or there is nothing. + </p> + <p> + I sat and looked at the lake. It was beautiful as paradise, as the first + creation. On the shores were the ruined lemon-pillars standing out in + melancholy, the clumsy, enclosed lemon-houses seemed ramshackle, bulging + among vine stocks and olive trees. The villages, too, clustered upon their + churches, seemed to belong to the past. They seemed to be lingering in + bygone centuries. + </p> + <p> + 'But it is very beautiful,' I protested. 'In England—' + </p> + <p> + 'Ah, in England,' exclaimed the padrone, the same ageless, monkey-like + grin of fatality, tempered by cunning, coming on his face, 'in England you + have the wealth—<i>les richesses</i>—you have the mineral coal + and the machines, <i>vous savez</i>. Here we have the sun—' + </p> + <p> + He lifted his withered hand to the sky, to the wonderful source of that + blue day, and he smiled, in histrionic triumph. But his triumph was only + histrionic. The machines were more to his soul than the sun. He did not + know these mechanisms, their great, human-contrived, inhuman power, and he + wanted to know them. As for the sun, that is common property, and no man + is distinguished by it. He wanted machines, machine production, money, and + human power. He wanted to know the joy of man who has got the earth in his + grip, bound it up with railways, burrowed it with iron fingers, subdued + it. He wanted this last triumph of the ego, this last reduction. He wanted + to go where the English have gone, beyond the Self, into the great inhuman + Not Self, to create the great unliving creators, the machines, out of the + active forces of nature that existed before flesh. + </p> + <p> + But he is too old. It remains for the young Italian to embrace his + mistress, the machine. + </p> + <p> + I sat on the roof of the lemon-house, with the lake below and the snowy + mountain opposite, and looked at the ruins on the old, olive-fuming + shores, at all the peace of the ancient world still covered in sunshine, + and the past seemed to me so lovely that one must look towards it, + backwards, only backwards, where there is peace and beauty and no more + dissonance. + </p> + <p> + I thought of England, the great mass of London, and the black, fuming, + laborious Midlands and north-country. It seemed horrible. And yet, it was + better than the padrone, this old, monkey-like cunning of fatality. It is + better to go forward into error than to stay fixed inextricably in the + past. + </p> + <p> + Yet what should become of the world? There was London and the industrial + counties spreading like a blackness over all the world, horrible, in the + end destructive. And the Garda was so lovely under the sky of sunshine, it + was intolerable. For away, beyond, beyond all the snowy Alps, with the + iridescence of eternal ice above them, was this England, black and foul + and dry, with her soul worn down, almost worn away. And England was + conquering the world with her machines and her horrible destruction of + natural life. She was conquering the whole world. + </p> + <p> + And yet, was she not herself finished in this work? She had had enough. + She had conquered the natural life to the end: she was replete with the + conquest of the outer world, satisfied with the destruction of the Self. + She would cease, she would turn round; or else expire. + </p> + <p> + If she still lived, she would begin to build her knowledge into a great + structure of truth. There it lay, vast masses of rough-hewn knowledge, + vast masses of machines and appliances, vast masses of ideas and methods, + and nothing done with it, only teeming swarms of disintegrated human + beings seething and perishing rapidly away amongst it, till it seems as if + a world will be left covered with huge ruins, and scored by strange + devices of industry, and quite dead, the people disappeared, swallowed up + in the last efforts towards a perfect, selfless society. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE THEATRE + </h2> + <p> + During carnival a company is playing in the theatre. On Christmas Day the + padrone came in with the key of his box, and would we care to see the + drama? The theatre was small, a mere nothing, in fact; a mere affair of + peasants, you understand; and the Signor Di Paoli spread his hands and put + his head on one side, parrot-wise; but we might find a little diversion—<i>un + peu de divertiment</i>. With this he handed me the key. + </p> + <p> + I made suitable acknowledgements, and was really impressed. To be handed + the key of a box at the theatre, so simply and pleasantly, in the large + sitting-room looking over the grey lake of Christmas Day; it seemed to me + a very graceful event. The key had a chain and a little shield of bronze, + on which was beaten out a large figure 8. + </p> + <p> + So the next day we went to see <i>I Spettri</i>, expecting some good, + crude melodrama. The theatre is an old church. Since that triumph of the + deaf and dumb, the cinematograph, has come to give us the nervous + excitement of speed—grimace agitation, and speed, as of flying + atoms, chaos—many an old church in Italy has taken a new lease of + life. + </p> + <p> + This cast-off church made a good theatre. I realized how cleverly it had + been constructed for the dramatic presentation of religious ceremonies. + The east end is round, the walls are windowless, sound is well + distributed. Now everything is theatrical, except the stone floor and two + pillars at the back of the auditorium, and the slightly ecclesiastical + seats below. + </p> + <p> + There are two tiers of little boxes in the theatre, some forty in all, + with fringe and red velvet, and lined with dark red paper, quite like real + boxes in a real theatre. And the padrone's is one of the best. It just + holds three people. + </p> + <p> + We paid our threepence entrance fee in the stone hall and went upstairs. I + opened the door of Number 8, and we were shut in our little cabin, looking + down on the world. Then I found the barber, Luigi, bowing profusely in a + box opposite. It was necessary to make bows all round: ah, the chemist, on + the upper tier, near the barber; how-do-you-do to the padrona of the + hotel, who is our good friend, and who sits, wearing a little beaver + shoulder-cape, a few boxes off; very cold salutation to the stout village + magistrate with the long brown beard, who leans forward in the box facing + the stage, while a grouping of faces look out from behind him; a warm + smile to the family of the Signora Gemma, across next to the stage. Then + we are settled. + </p> + <p> + I cannot tell why I hate the village magistrate. He looks like a family + portrait by a Flemish artist, he himself weighing down the front of the + picture with his portliness and his long brown beard, whilst the faces of + his family are arranged in two groups for the background. I think he is + angry at our intrusion. He is very republican and self-important. But we + eclipse him easily, with the aid of a large black velvet hat, and black + furs, and our Sunday clothes. + </p> + <p> + Downstairs the villagers are crowding, drifting like a heavy current. The + women are seated, by church instinct, all together on the left, with + perhaps an odd man at the end of a row, beside his wife. On the right, + sprawling in the benches, are several groups of bersaglieri, in grey + uniforms and slanting cock's-feather hats; then peasants, fishermen, and + an odd couple or so of brazen girls taking their places on the men's side. + </p> + <p> + At the back, lounging against the pillars or standing very dark and + sombre, are the more reckless spirits of the village. Their black felt + hats are pulled down, their cloaks are thrown over their mouths, they + stand very dark and isolated in their moments of stillness, they shout and + wave to each other when anything occurs. + </p> + <p> + The men are clean, their clothes are all clean washed. The rags of the + poorest porter are always well washed. But it is Sunday tomorrow, and they + are shaved only on a Sunday. So that they have a week's black growth on + their chins. But they have dark, soft eyes, unconscious and vulnerable. + They move and balance with loose, heedless motion upon their clattering + zoccoli, they lounge with wonderful ease against the wall at the back, or + against the two pillars, unconscious of the patches on their clothes or of + their bare throats, that are knotted perhaps with a scarlet rag. Loose and + abandoned, they lounge and talk, or they watch with wistful absorption the + play that is going on. + </p> + <p> + They are strangely isolated in their own atmosphere, and as if revealed. + It is as if their vulnerable being was exposed and they have not the wit + to cover it. There is a pathos of physical sensibility and mental + inadequacy. Their mind is not sufficiently alert to run with their quick, + warm senses. + </p> + <p> + The men keep together, as if to support each other, the women also are + together; in a hard, strong herd. It is as if the power, the hardness, the + triumph, even in this Italian village, were with the women in their + relentless, vindictive unity. + </p> + <p> + That which drives men and women together, the indomitable necessity, is + like a bondage upon the people. They submit as under compulsion, under + constraint. They come together mostly in anger and in violence of + destructive passion. There is no comradeship between men and women, none + whatsoever, but rather a condition of battle, reserve, hostility. + </p> + <p> + On Sundays the uncomfortable, excited, unwilling youth walks for an hour + with his sweetheart, at a little distance from her, on the public highway + in the afternoon. This is a concession to the necessity for marriage. + There is no real courting, no happiness of being together, only the roused + excitement which is based on a fundamental hostility. There is very little + flirting, and what there is is of the subtle, cruel kind, like a sex duel. + On the whole, the men and women avoid each other, almost shun each other. + Husband and wife are brought together in a child, which they both worship. + But in each of them there is only the great reverence for the infant, and + the reverence for fatherhood or motherhood, as the case may be; there is + no spiritual love. + </p> + <p> + In marriage, husband and wife wage the subtle, satisfying war of sex upon + each other. It gives a profound satisfaction, a profound intimacy. But it + destroys all joy, all unanimity in action. + </p> + <p> + On Sunday afternoons the uncomfortable youth walks by the side of his + maiden for an hour in the public highway. Then he escapes; as from a + bondage he goes back to his men companions. On Sunday afternoons and + evenings the married woman, accompanied by a friend or by a child—she + dare not go alone, afraid of the strange, terrible sex-war between her and + the drunken man—is seen leading home the wine-drunken, liberated + husband. Sometimes she is beaten when she gets home. It is part of the + process. But there is no synthetic love between men and women, there is + only passion, and passion is fundamental hatred, the act of love is a + fight. + </p> + <p> + The child, the outcome, is divine. Here the union, the oneness, is + manifest. Though spirit strove with spirit, in mortal conflict, during the + sex-passion, yet the flesh united with flesh in oneness. The phallus is + still divine. But the spirit, the mind of man, this has become nothing. + </p> + <p> + So the women triumph. They sit down below in the theatre, their perfectly + dressed hair gleaming, their backs very straight, their heads carried + tensely. They are not very noticeable. They seem held in reserve. They are + just as tense and stiff as the men are slack and abandoned. Some strange + will holds the women taut. They seem like weapons, dangerous. There is + nothing charming nor winning about them; at the best a full, prolific + maternity, at the worst a yellow poisonous bitterness of the flesh that is + like a narcotic. But they are too strong for the men. The male spirit, + which would subdue the immediate flesh to some conscious or social + purpose, is overthrown. The woman in her maternity is the law-giver, the + supreme authority. The authority of the man, in work, in public affairs, + is something trivial in comparison. The pathetic ignominy of the village + male is complete on Sunday afternoon, on his great day of liberation, when + he is accompanied home, drunk but sinister, by the erect, unswerving, + slightly cowed woman. His drunken terrorizing is only pitiable, she is so + obviously the more constant power. + </p> + <p> + And this is why the men must go away to America. It is not the money. It + is the profound desire to rehabilitate themselves, to recover some dignity + as men, as producers, as workers, as creators from the spirit, not only + from the flesh. It is a profound desire to get away from women altogether, + the terrible subjugation to sex, the phallic worship. + </p> + <p> + The company of actors in the little theatre was from a small town away on + the plain, beyond Brescia. The curtain rose, everybody was still, with + that profound, naïve attention which children give. And after a few + minutes I realized that <i>I Spettri</i> was Ibsen's <i>Ghosts</i>. The + peasants and fishermen of the Garda, even the rows of ungovernable + children, sat absorbed in watching as the Norwegian drama unfolded itself. + </p> + <p> + The actors are peasants. The leader is the son of a peasant proprietor. He + is qualified as a chemist, but is unsettled, vagrant, prefers play-acting. + The Signer Pietro di Paoli shrugs his shoulders and apologizes for their + vulgar accent. It is all the same to me. I am trying to get myself to + rights with the play, which I have just lately seen in Munich, perfectly + produced and detestable. + </p> + <p> + It was such a change from the hard, ethical, slightly mechanized + characters in the German play, which was as perfect an interpretation as I + can imagine, to the rather pathetic notion of the Italian peasants, that I + had to wait to adjust myself. + </p> + <p> + The mother was a pleasant, comfortable woman harassed by something, she + did not quite know what. The pastor was a ginger-haired caricature + imitated from the northern stage, quite a lay figure. The peasants never + laughed, they watched solemnly and absorbedly like children. The servant + was just a slim, pert, forward hussy, much too flagrant. And then the son, + the actor-manager: he was a dark, ruddy man, broad and thick-set, + evidently of peasant origin, but with some education now; he was the + important figure, the play was his. + </p> + <p> + And he was strangely disturbing. Dark, ruddy, and powerful, he could not + be the blighted son of 'Ghosts', the hectic, unsound, northern issue of a + diseased father. His flashy Italian passion for his half-sister was real + enough to make one uncomfortable: something he wanted and would have in + spite of his own soul, something which fundamentally he did not want. + </p> + <p> + It was this contradiction within the man that made the play so + interesting. A robust, vigorous man of thirty-eight, flaunting and florid + as a rather successful Italian can be, there was yet a secret sickness + which oppressed him. But it was no taint in the blood, it was rather a + kind of debility in the soul. That which he wanted and would have, the + sensual excitement, in his soul he did not want it, no, not at all. And + yet he must act from his physical desires, his physical will. + </p> + <p> + His true being, his real self, was impotent. In his soul he was dependent, + forlorn. He was childish and dependent on the mother. To hear him say, '<i>Grazia, + mamma!</i>' would have tormented the mother-soul in any woman living. Such + a child crying in the night! And for what? + </p> + <p> + For he was hot-blooded, healthy, almost in his prime, and free as a man + can be in his circumstances. He had his own way, he admitted no thwarting. + He governed his circumstances pretty much, coming to our village with his + little company, playing the plays he chose himself. And yet, that which he + would have he did not vitally want, it was only a sort of inflamed + obstinacy that made him so insistent, in the masculine way. He was not + going to be governed by women, he was not going to be dictated to in the + least by any one. And this because he was beaten by his own flesh. + </p> + <p> + His real man's soul, the soul that goes forth and builds up a new world + out of the void, was ineffectual. It could only revert to the senses. His + divinity was the phallic divinity. The other male divinity, which is the + spirit that fulfils in the world the new germ of an idea, this was denied + and obscured in him, unused. And it was this spirit which cried out + helplessly in him through the insistent, inflammable flesh. Even this + play-acting was a form of physical gratification for him, it had in it + neither real mind nor spirit. + </p> + <p> + It was so different from Ibsen, and so much more moving. Ibsen is + exciting, nervously sensational. But this was really moving, a real crying + in the night. One loved the Italian nation, and wanted to help it with all + one's soul. But when one sees the perfect Ibsen, how one hates the + Norwegian and Swedish nations! They are detestable. + </p> + <p> + They seem to be fingering with the mind the secret places and sources of + the blood, impertinent, irreverent, nasty. There is a certain intolerable + nastiness about the real Ibsen: the same thing is in Strindberg and in + most of the Norwegian and Swedish writings. It is with them a sort of + phallic worship also, but now the worship is mental and perverted: the + phallus is the real fetish, but it is the source of uncleanliness and + corruption and death, it is the Moloch, worshipped in obscenity. + </p> + <p> + Which is unbearable. The phallus is a symbol of creative divinity. But it + represents only part of creative divinity. The Italian has made it + represent the whole. Which is now his misery, for he has to destroy his + symbol in himself. + </p> + <p> + Which is why the Italian men have the enthusiasm for war, unashamed. + Partly it is the true phallic worship, for the phallic principle is to + absorb and dominate all life. But also it is a desire to expose themselves + to death, to know death, that death may destroy in them this too strong + dominion of the blood, may once more liberate the spirit of outgoing, of + uniting, of making order out of chaos, in the outer world, as the flesh + makes a new order from chaos in begetting a new life, set them free to + know and serve a greater idea. + </p> + <p> + The peasants below sat and listened intently, like children who hear and + do not understand, yet who are spellbound. The children themselves sit + spellbound on the benches till the play is over. They do not fidget or + lose interest. They watch with wide, absorbed eyes at the mystery, held in + thrall by the sound of emotion. + </p> + <p> + But the villagers do not really care for Ibsen. They let it go. On the + feast of Epiphany, as a special treat, was given a poetic drama by + D'Annunzio, <i>La Fiaccola sotto il Moggio</i>—<i>The Light under + the Bushel</i>. + </p> + <p> + It is a foolish romantic play of no real significance. There are several + murders and a good deal of artificial horror. But it is all a very nice + and romantic piece of make-believe, like a charade. + </p> + <p> + So the audience loved it. After the performance of <i>Ghosts</i> I saw the + barber, and he had the curious grey clayey look of an Italian who is cold + and depressed. The sterile cold inertia, which the so-called passionate + nations know so well, had settled on him, and he went obliterating himself + in the street, as if he were cold, dead. + </p> + <p> + But after the D'Annunzio play he was like a man who has drunk sweet wine + and is warm. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Ah, bellissimo, bellissimo</i>!' he said, in tones of intoxicated + reverence, when he saw me. + </p> + <p> + 'Better than <i>I Spettri</i>?' I said. + </p> + <p> + He half-raised his hands, as if to imply the fatuity of the question. + </p> + <p> + 'Ah, but—' he said, 'it was D'Annunzio. The other....' + </p> + <p> + 'That was Ibsen—a great Norwegian,' I said, 'famous all over the + world.' + </p> + <p> + 'But you know—D'Annunzio is a poet—oh, beautiful, beautiful!' + There was no going beyond this '<i>bello—bellissimo</i>'. + </p> + <p> + It was the language which did it. It was the Italian passion for rhetoric, + for the speech which appeals to the senses and makes no demand on the + mind. When an Englishman listens to a speech he wants at least to imagine + that he understands thoroughly and impersonally what is meant. But an + Italian only cares about the emotion. It is the movement, the physical + effect of the language upon the blood which gives him supreme + satisfaction. His mind is scarcely engaged at all. He is like a child, + hearing and feeling without understanding. It is the sensuous + gratification he asks for. Which is why D'Annunzio is a god in Italy. He + can control the current of the blood with his words, and although much of + what he says is bosh, yet his hearer is satisfied, fulfilled. + </p> + <p> + Carnival ends on the 5th of February, so each Thursday there is a Serata + d' Onore of one of the actors. The first, and the only one for which + prices were raised—to a fourpence entrance fee instead of threepence—was + for the leading lady. The play was <i>The Wife of the Doctor</i>, a modern + piece, sufficiently uninteresting; the farce that followed made me laugh. + </p> + <p> + Since it was her Evening of Honour, Adelaida was the person to see. She is + very popular, though she is no longer young. In fact, she is the mother of + the young pert person of <i>Ghosts</i>. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, Adelaida, stout and blonde and soft and pathetic, is the + real heroine of the theatre, the prima. She is very good at sobbing; and + afterwards the men exclaim involuntarily, out of their strong emotion, '<i>bella, + bella</i>!' The women say nothing. They sit stiffly and dangerously as + ever. But, no doubt, they quite agree this is the true picture of + ill-used, tear-stained woman, the bearer of many wrongs. Therefore they + take unto themselves the homage of the men's '<i>bella, bella</i>!' that + follows the sobs: it is due recognition of their hard wrongs: 'the woman + pays.' Nevertheless, they despise in their souls the plump, soft Adelaida. + </p> + <p> + Dear Adelaida, she is irreproachable. In every age, in every clime, she is + dear, at any rate to the masculine soul, this soft, tear-blenched, blonde, + ill-used thing. She must be ill-used and unfortunate. Dear Gretchen, dear + Desdemona, dear Iphigenia, dear Dame aux Camélias, dear Lucy of + Lammermoor, dear Mary Magdalene, dear, pathetic, unfortunate soul, in all + ages and lands, how we love you. In the theatre she blossoms forth, she is + the lily of the stage. Young and inexperienced as I am, I have broken my + heart over her several times. I could write a sonnet-sequence to her, yes, + the fair, pale, tear-stained thing, white-robed, with her hair down her + back; I could call her by a hundred names, in a hundred languages, + Melisande, Elizabeth, Juliet, Butterfly, Phèdre, Minnehaha, etc. Each new + time I hear her voice, with its faint clang of tears, my heart grows big + and hot, and my bones melt. I detest her, but it is no good. My heart + begins to swell like a bud under the plangent rain. + </p> + <p> + The last time I saw her was here, on the Garda, at Salò. She was the + chalked, thin-armed daughter of Rigoletto. I detested her, her voice had a + chalky squeak in it. And yet, by the end, my heart was overripe in my + breast, ready to burst with loving affection. I was ready to walk on to + the stage, to wipe out the odious, miscreant lover, and to offer her all + myself, saying, 'I can see it is real <i>love</i> you want, and you shall + have it: <i>I</i> will give it to you.' + </p> + <p> + Of course I know the secret of the Gretchen magic; it is all in the 'Save + me, Mr Hercules!' phrase. Her shyness, her timidity, her trustfulness, her + tears foster my own strength and grandeur. I am the positive half of the + universe. But so I am, if it comes to that, just as positive as the other + half. + </p> + <p> + Adelaida is plump, and her voice has just that moist, plangent strength + which gives one a real voluptuous thrill. The moment she comes on the + stage and looks round—a bit scared—she is <i>she</i>, Electra, + Isolde, Sieglinde, Marguèrite. She wears a dress of black voile, like the + lady who weeps at the trial in the police-court. This is her modern + uniform. Her antique garment is of trailing white, with a blonde pigtail + and a flower. Realistically, it is black voile and a handkerchief. + </p> + <p> + Adelaida always has a handkerchief. And still I cannot resist it. I say, + 'There's the hanky!' Nevertheless, in two minutes it has worked its way + with me. She squeezes it in her poor, plump hand as the tears begin to + rise; Fate, or man, is inexorable, so cruel. There is a sob, a cry; she + presses the fist and the hanky to her eyes, one eye, then the other. She + weeps real tears, tears shaken from the depths of her soft, vulnerable, + victimized female self. I cannot stand it. There I sit in the padrone's + little red box and stifle my emotion, whilst I repeat in my heart: 'What a + shame, child, what a shame!' She is twice my age, but what is age in such + circumstances? 'Your poor little hanky, it's sopping. There, then, don't + cry. It'll be all right. <i>I'll</i> see you're all right. <i>All</i> men + are not beasts, you know.' So I cover her protectively in my arms, and + soon I shall be kissing her, for comfort, in the heat and prowess of my + compassion, kissing her soft, plump cheek and neck closely, bringing my + comfort nearer and nearer. + </p> + <p> + It is a pleasant and exciting role for me to play. Robert Burns did the + part to perfection: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + O wert thou in the cauld blast + On yonder lea, on yonder lea. +</pre> + <p> + How many times does one recite that to all the Ophelias and Gretchens in + the world: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Thy bield should be my bosom. +</pre> + <p> + How one admires one's bosom in that capacity! Looking down at one's + shirt-front, one is filled with strength and pride. + </p> + <p> + Why are the women so bad at playing this part in real life, this + Ophelia-Gretchen role? Why are they so unwilling to go mad and die for our + sakes? They do it regularly on the stage. + </p> + <p> + But perhaps, after all, we write the plays. What a villain I am, what a + black-browed, passionate, ruthless, masculine villain I am to the leading + lady on the stage; and, on the other hand, dear heart, what a hero, what a + fount of chivalrous generosity and faith! I am <i>anything</i> but a dull + and law-abiding citizen. I am a Galahad, full of purity and spirituality, + I am the Lancelot of valour and lust; I fold my hands, or I cock my hat in + one side, as the case may be: I am <i>myself</i>. Only, I am not a + respectable citizen, not that, in this hour of my glory and my escape. + </p> + <p> + Dear Heaven, how Adelaida wept, her voice plashing like violin music, at + my ruthless, masculine cruelty. Dear heart, how she sighed to rest on my + sheltering bosom! And how I enjoyed my dual nature! How I admired myself! + </p> + <p> + Adelaida chose <i>La Moglie del Dottore</i> for her Evening of Honour. + During the following week came a little storm of coloured bills: 'Great + Evening of Honour of Enrico Persevalli.' + </p> + <p> + This is the leader, the actor-manager. What should he choose for his great + occasion, this broad, thick-set, ruddy descendant of the peasant + proprietors of the plain? No one knew. The title of the play was not + revealed. + </p> + <p> + So we were staying at home, it was cold and wet. But the maestra came + inflammably on that Thursday evening, and were we not going to the + theatre, to see <i>Amleto</i>? + </p> + <p> + Poor maestra, she is yellow and bitter-skinned, near fifty, but her dark + eyes are still corrosively inflammable. She was engaged to a lieutenant in + the cavalry, who got drowned when she was twenty-one. Since then she has + hung on the tree unripe, growing yellow and bitter-skinned, never + developing. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Amleto!</i>' I say. '<i>Non lo conosco.</i>' + </p> + <p> + A certain fear comes into her eyes. She is schoolmistress, and has a + mortal dread of being wrong. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Si</i>,' she cries, wavering, appealing, '<i>una dramma inglese</i>.' + </p> + <p> + 'English!' I repeated. + </p> + <p> + 'Yes, an English drama.' + </p> + <p> + 'How do you write it?' + </p> + <p> + Anxiously, she gets a pencil from her reticule, and, with black-gloved + scrupulousness, writes <i>Amleto</i>. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Hamlet</i>!' I exclaim wonderingly. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Ecco, Amleto!</i>' cries the maestra, her eyes aflame with thankful + justification. + </p> + <p> + Then I knew that Signore Enrico Persevalli was looking to me for an + audience. His Evening of Honour would be a bitter occasion to him if the + English were not there to see his performance. + </p> + <p> + I hurried to get ready, I ran through the rain. I knew he would take it + badly that it rained on his Evening of Honour. He counted himself a man + who had fate against him. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Sono un disgraziato, io.</i>' + </p> + <p> + I was late. The First Act was nearly over. The play was not yet alive, + neither in the bosoms of the actors nor in the audience. I closed the door + of the box softly, and came forward. The rolling Italian eyes of Hamlet + glanced up at me. There came a new impulse over the Court of Denmark. + </p> + <p> + Enrico looked a sad fool in his melancholy black. The doublet sat close, + making him stout and vulgar, the knee-breeches seemed to exaggerate the + commonness of his thick, rather short, strutting legs. And he carried a + long black rag, as a cloak, for histrionic purposes. And he had on his + face a portentous grimace of melancholy and philosophic importance. His + was the caricature of Hamlet's melancholy self-absorption. + </p> + <p> + I stooped to arrange my footstool and compose my countenance. I was trying + not to grin. For the first time, attired in philosophic melancholy of + black silk, Enrico looked a boor and a fool. His close-cropped, rather + animal head was common above the effeminate doublet, his sturdy, ordinary + figure looked absurd in a melancholic droop. + </p> + <p> + All the actors alike were out of their element. Their Majesties of Denmark + were touching. The Queen, burly little peasant woman, was ill at ease in + her pink satin. Enrico had had no mercy. He knew she loved to be the + scolding servant or housekeeper, with her head tied up in a handkerchief, + shrill and vulgar. Yet here she was pranked out in an expanse of satin, la + Regina. Regina, indeed! + </p> + <p> + She obediently did her best to be important. Indeed, she rather fancied + herself; she looked sideways at the audience, self-consciously, quite + ready to be accepted as an imposing and noble person, if they would esteem + her such. Her voice sounded hoarse and common, but whether it was the pink + satin in contrast, or a cold, I do not know. She was almost childishly + afraid to move. Before she began a speech she looked down and kicked her + skirt viciously, so that she was sure it was under control. Then she let + go. She was a burly, downright little body of sixty, one rather expected + her to box Hamlet on the ears. + </p> + <p> + Only she liked being a queen when she sat on the throne. There she perched + with great satisfaction, her train splendidly displayed down the steps. + She was as proud as a child, and she looked like Queen Victoria of the + Jubilee period. + </p> + <p> + The King, her noble consort, also had new honours thrust upon him, as well + as new garments. His body was real enough but it had nothing at all to do + with his clothes. They established a separate identity by themselves. But + wherever he went, they went with him, to the confusion of everybody. + </p> + <p> + He was a thin, rather frail-looking peasant, pathetic, and very gentle. + There was something pure and fine about him, he was so exceedingly gentle + and by natural breeding courteous. But he did not feel kingly, he acted + the part with beautiful, simple resignation. + </p> + <p> + Enrico Persevalli had overshot himself in every direction, but worst of + all in his own. He had become a hulking fellow, crawling about with his + head ducked between his shoulders, pecking and poking, creeping about + after other people, sniffing at them, setting traps for them, absorbed by + his own self-important self-consciousness. His legs, in their black + knee-breeches, had a crawling, slinking look; he always carried the black + rag of a cloak, something for him to twist about as he twisted in his own + soul, overwhelmed by a sort of inverted perversity. + </p> + <p> + I had always felt an aversion from Hamlet: a creeping, unclean thing he + seems, on the stage, whether he is Forbes Robertson or anybody else. His + nasty poking and sniffing at his mother, his setting traps for the King, + his conceited perversion with Ophelia make him always intolerable. The + character is repulsive in its conception, based on self-dislike and a + spirit of disintegration. + </p> + <p> + There is, I think, this strain of cold dislike, or self-dislike, through + much of the Renaissance art, and through all the later Shakespeare. In + Shakespeare it is a kind of corruption in the flesh and a conscious revolt + from this. A sense of corruption in the flesh makes Hamlet frenzied, for + he will never admit that it is his own flesh. Leonardo da Vinci is the + same, but Leonardo loves the corruption maliciously. Michelangelo rejects + any feeling of corruption, he stands by the flesh, the flesh only. It is + the corresponding reaction, but in the opposite direction. But that is all + four hundred years ago. Enrico Persevalli has just reached the position. + He <i>is</i> Hamlet, and evidently he has great satisfaction in the part. + He is the modern Italian, suspicious, isolated, self-nauseated, labouring + in a sense of physical corruption. But he will not admit it is in himself. + He creeps about in self-conceit, transforming his own self-loathing. With + what satisfaction did he reveal corruption—corruption in his + neighbours he gloated in—letting his mother know he had discovered + her incest, her uncleanness, gloated in torturing the incestuous King. Of + all the unclean ones, Hamlet was the uncleanest. But he accused only the + others. + </p> + <p> + Except in the 'great' speeches, and there Enrico was betrayed, Hamlet + suffered the extremity of physical self-loathing, loathing of his own + flesh. The play is the statement of the most significant philosophic + position of the Renaissance. Hamlet is far more even than Orestes, his + prototype, a mental creature, anti-physical, anti-sensual. The whole drama + is the tragedy of the convulsed reaction of the mind from the flesh, of + the spirit from the self, the reaction from the great aristocratic to the + great democratic principle. + </p> + <p> + An ordinary instinctive man, in Hamlet's position, would either have set + about murdering his uncle, by reflex action, or else would have gone right + away. There would have been no need for Hamlet to murder his mother. It + would have been sufficient blood-vengeance if he had killed his uncle. But + that is the statement according to the aristocratic principle. + </p> + <p> + Orestes was in the same position, but the same position two thousand years + earlier, with two thousand years of experience wanting. So that the + question was not so intricate in him as in Hamlet, he was not nearly so + conscious. The whole Greek life was based on the idea of the supremacy of + the self, and the self was always male. Orestes was his father's child, he + would be the same whatever mother he had. The mother was but the vehicle, + the soil in which the paternal seed was planted. When Clytemnestra + murdered Agamemnon, it was as if a common individual murdered God, to the + Greek. + </p> + <p> + But Agamemnon, King and Lord, was not infallible. He was fallible. He had + sacrificed Iphigenia for the sake of glory in war, for the fulfilment of + the superb idea of self, but on the other hand he had made cruel + dissension for the sake of the concubines captured in war. The paternal + flesh was fallible, ungodlike. It lusted after meaner pursuits than glory, + war, and slaying, it was not faithful to the highest idea of the self. + Orestes was driven mad by the furies of his mother, because of the justice + that they represented. Nevertheless he was in the end exculpated. The + third play of the trilogy is almost foolish, with its prating gods. But it + means that, according to the Greek conviction, Orestes was right and + Clytemnestra entirely wrong. But for all that, the infallible King, the + infallible male Self, is dead in Orestes, killed by the furies of + Clytemnestra. He gains his peace of mind after the revulsion from his own + physical fallibility, but he will never be an unquestioned lord, as + Agamemnon was. Orestes is left at peace, neutralized. He is the beginning + of non-aristocratic Christianity. + </p> + <p> + Hamlet's father, the King, is, like Agamemnon, a warrior-king. But, unlike + Agamemnon, he is blameless with regard to Gertrude. Yet Gertrude, like + Clytemnestra, is the potential murderer of her husband, as Lady Macbeth is + murderess, as the daughters of Lear. The women murder the supreme male, + the ideal Self, the King and Father. + </p> + <p> + This is the tragic position Shakespeare must dwell upon. The woman + rejects, repudiates the ideal Self which the male represents to her. The + supreme representative, King and Father, is murdered by the Wife and the + Daughters. + </p> + <p> + What is the reason? Hamlet goes mad in a revulsion of rage and nausea. Yet + the women-murderers only represent some ultimate judgement in his own + soul. At the bottom of his own soul Hamlet has decided that the Self in + its supremacy, Father and King, must die. It is a suicidal decision for + his involuntary soul to have arrived at. Yet it is inevitable. The great + religious, philosophic tide, which has been swelling all through the + Middle Ages, had brought him there. + </p> + <p> + The question, to be or not to be, which Hamlet puts himself, does not + mean, to live or not to live. It is not the simple human being who puts + himself the question, it is the supreme I, King and Father. To be or not + to be King, Father, in the Self supreme? And the decision is, not to be. + </p> + <p> + It is the inevitable philosophic conclusion of all the Renaissance. The + deepest impulse in man, the religious impulse, is the desire to be + immortal, or infinite, consummated. And this impulse is satisfied in + fulfilment of an idea, a steady progression. In this progression man is + satisfied, he seems to have reached his goal, this infinity, this + immortality, this eternal being, with every step nearer which he takes. + </p> + <p> + And so, according to his idea of fulfilment, man establishes the whole + order of life. If my fulfilment is the fulfilment and establishment of the + unknown divine Self which I am, then I shall proceed in the realizing of + the greatest idea of the self, the highest conception of the I, my order + of life will be kingly, imperial, aristocratic. The body politic also will + culminate in this divinity of the flesh, this body imbued with glory, + invested with divine power and might, the King, the Emperor. In the body + politic also I shall desire a king, an emperor, a tyrant, glorious, + mighty, in whom I see myself consummated and fulfilled. This is + inevitable! + </p> + <p> + But during the Middle Ages, struggling within this pagan, original + transport, the transport of the Ego, was a small dissatisfaction, a small + contrary desire. Amid the pomp of kings and popes was the Child Jesus and + the Madonna. Jesus the King gradually dwindled down. There was Jesus the + Child, helpless, at the mercy of all the world. And there was Jesus + crucified. + </p> + <p> + The old transport, the old fulfilment of the Ego, the Davidian ecstasy, + the assuming of all power and glory unto the self, the becoming infinite + through the absorption of all into the Ego, this gradually became + unsatisfactory. This was not the infinite, this was not immortality. This + was eternal death, this was damnation. + </p> + <p> + The monk rose up with his opposite ecstasy, the Christian ecstasy. There + was a death to die: the flesh, the self, must die, so that the spirit + should rise again immortal, eternal, infinite. I am dead unto myself, but + I live in the Infinite. The finite Me is no more, only the Infinite, the + Eternal, is. + </p> + <p> + At the Renaissance this great half-truth overcame the other great + half-truth. The Christian Infinite, reached by a process of abnegation, a + process of being absorbed, dissolved, diffused into the great Not-Self, + supplanted the old pagan Infinite, wherein the self like a root threw out + branches and radicles which embraced the whole universe, became the Whole. + </p> + <p> + There is only one Infinite, the world now cried, there is the great + Christian Infinite of renunciation and consummation in the not-self. The + other, that old pride, is damnation. The sin of sins is Pride, it is the + way to total damnation. Whereas the pagans based their life on pride. + </p> + <p> + And according to this new Infinite, reached through renunciation and + dissolving into the Others, the Neighbour, man must build up his actual + form of life. With Savonarola and Martin Luther the living Church actually + transformed itself, for the Roman Church was still pagan. Henry VIII + simply said: 'There is no Church, there is only the State.' But with + Shakespeare the transformation had reached the State also. The King, the + Father, the representative of the Consummate Self, the maximum of all + life, the symbol of the consummate being, the becoming Supreme, Godlike, + Infinite, he must perish and pass away. This Infinite was not infinite, + this consummation was not consummated, all this was fallible, false. It + was rotten, corrupt. It must go. But Shakespeare was also the thing + itself. Hence his horror, his frenzy, his self-loathing. + </p> + <p> + The King, the Emperor is killed in the soul of man, the old order of life + is over, the old tree is dead at the root. So said Shakespeare. It was + finally enacted in Cromwell. Charles I took up the old position of + kingship by divine right. Like Hamlet's father, he was blameless + otherwise. But as representative of the old form of life, which mankind + now hated with frenzy, he must be cut down, removed. It was a symbolic + act. + </p> + <p> + The world, our world of Europe, had now really turned, swung round to a + new goal, a new idea, the Infinite reached through the omission of Self. + God is all that which is Not-Me. I am consummate when my Self, the + resistant solid, is reduced and diffused into all that which is Not-Me: my + neighbour, my enemy, the great Otherness. Then I am perfect. + </p> + <p> + And from this belief the world began gradually to form a new State, a new + body politic, in which the Self should be removed. There should be no + king, no lords, no aristocrats. The world continued in its religious + belief, beyond the French Revolution, beyond the great movement of Shelley + and Godwin. There should be no Self. That which was supreme was that which + was Not-Me, the other. The governing factor in the State was the idea of + the good of others; that is, the Common Good. And the <i>vital</i> + governing idea in the State has been this idea since Cromwell. + </p> + <p> + Before Cromwell the idea was 'For the King', because every man saw himself + consummated in the King. After Cromwell the idea was 'For the good of my + neighbour', or 'For the good of the people', or 'For the good of the + whole'. This has been our ruling idea, by which we have more or less + lived. + </p> + <p> + Now this has failed. Now we say that the Christian Infinite is not + infinite. We are tempted, like Nietzsche, to return back to the old pagan + Infinite, to say that is supreme. Or we are inclined, like the English and + the Pragmatist, to say, 'There is no Infinite, there is no Absolute. The + only Absolute is expediency, the only reality is sensation and + momentariness.' But we may say this, even act on it, <i>à la Sanine</i>. + But we never believe it. + </p> + <p> + What is really Absolute is the mystic Reason which connects both + Infinites, the Holy Ghost that relates both natures of God. If we now wish + to make a living State, we must build it up to the idea of the Holy + Spirit, the supreme Relationship. We must say, the pagan Infinite is + infinite, the Christian Infinite is infinite: these are our two + Consummations, in both of these we are consummated. But that which relates + them alone is absolute. + </p> + <p> + This Absolute of the Holy Ghost we may call Truth or Justice or Right. + These are partial names, indefinite and unsatisfactory unless there be + kept the knowledge of the two Infinites, pagan and Christian, which they + go between. When both are there, they are like a superb bridge, on which + one can stand and know the whole world, my world, the two halves of the + universe. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Essere, o non essere, è qui il punto.</i>' + </p> + <p> + To be or not to be was the question for Hamlet to settle. It is no longer + our question, at least, not in the same sense. When it is a question of + death, the fashionable young suicide declares that his self-destruction is + the final proof of his own incontrovertible being. And as for not-being in + our public life, we have achieved it as much as ever we want to, as much + as is necessary. Whilst in private life there is a swing back to paltry + selfishness as a creed. And in the war there is the position of + neutralization and nothingness. It is a question of knowing how <i>to be</i>, + and how <i>not to be</i>, for we must fulfil both. Enrico Persevalli was + detestable with his '<i>Essere, o non essere</i>'. He whispered it in a + hoarse whisper as if it were some melodramatic murder he was about to + commit. As a matter of fact, he knows quite well, and has known all his + life, that his pagan Infinite, his transport of the flesh and the + supremacy of the male in fatherhood, is all unsatisfactory. All his life + he has really cringed before the northern Infinite of the Not-Self, + although he has continued in the Italian habit of Self. But it is mere + habit, sham. + </p> + <p> + How can he know anything about being and not-being when he is only a + maudlin compromise between them, and all he wants is to be a maudlin + compromise? He is neither one nor the other. He has neither being nor + riot-being. He is as equivocal as the monks. He was detestable, mouthing + Hamlet's sincere words. He has still to let go, to know what not-being is, + before he can <i>be</i>. Till he has gone through the Christian negation + of himself, and has known the Christian consummation, he is a mere + amorphous heap. + </p> + <p> + For the soliloquies of Hamlet are as deep as the soul of man can go, in + one direction, and as sincere as the Holy Spirit itself in their essence. + But thank heaven, the bog into which Hamlet struggled is almost surpassed. + </p> + <p> + It is a strange thing, if a man covers his face, and speaks with his eyes + blinded, how significant and poignant he becomes. The ghost of this Hamlet + was very simple. He was wrapped down to the knees in a great white cloth, + and over his face was an open-work woollen shawl. But the naïve blind + helplessness and verity of his voice was strangely convincing. He seemed + the most real thing in the play. From the knees downward he was Laertes, + because he had on Laertes' white trousers and patent leather slippers. Yet + he was strangely real, a voice out of the dark. + </p> + <p> + The Ghost is really one of the play's failures, it is so trivial and + unspiritual and vulgar. And it was spoilt for me from the first. When I + was a child I went to the twopenny travelling theatre to see <i>Hamlet</i>. + The Ghost had on a helmet and a breastplate. I sat in pale transport. + </p> + <p> + ''Amblet, 'Amblet, I <i>am</i> thy father's ghost.' + </p> + <p> + Then came a voice from the dark, silent audience, like a cynical knife to + my fond soul: + </p> + <p> + 'Why tha arena, I can tell thy voice.' + </p> + <p> + The peasants loved Ophelia: she was in white with her hair down her back. + Poor thing, she was pathetic, demented. And no wonder, after Hamlet's 'O, + that this too, too solid flesh would melt!' What then of her young breasts + and her womb? Hamlet with her was a very disagreeable sight. The peasants + loved her. There was a hoarse roar, half of indignation, half of roused + passion, at the end of her scene. + </p> + <p> + The graveyard scene, too, was a great success, but I could not bear + Hamlet. And the grave-digger in Italian was a mere buffoon. The whole + scene was farcical to me because of the Italian, '<i>Questo cranio, + Signore</i>—'And Enrico, dainty fellow, took the skull in a corner + of his black cloak. As an Italian, he would not willingly touch it. It was + unclean. But he looked a fool, hulking himself in his lugubriousness. He + was as self-important as D'Annunzio. + </p> + <p> + The close fell flat. The peasants had applauded the whole graveyard scene + wildly. But at the end of all they got up and crowded to the doors, as if + to hurry away: this in spite of Enrico's final feat: he fell backwards, + smack down three steps of the throne platform, on to the stage. But planks + and braced muscle will bounce, and Signer Amleto bounced quite high again. + </p> + <p> + It was the end of <i>Amleto</i>, and I was glad. But I loved the theatre, + I loved to look down on the peasants, who were so absorbed. At the end of + the scenes the men pushed back their black hats, and rubbed their hair + across their brows with a pleased, excited movement. And the women stirred + in their seats. + </p> + <p> + Just one man was with his wife and child, and he was of the same race as + my old woman at San Tommaso. He was fair, thin, and clear, abstract, of + the mountains. He seemed to have gathered his wife and child together into + another, finer atmosphere, like the air of the mountains, and to guard + them in it. This is the real Joseph, father of the child. He has a fierce, + abstract look, wild and untamed as a hawk, but like a hawk at its own + nest, fierce with love. He goes out and buys a tiny bottle of lemonade for + a penny, and the mother and child sip it in tiny sips, whilst he bends + over, like a hawk arching its wings. + </p> + <p> + It is the fierce spirit of the Ego come out of the primal infinite, but + detached, isolated, an aristocrat. He is not an Italian, dark-blooded. He + is fair, keen as steel, with the blood of the mountaineer in him. He is + like my old spinning woman. It is curious how, with his wife and child, he + makes a little separate world down there in the theatre, like a hawk's + nest, high and arid under the gleaming sky. + </p> + <p> + The Bersaglieri sit close together in groups, so that there is a strange, + corporal connexion between them. They have close-cropped, dark, slightly + bestial heads, and thick shoulders, and thick brown hands on each other's + shoulders. When an act is over they pick up their cherished hats and fling + on their cloaks and go into the hall. They are rather rich, the + Bersaglieri. + </p> + <p> + They are like young, half-wild oxen, such strong, sturdy, dark lads, + thickly built and with strange hard heads, like young male caryatides. + They keep close together, as if there were some physical instinct + connecting them. And they are quite womanless. There is a curious + inter-absorption among themselves, a sort of physical trance that holds + them all, and puts their minds to sleep. There is a strange, hypnotic + unanimity among them as they put on their plumed hats and go out together, + always very close, as if their bodies must touch. Then they feel safe and + content in this heavy, physical trance. They are in love with one another, + the young men love the young men. They shrink from the world beyond, from + the outsiders, from all who are not Bersaglieri of their barracks. + </p> + <p> + One man is a sort of leader. He is very straight and solid, solid like a + wall, with a dark, unblemished will. His cock-feathers slither in a + profuse, heavy stream from his black oil-cloth hat, almost to his + shoulder. He swings round. His feathers slip into a cascade. Then he goes + out to the hall, his feather tossing and falling richly. He must be well + off. The Bersaglieri buy their own black cock's-plumes, and some pay + twenty or thirty francs for the bunch, so the maestra said. The poor ones + have only poor, scraggy plumes. + </p> + <p> + There is something very primitive about these men. They remind me really + of Agamemnon's soldiers clustered oil the seashore, men, all men, a + living, vigorous, physical host of men. But there is a pressure on these + Italian soldiers, as if they were men caryatides, with a great weight on + their heads, making their brain hard, asleep, stunned. They all look is if + their real brain were stunned, as if there were another centre of physical + consciousness from which they lived. + </p> + <p> + Separate from them all is Pietro, the young man who lounges on the wharf + to carry things from the steamer. He starts up from sleep like a wild-cat + as somebody claps him on the shoulder. It is the start of a man who has + many enemies. He is almost an outlaw. Will he ever find himself in prison? + He is the <i>gamin</i> of the village, well detested. + </p> + <p> + He is twenty-four years old, thin, dark, handsome, with a cat-like + lightness and grace, and a certain repulsive, <i>gamin</i> evil in his + face. Where everybody is so clean and tidy, he is almost ragged. His + week's beard shows very black in his slightly hollow cheeks. He hates the + man who has waked him by clapping him on the shoulder. + </p> + <p> + Pietro is already married, yet he behaves as if he were not. He has been + carrying on with a loose woman, the wife of the citron-coloured barber, + the Siciliano. Then he seats himself on the women's side of the theatre, + behind a young person from Bogliaco, who also has no reputation, and makes + her talk to him. He leans forward, resting his arms on the seat before + him, stretching his slender, cat-like, flexible loins. The padrona of the + hotel hates him—'<i>ein frecher Kerl</i>,' she says with contempt, + and she looks away. Her eyes hate to see him. + </p> + <p> + In the village there is the clerical party, which is the majority; there + is the anti-clerical party, and there are the ne'er-do-wells. The clerical + people are dark and pious and cold; there is a curious stone-cold, + ponderous darkness over them, moral and gloomy. Then the anti-clerical + party, with the Syndaco at the head, is bourgeois and respectable as far + as the middle-aged people are concerned, banal, respectable, shut off as + by a wall from the clerical people. The young anti-clericals are the young + bloods of the place, the men who gather every night in the more expensive + and less-respectable cafe. These young men are all free-thinkers, great + dancers, singers, players of the guitar. They are immoral and slightly + cynical. Their leader is the young shopkeeper, who has lived in Vienna, + who is a bit of a bounder, with a veneer of sneering irony on an original + good nature. He is well-to-do, and gives dances to which only the looser + women go, with these reckless young men. He also gets up parties of + pleasure, and is chiefly responsible for the coming of the players to the + theatre this carnival. These young men are disliked, but they belong to + the important class, they are well-to-do, and they have the life of the + village in their hands. The clerical peasants are priest-ridden and good, + because they are poor and afraid and superstitious. There is, lastly, a + sprinkling of loose women, one who keeps the inn where the soldiers drink. + These women are a definite set. They know what they are, they pretend + nothing else. They are not prostitutes, but just loose women. They keep to + their own clique, among men and women, never wanting to compromise anybody + else. + </p> + <p> + And beyond all these there are the Franciscan friars in their brown robes, + so shy, so silent, so obliterated, as they stand back in the shop, waiting + to buy the bread for the monastery, waiting obscure and neutral, till no + one shall be in the shop wanting to be served. The village women speak to + them in a curious neutral, official, slightly contemptuous voice. They + answer neutral and humble, though distinctly. + </p> + <p> + At the theatre, now the play is over, the peasants in their black hats and + cloaks crowd the hall. Only Pietro, the wharf-lounger, has no cloak, and a + bit of a cap on the side of his head instead of a black felt hat. His + clothes are thin and loose on his thin, vigorous, cat-like body, and he is + cold, but he takes no notice. His hands are always in his pockets, his + shoulders slightly raised. + </p> + <p> + The few women slip away home. In the little theatre bar the well-to-do + young atheists are having another drink. Not that they spend much. A + tumbler of wine or a glass of vermouth costs a penny. And the wine is + horrible new stuff. Yet the little baker, Agostino, sits on a bench with + his pale baby on his knee, putting the wine to its lips. And the baby + drinks, like a blind fledgeling. + </p> + <p> + Upstairs, the quality has paid its visits and shaken hands: the Syndaco + and the well-to-do half-Austrian owners of the woodyard, the Bertolini, + have ostentatiously shown their mutual friendship; our padrone, the Signer + Pietro Di Paoli, has visited his relatives the Graziani in the box next + the stage and has spent two intervals with us in our box; meanwhile, his + two peasants standing down below, pathetic, thin contadini of the old + school, like worn stones, have looked up at us as if we are the angels in + heaven, with a reverential, devotional eye, they themselves far away + below, standing in the bay at the back, below all. + </p> + <p> + The chemist and the grocer and the schoolmistress pay calls. They have all + sat self-consciously posed in the front of their boxes, like framed + photographs of themselves. The second grocer and the baker visit each + other. The barber looks in on the carpenter, then drops downstairs among + the crowd. Class distinctions are cut very fine. As we pass with the + padrona of the hotel, who is a Bavarian, we stop to speak to our own + padroni, the Di Paoli. They have a warm handshake and effusive polite + conversation for us; for Maria Samuelli, a distant bow. We realize our + mistake. + </p> + <p> + The barber—not the Siciliano, but flashy little Luigi with the big + tie-ring and the curls—knows all about the theatre. He says that + Enrico Persevalli has for his mistress Carina, the servant in <i>Ghosts</i>: + that the thin, gentle, old-looking king in <i>Hamlet</i> is the husband of + Adelaida, and Carina is their daughter: that the old, sharp, fat little + body of a queen is Adelaida's mother: that they all like Enrico + Persevalli, because he is a very clever man: but that the 'Comic', Il + Brillante, Francesco, is unsatisfied. + </p> + <p> + In three performances in Epiphany week, the company took two hundred and + sixty-five francs, which was phenomenal. The manager, Enrico Persevalli, + and Adelaida pay twenty-four francs for every performance, or every + evening on which a performance is given, as rent for the theatre, + including light. The company is completely satisfied with its reception on + the Lago di Garda. + </p> + <p> + So it is all over. The Bersaglieri go running all the way home, because it + is already past half past ten. The night is very dark. About four miles up + the lake the searchlights of the Austrian border are swinging, looking for + smugglers. Otherwise the darkness is complete. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SAN GAUDENZIO + </h2> + <p> + In the autumn the little rosy cyclamens blossom in the shade of this west + side of the lake. They are very cold and fragrant, and their scent seems + to belong to Greece, to the Bacchae. They are real flowers of the past. + They seem to be blossoming in the landscape of Phaedra and Helen. They + bend down, they brood like little chill fires. They are little living + myths that I cannot understand. + </p> + <p> + After the cyclamens the Christmas roses are in bud. It is at this season + that the cacchi are ripe on the trees in the garden, whole naked trees + full of lustrous, orange-yellow, paradisal fruit, gleaming against the + wintry blue sky. The monthly roses still blossom frail and pink, there are + still crimson and yellow roses. But the vines are bare and the + lemon-houses shut. And then, mid-winter, the lowest buds of the Christmas + roses appear under the hedges and rocks and by the streams. They are very + lovely, these first large, cold, pure buds, like violets, like magnolias, + but cold, lit up with the light from the snow. + </p> + <p> + The days go by, through the brief silence of winter, when the sunshine is + so still and pure, like iced wine, and the dead leaves gleam brown, and + water sounds hoarse in the ravines. It is so still and transcendent, the + cypress trees poise like flames of forgotten darkness, that should have + been blown out at the end of the summer. For as we have candles to light + the darkness of night, so the cypresses are candles to keep the darkness + aflame in the full sunshine. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, the Christmas roses become many. They rise from their budded, + intact humbleness near the ground, they rise up, they throw up their + crystal, they become handsome, they are heaps of confident, mysterious + whiteness in the shadow of a rocky stream. It is almost uncanny to see + them. They are the flowers of darkness, white and wonderful beyond belief. + </p> + <p> + Then their radiance becomes soiled and brown, they thaw, break, and + scatter and vanish away. Already the primroses are coming out, and the + almond is in bud. The winter is passing away. On the mountains the fierce + snow gleams apricot gold as evening approaches, golden, apricot, but so + bright that it is almost frightening. What can be so fiercely gleaming + when all is shadowy? It is something inhuman and unmitigated between + heaven and earth. + </p> + <p> + The heavens are strange and proud all the winter, their progress goes on + without reference to the dim earth. The dawns come white and translucent, + the lake is a moonstone in the dark hills, then across the lake there + stretches a vein of fire, then a whole, orange, flashing track over the + whiteness. There is the exquisite silent passage of the day, and then at + evening the afterglow, a huge incandescence of rose, hanging above and + gleaming, as if it were the presence of a host of angels in rapture. It + gleams like a rapturous chorus, then passes away, and the stars appear, + large and flashing. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, the primroses are dawning on the ground, their light is growing + stronger, spreading over the banks and under the bushes. Between the olive + roots the violets are out, large, white, grave violets, and less serious + blue ones. And looking down the bill, among the grey smoke of olive + leaves, pink puffs of smoke are rising up. It is the almond and the + apricot trees, it is the Spring. + </p> + <p> + Soon the primroses are strong on the ground. There is a bank of small, + frail crocuses shooting the lavender into this spring. And then the + tussocks and tussocks of primroses are fully out, there is full morning + everywhere on the banks and roadsides and stream-sides, and around the + olive roots, a morning of primroses underfoot, with an invisible threading + of many violets, and then the lovely blue clusters of hepatica, really + like pieces of blue sky showing through a clarity of primrose. The few + birds are piping thinly and shyly, the streams sing again, there is a + strange flowering shrub full of incense, overturned flowers of crimson and + gold, like Bohemian glass. Between the olive roots new grass is coming, + day is leaping all clear and coloured from the earth, it is full Spring, + full first rapture. + </p> + <p> + Does it pass away, or does it only lose its pristine quality? It deepens + and intensifies, like experience. The days seem to be darker and richer, + there is a sense of power in the strong air. On the banks by the lake the + orchids are out, many, many pale bee-orchids standing clear from the short + grass over the lake. And in the hollows are the grape hyacinths, purple as + noon, with the heavy, sensual fragrance of noon. They are many-breasted, + and full of milk, and ripe, and sun-darkened, like many-breasted Diana. + </p> + <p> + We could not bear to live down in the village any more, now that the days + opened large and spacious and the evenings drew out in sunshine. We could + not bear the indoors, when above us the mountains shone in clear air. It + was time to go up, to climb with the sun. + </p> + <p> + So after Easter we went to San Gaudenzio. It was three miles away, up the + winding mule-track that climbed higher and higher along the lake. Leaving + the last house of the village, the path wound on the steep, cliff-like + side of the lake, curving into the hollow where the landslip had tumbled + the rocks in chaos, then out again on to the bluff of a headland that hung + over the lake. + </p> + <p> + Thus we came to the tall barred gate of San Gaudenzio, on which was the + usual little fire-insurance tablet, and then the advertisements for beer, + 'Birra, Verona', which is becoming a more and more popular drink. + </p> + <p> + Through the gate, inside the high wall, is the little Garden of Eden, a + property of three or four acres fairly level upon a headland over the + lake. The high wall girds it on the land side, and makes it perfectly + secluded. On the lake-side it is bounded by the sudden drops of the land, + in sharp banks and terraces, overgrown with ilex and with laurel bushes, + down to the brink of the cliff, so that the thicket of the first + declivities seems to safeguard the property. + </p> + <p> + The pink farm-house stands almost in the centre of the little territory, + among the olive trees. It is a solid, six-roomed place, about fifty years + old, having been rebuilt by Paolo's uncle. Here we came to live for a time + with the Fiori, Maria and Paolo, and their three children, Giovanni and + Marco and Felicina. + </p> + <p> + Paolo had inherited, or partly inherited, San Gaudenzio, which had been in + his family for generations. He was a peasant of fifty-three, very grey and + wrinkled and worn-looking, but at the same time robust, with full strong + limbs and a powerful chest. His face was old, but his body was solid and + powerful. His eyes were blue like upper ice, beautiful. He had been a + fair-haired man, now he was almost white. + </p> + <p> + He, was strangely like the pictures of peasants in the northern Italian + pictures, with the same curious nobility, the same aristocratic, eternal + look of motionlessness, something statuesque. His head was hard and fine, + the bone finely constructed, though the skin of his face was loose and + furrowed with work. His temples had that fine, hard clarity which is seen + in Mantegna, an almost jewel-like quality. + </p> + <p> + We all loved Paolo, he was so finished in his being, detached, with an + almost classic simplicity and gentleness, an eternal kind of sureness. + There was also something concluded and unalterable about him, something + inaccessible. + </p> + <p> + Maria Fiori was different. She was from the plain, like Enrico Persevalli + and the Bersaglier from the Venetian district. She reminded me again of + oxen, broad-boned and massive in physique, dark-skinned, slow in her soul. + But, like the oxen of the plain, she knew her work, she knew the other + people engaged in the work. Her intelligence was attentive and purposive. + She had been a housekeeper, a servant, in Venice and Verona, before her + marriage. She had got the hang of this world of commerce and activity, she + wanted to master it. But she was weighted down by her heavy animal blood. + </p> + <p> + Paolo and she were the opposite sides of the universe, the light and the + dark. Yet they lived together now without friction, detached, each + subordinated in their common relationship. With regard to Maria, Paolo + omitted himself; Maria omitted herself with regard to Paolo. Their souls + were silent and detached, completely apart, and silent, quite silent. They + shared the physical relationship of marriage as if it were something + beyond them, a third thing. + </p> + <p> + They had suffered very much in the earlier stages of their connexion. Now + the storm had gone by, leaving them, as it were, spent. They were both by + nature passionate, vehement. But the lines of their passion were opposite. + Hers was the primitive, crude, violent flux of the blood, emotional and + undiscriminating, but wanting to mix and mingle. His was the hard, clear, + invulnerable passion of the bones, finely tempered and unchangeable. She + was the flint and he the steel. But in continual striking together they + only destroyed each other. The fire was a third thing, belonging to + neither of them. + </p> + <p> + She was still heavy and full of desire. She was much younger than he. + </p> + <p> + 'How long did you know your Signora before you were married?' she asked + me. + </p> + <p> + 'Six weeks,' I said. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Il Paolo e me, venti giorni, tre settimane</i>,' she cried vehemently. + Three weeks they had known each other when they married. She still + triumphed in the fact. So did Paolo. But it was past, strangely and rather + terribly past. + </p> + <p> + What did they want when they came together, Paolo and she? He was a man + over thirty, she was a woman of twenty-three. They were both violent in + desire and of strong will. They came together at once, like two wrestlers + almost matched in strength. Their meetings must have been splendid. + Giovanni, the eldest child, was a tall lad of sixteen, with soft brown + hair and grey eyes, and a clarity of brow, and the same calm simplicity of + bearing which made Paolo so complete; but the son had at the same time a + certain brownness of skin, a heaviness of blood, which he had from his + mother. Paolo was so clear and translucent. + </p> + <p> + In Giovanni the fusion of the parents was perfect, he was a perfect spark + from the flint and steel. There was in Paolo a subtle intelligence in + feeling, a delicate appreciation of the other person. But the mind was + unintelligent, he could not grasp a new order. Maria Fiori was much + sharper and more adaptable to the ways of the world. Paolo had an almost + glass-like quality, fine and clear and perfectly tempered; but he was also + finished and brittle. Maria was much coarser, more vulgar, but also she + was more human, more fertile, with crude potentiality. His passion was too + fixed in its motion, hers too loose and overwhelming. + </p> + <p> + But Giovanni was beautiful, gentle, and courtly like Paolo, but warm, like + Maria, ready to flush like a girl with anger or confusion. He stood + straight and tall, and seemed to look into the far distance with his clear + grey eyes. Yet also he could look at one and touch one with his look, he + could meet one. Paolo's blue eyes were like the eyes of the old + spinning-woman, clear and blue and belonging to the mountains, their + vision seemed to end in space, abstract. They reminded me of the eyes of + the eagle, which looks into the sun, and which teaches its young to do the + same, although they are unwilling. + </p> + <p> + Marco, the second son, was thirteen years old. He was his mother's + favourite, Giovanni loved his father best. But Marco was his mother's son, + with the same brown-gold and red complexion, like a pomegranate, and + coarse black hair, and brown eyes like pebble, like agate, like an + animal's eyes. He had the same broad, bovine figure, though he was only a + boy. But there was some discrepancy in him. He was not unified, he had no + identity. + </p> + <p> + He was strong and full of animal life, but always aimless, as though his + wits scarcely controlled him. But he loved his mother with a fundamental, + generous, undistinguishing love. Only he always forgot what he was going + to do. He was much more sensitive than Maria, more shy and reluctant. But + his shyness, his sensitiveness only made him more aimless and awkward, a + tiresome clown, slack and uncontrolled, witless. All day long his mother + shouted and shrilled and scolded at him, or hit him angrily. He did not + mind, he came up like a cork, warm and roguish and curiously appealing. + She loved him with a fierce protective love, grounded on pain. There was + such a split, a contrariety in his soul, one part reacting against the + other, which landed him always into trouble. + </p> + <p> + It was when Marco was a baby that Paolo had gone to America. They were + poor on San Gaudenzio. There were the few olive trees, the grapes, and the + fruit; there was the one cow. But these scarcely made a living. Neither + was Maria content with the real peasants' lot any more, polenta at midday + and vegetable soup in the evening, and no way out, nothing to look forward + to, no future, only this eternal present. She had been in service, and had + eaten bread and drunk coffee, and known the flux and variable chance of + life. She had departed from the old static conception. She knew what one + might be, given a certain chance. The fixture was the thing she militated + against. So Paolo went to America, to California, into the gold mines. + </p> + <p> + Maria wanted the future, the endless possibility of life on earth. She + wanted her sons to be freer, to achieve a new plane of living. The + peasant's life was a slave's life, she said, railing against the poverty + and the drudgery. And it was quite true, Paolo and Giovanni worked twelve + and fourteen hours a day at heavy laborious work that would have broken an + Englishman. And there was nothing at the end of it. Yet Paolo was even + happy so. This was the truth to him. + </p> + <p> + It was the mother who wanted things different. It was she who railed and + railed against the miserable life of the peasants. When we were going to + throw to the fowls a dry broken penny roll of white bread, Maria said, + with anger and shame and resentment in her voice: 'Give it to Marco, he + will eat it. It isn't too dry for him.' + </p> + <p> + White bread was a treat for them even now, when everybody eats bread. And + Maria Fiori hated it, that bread should be a treat to her children, when + it was the meanest food of all the rest of the world. She was in + opposition to this order. She did not want her sons to be peasants, fixed + and static as posts driven in the earth. She wanted them to be in the + great flux of life in the midst of all possibilities. So she at length + sent Paolo to America to the gold-mines. Meanwhile, she covered the wall + of her parlour with picture postcards, to bring the outer world of cities + and industries into her house. + </p> + <p> + Paolo was entirely remote from Maria's world. He had not yet even grasped + the fact of money, not thoroughly. He reckoned in land and olive trees. So + he had the old fatalistic attitude to his circumstances, even to his food. + The earth was the Lord's and the fulness thereof; also the leanness + thereof. Paolo could only do his part and leave the rest. If he ate in + plenty, having oil and wine and sausage in the house, and plenty of + maize-meal, he was glad with the Lord. If he ate meagrely, of poor + polenta, that was fate, it was the skies that ruled these things, and no + man ruled the skies. He took his fate as it fell from the skies. + </p> + <p> + Maria was exorbitant about money. She would charge us all she could for + what we had and for what was done for us. + </p> + <p> + Yet she was not mean in her soul. In her soul she was in a state of anger + because of her own closeness. It was a violation to her strong animal + nature. Yet her mind had wakened to the value of money. She knew she could + alter her position, the position of her children, by virtue of money. She + knew it was only money that made the difference between master and + servant. And this was all the difference she would acknowledge. So she + ruled her life according to money. Her supreme passion was to be mistress + rather than servant, her supreme aspiration for her children was that in + the end they might be masters and not servants. + </p> + <p> + Paolo was untouched by all this. For him there was some divinity about a + master which even America had not destroyed. If we came in for supper + whilst the family was still at table he would have the children at once + take their plates to the wall, he would have Maria at once set the table + for us, though their own meal were never finished. And this was not + servility, it was the dignity of a religious conception. Paolo regarded us + as belonging to the Signoria, those who are elect, near to God. And this + was part of his religious service. His life was a ritual. It was very + beautiful, but it made me unhappy, the purity of his spirit was so sacred + and the actual facts seemed such a sacrilege to it. Maria was nearer to + the actual truth when she said that money was the only distinction. But + Paolo had hold of an eternal truth, where hers was temporal. Only Paolo + misapplied this eternal truth. He should not have given Giovanni the + inferior status and a fat, mean Italian tradesman the superior. That was + false, a real falsity. Maria knew it and hated it. But Paolo could not + distinguish between the accident of riches and the aristocracy of the + spirit. So Maria rejected him altogether, and went to the other extreme. + We were all human beings like herself; naked, there was no distinction + between us, no higher nor lower. But we were possessed of more money than + she. And she had to steer her course between these two conceptions. The + money alone made the real distinction, the separation; the being, the life + made the common level. + </p> + <p> + Paolo had the curious peasant's avarice also, but it was not meanness. It + was a sort of religious conservation of his own power, his own self. + Fortunately he could leave all business transactions on our account to + Maria, so that his relation with us was purely ritualistic. He would have + given me anything, trusting implicitly that I would fulfil my own nature + as Signore, one of those more godlike, nearer the light of perfection than + himself, a peasant. It was pure bliss to him to bring us the first-fruit + of the garden, it was like laying it on an altar. + </p> + <p> + And his fulfilment was in a fine, subtle, exquisite relationship, not of + manners, but subtle interappreciation. He worshipped a finer understanding + and a subtler tact. A further fineness and dignity and freedom in bearing + was to him an approach towards the divine, so he loved men best of all, + they fulfilled his soul. A woman was always a woman, and sex was a low + level whereon he did not esteem himself. But a man, a doer, the instrument + of God, he was really godlike. + </p> + <p> + Paolo was a Conservative. For him the world was established and divine in + its establishment. His vision grasped a small circle. A finer nature, a + higher understanding, took in a greater circle, comprehended the whole. So + that when Paolo was in relation to a man of further vision, he himself was + extended towards the whole. Thus he was fulfilled. And his initial + assumption was that every signore, every gentleman, was a man of further, + purer vision than himself. This assumption was false. But Maria's + assumption, that no one had a further vision, no one was more elect than + herself, that we are all one flesh and blood and being, was even more + false. Paolo was mistaken in actual life, but Maria was ultimately + mistaken. + </p> + <p> + Paolo, conservative as he was, believing that a priest must be a priest of + God, yet very rarely went to church. And he used the religious oaths that + Maria hated, even <i>Porca-Maria</i>. He always used oaths, either Bacchus + or God or Mary or the Sacrament. Maria was always offended. Yet it was she + who, in her soul, jeered at the Church and at religion. She wanted the + human society as the absolute, without religious abstractions. So Paolo's + oaths enraged her, because of their profanity, she said. But it was really + because of their subscribing to another superhuman order. She jeered at + the clerical people. She made a loud clamour of derision when the parish + priest of the village above went down to the big village on the lake, and + across the piazza, the quay, with two pigs in a sack on his shoulder. This + was a real picture of the sacred minister to her. + </p> + <p> + One day, when a storm had blown down an olive tree in front of the house, + and Paolo and Giovanni were beginning to cut it up, this same priest of + Mugiano came to San Gaudenzio. He was an iron-grey, thin, + disreputable-looking priest, very talkative and loud and queer. He seemed + like an old ne'er-do-well in priests' black, and he talked loudly, almost + to himself, as drunken people do. At once <i>he</i> must show the Fiori + how to cut up the tree, he must have the axe from Paolo. He shouted to + Maria for a glass of wine. She brought it out to him with a sort of + insolent deference, insolent contempt of the man and traditional deference + to the cloth. The priest drained the tumblerful of wine at one drink, his + thin throat with its Adam's apple working. And he did not pay the penny. + </p> + <p> + Then he stripped off his cassock and put away his hat, and, a ludicrous + figure in ill-fitting black knee-breeches and a not very clean shirt, a + red handkerchief round his neck, he proceeded to give great extravagant + blows at the tree. He was like a caricature. In the doorway Maria was + encouraging him rather jeeringly, whilst she winked at me. Marco was + stifling his hysterical amusement in his mother's apron, and prancing with + glee. Paolo and Giovanni stood by the fallen tree, very grave and unmoved, + inscrutable, abstract. Then the youth came away to the doorway, with a + flush mounting on his face and a grimace distorting its youngness. Only + Paolo, unmoved and detached, stood by the tree with unchanging, abstract + face, very strange, his eyes fixed in the ageless stare which is so + characteristic. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile the priest swung drunken blows at the tree, his thin buttocks + bending in the green-black broadcloth, supported on thin shanks, and thin + throat growing dull purple in the red-knotted kerchief. Nevertheless he + was doing the job. His face was wet with sweat. He wanted another glass of + wine. + </p> + <p> + He took no notice of us. He was strangely a local, even a mountebank + figure, but entirely local, an appurtenance of the district. + </p> + <p> + It was Maria who jeeringly told us the story of the priest, who shrugged + her shoulders to imply that he was a contemptible figure. Paolo sat with + the abstract look on his face, as of one who hears and does not hear, is + not really concerned. He never opposed or contradicted her, but stayed + apart. It was she who was violent and brutal in her ways. But sometimes + Paolo went into a rage, and then Maria, everybody, was afraid. It was a + white heavy rage, when his blue eyes shone unearthly, and his mouth opened + with a curious drawn blindness of the old Furies. There was something of + the cruelty of a falling mass of snow, heavy, horrible. Maria drew away, + there was a silence. Then the avalanche was finished. + </p> + <p> + They must have had some cruel fights before they learned to withdraw from + each other so completely. They must have begotten Marco in hatred, + terrible disintegrated opposition and otherness. And it was after this, + after the child of their opposition was born, that Paolo went away to + California, leaving his San Gaudenzio, travelling with several companions, + like blind beasts, to Havre, and thence to New York, then to California. + He stayed five years in the gold-mines, in a wild valley, living with a + gang of Italians in a town of corrugated iron. + </p> + <p> + All the while he had never really left San Gaudenzio. I asked him, 'Used + you to think of it, the lake, the Monte Baldo, the laurel trees down the + slope?' He tried to see what I wanted to know. Yes, he said—but + uncertainly. I could see that he had never been really homesick. It had + been very wretched on the ship going from Havre to New York. That he told + me about. And he told me about the gold-mines, the galleries, the valley, + the huts in the valley. But he had never really fretted for San Gaudenzio + whilst he was in California. + </p> + <p> + In real truth he was at San Gaudenzio all the time, his fate was riveted + there. His going away was an excursion from reality, a kind of + sleep-walking. He left his own reality there in the soil above the lake of + Garda. That his body was in California, what did it matter? It was merely + for a time, and for the sake of his own earth, his land. He would pay off + the mortgage. But the gate at home was his gate all the time, his hand was + on the latch. + </p> + <p> + As for Maria, he had felt his duty towards her. She was part of his little + territory, the rooted centre of the world. He sent her home the money. But + it did not occur to him, in his soul, to miss her. He wanted her to be + safe with the children, that was all. In his flesh perhaps he missed the + woman. But his spirit was even more completely isolated since marriage. + Instead of having united with each other, they had made each other more + terribly distinct and separate. He could live alone eternally. It was his + condition. His sex was functional, like eating and drinking. To take a + woman, a prostitute at the camp, or not to take her, was no more vitally + important than to get drunk or not to get drunk of a Sunday. And fairly + often on Sunday Paolo got drunk. His world remained unaltered. + </p> + <p> + But Maria suffered more bitterly. She was a young, powerful, passionate + woman, and she was unsatisfied body and soul. Her soul's satisfaction + became a bodily unsatisfaction. Her blood was heavy, violent, anarchic, + insisting on the equality of the blood in all, and therefore on her own + absolute right to satisfaction. + </p> + <p> + She took a wine licence for San Gaudenzio, and she sold wine. There were + many scandals about her. Somehow it did not matter very much, outwardly. + The authorities were too divided among themselves to enforce public + opinion. Between the clerical party and the radicals and the socialists, + what canons were left that were absolute? Besides, these wild villages had + always been ungoverned. + </p> + <p> + Yet Maria suffered. Even she, according to her conviction belonged to + Paolo. And she felt betrayed, betrayed and deserted. The iron had gone + deep into her soul. Paolo had deserted her, she had been betrayed to other + men for five years. There was something cruel and implacable in life. She + sat sullen and heavy, for all her quick activity. Her soul was sullen and + heavy. + </p> + <p> + I could never believe Felicina was Paolo's child. She was an + unprepossessing little girl, affected, cold, selfish, foolish. Maria and + Paolo, with real Italian greatness, were warm and natural towards the + child in her. But they did not love her in their very souls, she was the + fruit of ash to them. And this must have been the reason that she was so + self-conscious and foolish and affected, small child that she was. + </p> + <p> + Paolo had come back from America a year before she was born—a year + before she was born, Maria insisted. The husband and wife lived together + in a relationship of complete negation. In his soul he was sad for her, + and in her soul she felt annulled. He sat at evening in the chimney-seat, + smoking, always pleasant and cheerful, not for a moment thinking he was + unhappy. It had all taken place in his subconsciousness. But his eyebrows + and eyelids were lifted in a kind of vacancy, his blue eyes were round and + somehow finished, though he was so gentle and vigorous in body. But the + very quick of him was killed. He was like a ghost in the house, with his + loose throat and powerful limbs, his open, blue extinct eyes, and his + musical, slightly husky voice, that seemed to sound out of the past. + </p> + <p> + And Maria, stout and strong and handsome like a peasant woman, went about + as if there were a weight on her, and her voice was high and strident. + She, too, was finished in her life. But she remained unbroken, her will + was like a hammer that destroys the old form. + </p> + <p> + Giovanni was patiently labouring to learn a little English. Paolo knew + only four or five words, the chief of which were 'a'right', 'boss', + 'bread', and 'day'. The youth had these by heart, and was studying a + little more. He was very graceful and lovable, but he found it difficult + to learn. A confused light, like hot tears, would come into his eyes when + he had again forgotten the phrase. But he carried the paper about with + him, and he made steady progress. + </p> + <p> + He would go to America, he also. Not for anything would he stay in San + Gaudenzio. His dream was to be gone. He would come back. The world was not + San Gaudenzio to Giovanni. + </p> + <p> + The old order, the order of Paolo and of Pietro di Paoli, the aristocratic + order of the supreme God, God the Father, the Lord, was passing away from + the beautiful little territory. The household no longer receives its food, + oil and wine and maize, from out of the earth in the motion of fate. The + earth is annulled, and money takes its place. The landowner, who is the + lieutenant of God and of Fate, like Abraham, he, too, is annulled. There + is now the order of the rich, which supersedes the order of the Signoria. + </p> + <p> + It is passing away from Italy as it has passed from England. The peasant + is passing away, the workman is taking his place. The stability is gone. + Paolo is a ghost, Maria is the living body. And the new order means sorrow + for the Italian more even than it has meant for us. But he will have the + new order. + </p> + <p> + San Gaudenzio is already becoming a thing of the past. Below the house, + where the land drops in sharp slips to the sheer cliff's edge, over which + it is Maria's constant fear that Felicina will tumble, there are the + deserted lemon gardens of the little territory, snug down below. They are + invisible till one descends by tiny paths, sheer down into them. And there + they stand, the pillars and walls erect, but a dead emptiness prevailing, + lemon trees all dead, gone, a few vines in their place. It is only twenty + years since the lemon trees finally perished of a disease and were not + renewed. But the deserted terrace, shut between great walls, descending in + their openness full to the south, to the lake and the mountain opposite, + seem more terrible than Pompeii in their silence and utter seclusion. The + grape hyacinths flower in the cracks, the lizards run, this strange place + hangs suspended and forgotten, forgotten for ever, its erect pillars + utterly meaningless. + </p> + <p> + I used to sit and write in the great loft of the lemon-house, high up, + far, far from the ground, the open front giving across the lake and the + mountain snow opposite, flush with twilight. The old matting and boards, + the old disused implements of lemon culture made shadows in the deserted + place. Then there would come the call from the back, away above: '<i>Venga, + venga mangiare</i>.' + </p> + <p> + We ate in the kitchen, where the olive and laurel wood burned in the open + fireplace. It was always soup in the evening. Then we played games or + cards, all playing; or there was singing, with the accordion, and + sometimes a rough mountain peasant with a guitar. + </p> + <p> + But it is all passing away. Giovanni is in America, unless he has come + back to the War. He will not want to live in San Gaudenzio when he is a + man, he says. He and Marco will not spend their lives wringing a little + oil and wine out of the rocky soil, even if they are not killed in the + fighting which is going on at the end of the lake. In my loft by the + lemon-houses now I should hear the guns. And Giovanni kissed me with a + kind of supplication when I went on to the steamer, as if he were + beseeching for a soul. His eyes were bright and clear and lit up with + courage. He will make a good fight for the new soul he wants—that + is, if they do not kill him in this War. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE DANCE + </h2> + <p> + Maria had no real licence for San Gaudenzio, yet the peasants always + called for wine. It is easy to arrange in Italy. The penny is paid another + time. + </p> + <p> + The wild old road that skirts the lake-side, scrambling always higher as + the precipice becomes steeper, climbing and winding to the villages + perched high up, passes under the high boundary-wall of San Gaudenzio, + between that and the ruined church. But the road went just as much between + the vines and past the house as outside, under the wall; for the high + gates were always open, and men or women and mules come into the property + to call at the door of the homestead. There was a loud shout, 'Ah—a—a—ah—Mari—a. + O—O—Oh Pa'o!' from outside, another wild, inarticulate cry + from within, and one of the Fiori appeared in the doorway to hail the + newcomer. + </p> + <p> + It was usually a man, sometimes a peasant from Mugiano, high up, sometimes + a peasant from the wilds of the mountain, a wood-cutter, or a + charcoal-burner. He came in and sat in the house-place, his glass of wine + in his hand between his knees, or on the floor between his feet, and he + talked in a few wild phrases, very shy, like a hawk indoors, and + unintelligible in his dialect. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes we had a dance. Then, for the wine to drink, three men came with + mandolines and guitars, and sat in a corner playing their rapid tunes, + while all danced on the dusty brick floor of the little parlour. No + strange women were invited, only men; the young bloods from the big + village on the lake, the wild men from above. They danced the slow, + trailing, lilting polka-waltz round and round the small room, the guitars + and mandolines twanging rapidly, the dust rising from the soft bricks. + There were only the two English women: so men danced with men, as the + Italians love to do. They love even better to dance with men, with a dear + blood-friend, than with women. + </p> + <p> + 'It's better like this, two men?' Giovanni says to me, his blue eyes hot, + his face curiously tender. + </p> + <p> + The wood-cutters and peasants take off their coats, their throats are + bare. They dance with strange intentness, particularly if they have for + partner an English Signora. Their feet in thick boots are curiously swift + and significant. And it is strange to see the Englishwomen, as they dance + with the peasants transfigured with a kind of brilliant surprise. All the + while the peasants are very courteous, but quiet. They see the women + dilate and flash, they think they have found a footing, they are certain. + So the male dancers are quiet, but even grandiloquent, their feet nimble, + their bodies wild and confident. + </p> + <p> + They are at a loss when the two English Signoras move together and laugh + excitedly at the end of the dance. + </p> + <p> + 'Isn't it fine?' + </p> + <p> + 'Fine! Their arms are like iron, carrying you round.' + </p> + <p> + 'Yes! Yes! And the muscles on their shoulders! I never knew there were + such muscles! I'm almost frightened.' + </p> + <p> + 'But it's fine, isn't it? I'm getting into the dance.' + </p> + <p> + 'Yes—yes—you've only to let them take you.' + </p> + <p> + Then the glasses are put down, the guitars give their strange, vibrant, + almost painful summons, and the dance begins again. + </p> + <p> + It is a strange dance, strange and lilting, and changing as the music + changed. But it had always a kind of leisurely dignity, a trailing kind of + polka-waltz, intimate, passionate, yet never hurried, never violent in its + passion, always becoming more intense. The women's faces changed to a kind + of transported wonder, they were in the very rhythm of delight. From the + soft bricks of the floor the red ochre rose in a thin cloud of dust, + making hazy the shadowy dancers; the three musicians, in their black hats + and their cloaks, sat obscurely in the corner, making a music that came + quicker and quicker, making a dance that grew swifter and more intense, + more subtle, the men seeming to fly and to implicate other strange + inter-rhythmic dance into the women, the women drifting and palpitating as + if their souls shook and resounded to a breeze that was subtly rushing + upon them, through them; the men worked their feet, their thighs swifter, + more vividly, the music came to an almost intolerable climax, there was a + moment when the dance passed into a possession, the men caught up the + women and swung them from the earth, leapt with them for a second, and + then the next phase of the dance had begun, slower again, more subtly + interwoven, taking perfect, oh, exquisite delight in every interrelated + movement, a rhythm within a rhythm, a subtle approaching and drawing + nearer to a climax, nearer, till, oh, there was the surpassing lift and + swing of the women, when the woman's body seemed like a boat lifted over + the powerful, exquisite wave of the man's body, perfect, for a moment, and + then once more the slow, intense, nearer movement of the dance began, + always nearer, nearer, always to a more perfect climax. + </p> + <p> + And the women waited as if in transport for the climax, when they would be + flung into a movement surpassing all movement. They were flung, borne + away, lifted like a boat on a supreme wave, into the zenith and nave of + the heavens, consummate. + </p> + <p> + Then suddenly the dance crashed to an end, and the dancers stood stranded, + lost, bewildered, on a strange shore. The air was full of red dust, + half-lit by the lamp on the wall; the players in the corner were putting + down their instruments to take up their glasses. + </p> + <p> + And the dancers sat round the wall, crowding in the little room, faint + with the transport of repeated ecstasy. There was a subtle smile on the + face of the men, subtle, knowing, so finely sensual that the conscious + eyes could scarcely look at it. And the women were dazed, like creatures + dazzled by too much light. The light was still on their faces, like a + blindness, a reeling, like a transfiguration. The men were bringing wine, + on a little tin tray, leaning with their proud, vivid loins, their faces + flickering with the same subtle smile. Meanwhile, Maria Fiori was + splashing water, much water, on the red floor. There was the smell of + water among the glowing, transfigured men and women who sat gleaming in + another world, round the walls. + </p> + <p> + The peasants have chosen their women. For the dark, handsome Englishwoman, + who looks like a slightly malignant Madonna, comes Il Duro; for the '<i>bella + bionda</i>', the wood-cutter. But the peasants have always to take their + turn after the young well-to-do men from the village below. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, they are confident. They cannot understand the middle-class + diffidence of the young men who wear collars and ties and finger-rings. + </p> + <p> + The wood-cutter from the mountain is of medium height, dark, thin, and + hard as a hatchet, with eyes that are black like the very flaming thrust + of night. He is quite a savage. There is something strange about his + dancing, the violent way he works one shoulder. He has a wooden leg, from + the knee-joint. Yet he dances well, and is inordinately proud. He is + fierce as a bird, and hard with energy as a thunderbolt. He will dance + with the blonde signora. But he never speaks. He is like some violent + natural phenomenon rather than a person. The woman begins to wilt a little + in his possession. + </p> + <p> + '<i>È bello—il ballo?</i>' he asked at length, one direct, flashing + question. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Si—molto bello</i>,' cries the woman, glad to have speech again. + </p> + <p> + The eyes of the wood-cutter flash like actual possession. He seems now to + have come into his own. With all his senses, he is dominant, sure. + </p> + <p> + He is inconceivably vigorous in body, and his dancing is almost perfect, + with a little catch in it, owing to his lameness, which brings almost a + pure intoxication. Every muscle in his body is supple as steel, supple, as + strong as thunder, and yet so quick, so delicately swift, it is almost + unbearable. As he draws near to the swing, the climax, the ecstasy, he + seems to lie in wait, there is a sense of a great strength crouching + ready. Then it rushes forth, liquid, perfect, transcendent, the woman + swoons over in the dance, and it goes on, enjoyment, infinite, + incalculable enjoyment. He is like a god, a strange natural phenomenon, + most intimate and compelling, wonderful. + </p> + <p> + But he is not a human being. The woman, somewhere shocked in her + independent soul, begins to fall away from him. She has another being, + which he has not touched, and which she will fall back upon. The dance is + over, she will fall back on herself. It is perfect, too perfect. + </p> + <p> + During the next dance, while she is in the power of the educated Ettore, a + perfect and calculated voluptuary, who knows how much he can get out of + this Northern woman, and only how much, the wood-cutter stands on the edge + of the darkness, in the open doorway, and watches. He is fixed upon her, + established, perfect. And all the while she is aware of the insistent + hawk-like poising of the face of the wood-cutter, poised on the edge of + the darkness, in the doorway, in possession, unrelinquishing. + </p> + <p> + And she is angry. There is something stupid, absurd, in the hard, + talon-like eyes watching so fiercely and so confidently in the doorway, + sure, unmitigated. Has the creature no sense? + </p> + <p> + The woman reacts from him. For some time she will take no notice of him. + But he waits, fixed. Then she comes near to him, and his will seems to + take hold of her. He looks at her with a strange, proud, inhuman + confidence, as if his influence with her was already accomplished. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Venga—venga un po'</i>,' he says, jerking his head strangely to + the darkness. + </p> + <p> + 'What?' she replies, and passes shaken and dilated and brilliant, + consciously ignoring him, passes away among the others, among those who + are safe. + </p> + <p> + There is food in the kitchen, great hunks of bread, sliced sausage that + Maria has made, wine, and a little coffee. But only the quality come to + eat. The peasants may not come in. There is eating and drinking in the + little house, the guitars are silent. It is eleven o'clock. + </p> + <p> + Then there is singing, the strange bestial singing of these hills. + Sometimes the guitars can play an accompaniment, but usually not. Then the + men lift up their heads and send out the high, half-howling music, + astounding. The words are in dialect. They argue among themselves for a + moment: will the Signoria understand? They sing. The Signoria does not + understand in the least. So with a strange, slightly malignant triumph, + the men sing all the verses of their song, sitting round the walls of the + little parlour. Their throats move, their faces have a slight mocking + smile. The boy capers in the doorway like a faun, with glee, his straight + black hair falling over his forehead. The elder brother sits straight and + flushed, but even his eyes glitter with a kind of yellow light of + laughter. Paolo also sits quiet, with the invisible smile on his face.' + Only Maria, large and active, prospering now, keeps collected, ready to + order a shrill silence in the same way as she orders the peasants, + violently, to keep their places. + </p> + <p> + The boy comes to me and says: + </p> + <p> + 'Do you know, Signore, what they are singing?' + </p> + <p> + 'No,' I say. + </p> + <p> + So he capers with furious glee. The men with the watchful eyes, all + roused, sit round the wall and sing more distinctly: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>Si verrà la primavera + Fiorann' le mandoline, + Vienn' di basso le Trentine + Coi 'taliani far' l'amor.</i> +</pre> + <p> + But the next verses are so improper that I pretend not to understand. The + women, with wakened, dilated faces, are listening, listening hard, their + two faces beautiful in their attention, as if listening to something + magical, a long way off. And the men sitting round the wall sing more + plainly, coming nearer to the correct Italian. The song comes loud and + vibrating and maliciously from their reedy throats, it penetrates + everybody. The foreign women can understand the sound, they can feel the + malicious, suggestive mockery. But they cannot catch the words. The smile + becomes more dangerous on the faces of the men. + </p> + <p> + Then Maria Fiori sees that I have understood, and she cries, in her loud, + overriding voice: + </p> + <p> + '<i>Basta—basta.</i> + </p> + <p> + The men get up, straighten their bodies with a curious, offering movement. + The guitars and mandolines strike the vibrating strings. But the vague + Northern reserve has come over the Englishwomen. They dance again, but + without the fusion in the dance. They have had enough. + </p> + <p> + The musicians are thanked, they rise and go into the night. The men pass + off in pairs. But the wood-cutter, whose name and whose nickname I could + never hear, still hovered on the edge of the darkness. + </p> + <p> + Then Maria sent him also away, complaining that he was too wild, <i>proprio + selvatico</i>, and only the 'quality' remained, the well-to-do youths from + below. There was a little more coffee, and a talking, a story of a man who + had fallen over a declivity in a lonely part going home drunk in the + evening, and had lain unfound for eighteen hours. Then a story of a donkey + who had kicked a youth in the chest and killed him. + </p> + <p> + But the women were tired, they would go to bed. Still the two young men + would not go away. We all went out to look at the night. + </p> + <p> + The stars were very bright overhead, the mountain opposite and the + mountains behind us faintly outlined themselves on the sky. Below, the + lake was a black gulf. A little wind blew cold from the Adige. + </p> + <p> + In the morning the visitors had gone. They had insisted on staying the + night. They had eaten eight eggs each and much bread at one o'clock in the + morning. Then they had gone to sleep, lying on the floor in the + sitting-room. + </p> + <p> + In the early sunshine they had drunk coffee and gone down to the village + on the lake. Maria was very pleased. She would have made a good deal of + money. The young men were rich. Her cupidity seemed like her very blossom. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IL DURO + </h2> + <p> + The first time I saw Il Duro was on a sunny day when there came up a party + of pleasure-makers to San Gaudenzio. They were three women and three men. + The women were in cotton frocks, one a large, dark, florid woman in pink, + the other two rather insignificant. The men I scarcely noticed at first, + except that two were young and one elderly. + </p> + <p> + They were a queer party, even on a feast day, coming up purely for + pleasure, in the morning, strange, and slightly uncertain, advancing + between the vines. They greeted Maria and Paolo in loud, coarse voices. + There was something blowsy and uncertain and hesitating about the women in + particular, which made one at once notice them. + </p> + <p> + Then a picnic was arranged for them out of doors, on the grass. They sat + just in front of the house, under the olive tree, beyond the well. It + should have been pretty, the women in their cotton frocks, and their + friends, sitting with wine and food in the spring sunshine. But somehow it + was not: it was hard and slightly ugly. + </p> + <p> + But since they were picnicking out of doors, we must do so too. We were at + once envious. But Maria was a little unwilling, and then she set a table + for us. + </p> + <p> + The strange party did not speak to us, they seemed slightly uneasy and + angry at our presence. I asked Maria who they were. She lifted her + shoulders, and, after a second's cold pause, said they were people from + down below, and then, in her rather strident, shrill, slightly bitter, + slightly derogatory voice, she added: + </p> + <p> + 'They are not people for you, signore. You don't know them.' + </p> + <p> + She spoke slightly angrily and contemptuously of them, rather protectively + of me. So that vaguely I gathered that they were not quite 'respectable'. + </p> + <p> + Only one man came into the house. He was very handsome, beautiful rather, + a man of thirty-two or-three, with a clear golden skin, and perfectly + turned face, something godlike. But the expression was strange. His hair + was jet black and fine and smooth, glossy as a bird's wing, his brows were + beautifully drawn, calm above his grey eyes, that had long dark lashes. + </p> + <p> + His eyes, however, had a sinister light in them, a pale, slightly + repelling gleam, very much like a god's pale-gleaming eyes, with the same + vivid pallor. And all his face had the slightly malignant, suffering look + of a satyr. Yet he was very beautiful. + </p> + <p> + He walked quickly and surely, with his head rather down, passing from his + desire to his object, absorbed, yet curiously indifferent, as if the + transit were in a strange world, as if none of what he was doing were + worth the while. Yet he did it for his own pleasure, and the light on his + face, a pale, strange gleam through his clear skin, remained like a + translucent smile, unchanging as time. + </p> + <p> + He seemed familiar with the household, he came and fetched wine at his + will. Maria was angry with him. She railed loudly and violently. He was + unchanged. He went out with the wine to the party on the grass. Maria + regarded them all with some hostility. + </p> + <p> + They drank a good deal out there in the sunshine. The women and the older + man talked floridly. Il Duro crouched at the feast in his curious fashion—he + had strangely flexible loins, upon which he seemed to crouch forward. But + he was separate, like an animal that remains quite single, no matter where + it is. + </p> + <p> + The party remained until about two o'clock. Then, slightly flushed, it + moved on in a ragged group up to the village beyond. I do not know if they + went to one of the inns of the stony village, or to the large strange + house which belonged to the rich young grocer of the village below, a + house kept only for feasts and riots, uninhabited for the most part. Maria + would tell me nothing about them. Only the young well-to-do grocer, who + had lived in Vienna, the Bertolotti, came later in the afternoon inquiring + for the party. + </p> + <p> + And towards sunset I saw the elderly man of the group stumbling home very + drunk down the path, after the two women, who had gone on in front. Then + Paolo sent Giovanni to see the drunken one safely past the landslip, which + was dangerous. Altogether it was an unsatisfactory business, very much + like any other such party in any other country. + </p> + <p> + Then in the evening Il Duro came in. His name is Faustino, but everybody + in the village has a nickname, which is almost invariably used. He came in + and asked for supper. We had all eaten. So he ate a little food alone at + the table, whilst we sat round the fire. + </p> + <p> + Afterwards we played 'Up, Jenkins'. That was the one game we played with + the peasants, except that exciting one of theirs, which consists in + shouting in rapid succession your guesses at the number of fingers rapidly + spread out and shut into the hands again upon the table. + </p> + <p> + Il Duro joined in the game. And that was because he had been in America, + and now was rich. He felt he could come near to the strange signori. But + he was always inscrutable. + </p> + <p> + It was queer to look at the hands spread on the table: the Englishwomen, + having rings on their soft fingers; the large fresh hands of the elder + boy, the brown paws of the younger; Paolo's distorted great hard hands of + a peasant; and the big, dark brown, animal, shapely hands of Faustino. + </p> + <p> + He had been in America first for two years and then for five years—seven + years altogether—but he only spoke a very little English. He was + always with Italians. He had served chiefly in a flag factory, and had had + very little to do save to push a trolley with flags from the dyeing-room + to the drying-room I believe it was this. + </p> + <p> + Then he had come home from America with a fair amount of money, he had + taken his uncle's garden, had inherited his uncle's little house, and he + lived quite alone. + </p> + <p> + He was rich, Maria said, shouting in her strident voice. He at once + disclaimed it, peasant-wise. But before the signori he was glad also to + appear rich. He was mean, that was more, Maria cried, half-teasing, half + getting at him. + </p> + <p> + He attended to his garden, grew vegetables all the year round, lived in + his little house, and in spring made good money as a vine-grafter: he was + an expert vine-grafter. + </p> + <p> + After the boys had gone to bed he sat and talked to me. He was curiously + attractive and curiously beautiful, but somehow like stone in his clear + colouring and his clear-cut face. His temples, with the black hair, were + distinct and fine as a work of art. + </p> + <p> + But always his eyes had this strange, half-diabolic, half-tortured pale + gleam, like a goat's, and his mouth was shut almost uglily, his cheeks + stern. His moustache was brown, his teeth strong and spaced. The women + said it was a pity his moustache was brown. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Peccato!—sa, per bellezza, i baffi neri—ah-h!</i>' + </p> + <p> + Then a long-drawn exclamation of voluptuous appreciation. + </p> + <p> + 'You live quite alone?' I said to him. + </p> + <p> + He did. And even when he had been ill he was alone. He had been ill two + years before. His cheeks seemed to harden like marble and to become pale + at the thought. He was afraid, like marble with fear. + </p> + <p> + 'But why,' I said, 'why do you live alone? You are sad—<i>è triste</i>.' + </p> + <p> + He looked at me with his queer, pale eyes. I felt a great static misery in + him, something very strange. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Triste!</i>' he repeated, stiffening up, hostile. I could not + understand. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Vuol' dire che hai l'aria dolorosa</i>,' cried Maria, like a chorus + interpreting. And there was always a sort of loud ring of challenge + somewhere in her voice. + </p> + <p> + 'Sad,' I said in English. + </p> + <p> + 'Sad I' he repeated, also in English. And he did not smile or change, only + his face seemed to become more stone-like. And he only looked at me, into + my eyes, with the long, pale, steady, inscrutable look of a goat, I can + only repeat, something stone-like. + </p> + <p> + 'Why,' I said, 'don't you marry? Man doesn't live alone.' + </p> + <p> + 'I don't marry,' he said to me, in his emphatic, deliberate, cold fashion, + 'because I've seen too much. <i>Ho visto troppo.</i>' + </p> + <p> + 'I don't understand,' I said. + </p> + <p> + Yet I could feel that Paolo, sitting silent, like a monolith also, in the + chimney opening, he understood: Maria also understood. + </p> + <p> + Il Duro looked again steadily into my eyes. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Ho visto troppo</i>,' he repeated, and the words seemed engraved on + stone. 'I've seen too much.' + </p> + <p> + 'But you can marry,' I said, 'however much you have seen, if you have seen + all the world.' + </p> + <p> + He watched me steadily, like a strange creature looking at me. + </p> + <p> + 'What woman?' he said to me. + </p> + <p> + 'You can find a woman—there are plenty of women,' I said. + </p> + <p> + 'Not for me,' he said. 'I have known too many. I've known too much, I can + marry nobody.' + </p> + <p> + 'Do you dislike women?' I said. + </p> + <p> + 'No—quite otherwise. I don't think ill of them.' + </p> + <p> + 'Then why can't you marry? Why must you live alone?' + </p> + <p> + 'Why live with a woman?' he said to me, and he looked mockingly. 'Which + woman is it to be?' + </p> + <p> + 'You can find her,' I said. 'There are many women.' + </p> + <p> + Again he shook his head in the stony, final fashion. + </p> + <p> + 'Not for me. I have known too much.' + </p> + <p> + 'But does that prevent you from marrying?' + </p> + <p> + He looked at me steadily, finally. And I could see it was impossible for + us to understand each other, or for me to understand him. I could not + understand the strange white gleam of his eyes, where it came from. + </p> + <p> + Also I knew he liked me very much, almost loved me, which again was + strange and puzzling. It was as if he were a fairy, a faun, and had no + soul. But he gave me a feeling of vivid sadness, a sadness that gleamed + like phosphorescence. He himself was not sad. There was a completeness + about him, about the pallid otherworld he inhabited, which excluded + sadness. It was too complete, too final, too defined. There was no + yearning, no vague merging off into mistiness.... He was clear and fine as + semi-transparent rock, as a substance in moonlight. He seemed like a + crystal that has achieved its final shape and has nothing more to achieve. + </p> + <p> + That night he slept on the floor of the sitting-room. In the morning he + was gone. But a week after he came again, to graft the vines. + </p> + <p> + All the morning and the afternoon he was among the vines, crouching before + them, cutting them back with his sharp, bright knife, amazingly swift and + sure, like a god. It filled me with a sort of panic to see him crouched + flexibly, like some strange animal god, doubled on his haunches, before + the young vines, and swiftly, vividly, without thought, cut, cut, cut at + the young budding shoots, which fell unheeded on to the earth. Then again + he strode with his curious half-goatlike movement across the garden, to + prepare the lime. + </p> + <p> + He mixed the messy stuff, cow-dung and lime and water and earth, carefully + with his hands, as if he understood that too. He was not a worker. He was + a creature in intimate communion with the sensible world, knowing purely + by touch the limey mess he mixed amongst, knowing as if by relation + between that soft matter and the matter of himself. + </p> + <p> + Then again he strode over the earth, a gleaming piece of earth himself, + moving to the young vines. Quickly, with a few clean cuts of the knife, he + prepared the new shoot, which he had picked out of a handful which lay + beside him on the ground; he went finely to the quick of the plant, + inserted the graft, then bound it up, fast, hard. + </p> + <p> + It was like God grafting the life of man upon the body of the earth, + intimately conjuring with his own flesh. + </p> + <p> + All the while Paolo stood by, somehow excluded from the mystery, talking + to me, to Faustino. And Il Duro answered easily, as if his mind were + disengaged. It was his senses that were absorbed in the sensible life of + the plant, and the lime and the cow-dung he handled. + </p> + <p> + Watching him, watching his absorbed, bestial, and yet godlike crouching + before the plant, as if he were the god of lower life, I somehow + understood his isolation, why he did not marry. Pan and the ministers of + Pan do not marry, the sylvan gods. They are single and isolated in their + being. + </p> + <p> + It is in the spirit that marriage takes place. In the flesh there is + connexion, but only in the spirit is there a new thing created out of two + different antithetic things. In the body I am conjoined with the woman. + But in the spirit my conjunction with her creates a third thing, an + absolute, a Word, which is neither me nor her, nor of me nor of her, but + which is absolute. + </p> + <p> + And Faustino had none of this spirit. In him sensation itself was absolute—not + spiritual consummation, but physical sensation. So he could not marry, it + was not for him. He belonged to the god Pan, to the absolute of the + senses. + </p> + <p> + All the while his beauty, so perfect and so defined, fascinated me, a + strange static perfection about him. But his movements, whilst they + fascinated, also repelled. I can always see him crouched before the vines + on his haunches, his haunches doubled together in a complete animal + unconsciousness, his face seeming in its strange golden pallor and its + hardness of line, with the gleaming black of the fine hair on the brow and + temples, like something reflective, like the reflecting surface of a stone + that gleams out of the depths of night. It was like darkness revealed in + its steady, unchanging pallor. + </p> + <p> + Again he stayed through the evening, having quarrelled once more with the + Maria about money. He quarrelled violently, yet coldly. There was + something terrifying in it. And as soon as the matter of dispute was + settled, all trace of interest or feeling vanished from him. + </p> + <p> + Yet he liked, above all things, to be near the English signori. They + seemed to exercise a sort of magnetic attraction over him. It was + something of the purely physical world, as a magnetized needle swings + towards soft iron. He was quite helpless in the relation. Only by + mechanical attraction he gravitated into line with us. + </p> + <p> + But there was nothing between us except our complete difference. It was + like night and day flowing together. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + JOHN + </h2> + <p> + Besides Il Duro, we found another Italian who could speak English, this + time quite well. We had walked about four or five miles up the lake, + getting higher and higher. Then quite suddenly, on the shoulder of a bluff + far up, we came on a village, icy cold, and as if forgotten. + </p> + <p> + We went into the inn to drink something hot. The fire of olive sticks was + burning in the open chimney, one or two men were talking at a table, a + young woman with a baby stood by the fire watching something boil in a + large pot. Another woman was seen in the house-place beyond. + </p> + <p> + In the chimney-seats sat a young mule-driver, who had left his two mules + at the door of the inn, and opposite him an elderly stout man. They got + down and offered us the seats of honour, which we accepted with due + courtesy. + </p> + <p> + The chimneys are like the wide, open chimney-places of old English + cottages, but the hearth is raised about a foot and a half or two feet + from the floor, so that the fire is almost level with the hands; and those + who sit in the chimney-seats are raised above the audience in the room, + something like two gods flanking the fire, looking out of the cave of + ruddy darkness into the open, lower world of the room. + </p> + <p> + We asked for coffee with milk and rum. The stout landlord took a seat near + us below. The comely young woman with the baby took the tin coffee-pot + that stood among the grey ashes, put in fresh coffee among the old + bottoms, filled it with water, then pushed it more into the fire. + </p> + <p> + The landlord turned to us with the usual naïve, curious deference, and the + usual question: + </p> + <p> + 'You are Germans?' + </p> + <p> + 'English.' + </p> + <p> + 'Ah—<i>Inglesi</i>.' + </p> + <p> + Then there is a new note of cordiality—or so I always imagine—and + the rather rough, cattle-like men who are sitting with their wine round + the table look up more amicably. They do not like being intruded upon. + Only the landlord is always affable. + </p> + <p> + 'I have a son who speaks English,' he says: he is a handsome, courtly old + man, of the Falstaff sort. + </p> + <p> + 'Oh!' + </p> + <p> + 'He has been in America.' + </p> + <p> + 'And where is he now?' + </p> + <p> + 'He is at home. O—Nicoletta, where is the Giovann'?' + </p> + <p> + The comely young woman with the baby came in. + </p> + <p> + 'He is with the band,' she said. + </p> + <p> + The old landlord looked at her with pride. + </p> + <p> + 'This is my daughter-in-law,' he said. + </p> + <p> + She smiled readily to the Signora. + </p> + <p> + 'And the baby?' we asked. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Mio figlio</i>,' cried the young woman, in the strong, penetrating + voice of these women. And she came forward to show the child to the + Signora. + </p> + <p> + It was a bonny baby: the whole company was united in adoration and service + of the bambino. There was a moment of suspension, when religious + submission seemed to come over the inn-room. + </p> + <p> + Then the Signora began to talk, and it broke upon the Italian + child-reverence. + </p> + <p> + 'What is he called?' + </p> + <p> + 'Oscare,' came the ringing note of pride. And the mother talked to the + baby in dialect. All, men and women alike, felt themselves glorified by + the presence of the child. + </p> + <p> + At last the coffee in the tin coffee-pot was boiling and frothing out of + spout and lid. The milk in the little copper pan was also hot, among the + ashes. So we had our drink at last. + </p> + <p> + The landlord was anxious for us to see Giovanni, his son. There was a + village band performing up the street, in front of the house of a colonel + who had come home wounded from Tripoli. Everybody in the village was + wildly proud about the colonel and about the brass band, the music of + which was execrable. + </p> + <p> + We just looked into the street. The band of uncouth fellows was playing + the same tune over and over again before a desolate, newish house. A crowd + of desolate, forgotten villagers stood round in the cold upper air. It + seemed altogether that the place was forgotten by God and man. + </p> + <p> + But the landlord, burly, courteous, handsome, pointed out with a flourish + the Giovanni, standing in the band playing a cornet. The band itself + consisted only of five men, rather like beggars in the street. But + Giovanni was the strangest! He was tall and thin and somewhat + German-looking, wearing shabby American clothes and a very high double + collar and a small American crush hat. He looked entirely like a + ne'er-do-well who plays a violin in the street, dressed in the most + down-at-heel, sordid respectability. + </p> + <p> + 'That is he—you see, Signore—the young one under the balcony.' + </p> + <p> + The father spoke with love and pride, and the father was a gentleman, like + Falstaff, a pure gentleman. The daughter-in-law also peered out to look at + Il Giovann', who was evidently a figure of repute, in his sordid, + degenerate American respectability. Meanwhile, this figure of repute blew + himself red in the face, producing staccato strains on his cornet. And the + crowd stood desolate and forsaken in the cold, upper afternoon. + </p> + <p> + Then there was a sudden rugged '<i>Evviva, Evviva</i>!' from the people, + the band stopped playing, somebody valiantly broke into a line of the + song: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>Tripoli, sarà italiana, + Sarà italiana al rombo del cannon'.</i> +</pre> + <p> + The colonel had appeared on the balcony, a smallish man, very yellow in + the face, with grizzled black hair and very shabby legs. They all seemed + so sordidly, hopelessly shabby. + </p> + <p> + He suddenly began to speak, leaning forward, hot and feverish and yellow, + upon the iron rail of the balcony. There was something hot and marshy and + sick about him, slightly repulsive, less than human. He told his + fellow-villagers how he loved them, how, when he lay uncovered on the + sands of Tripoli, week after week, he had known they were watching him + from the Alpine height of the village, he could feel that where he was + they were all looking. When the Arabs came rushing like things gone mad, + and he had received his wound, he had known that in his own village, among + his own dear ones, there was recovery. Love would heal the wounds, the + home country was a lover who would heal all her sons' wounds with love. + </p> + <p> + Among the grey desolate crowd were sharp, rending 'Bravos!'—the + people were in tears—the landlord at my side was repeating softly, + abstractedly: '<i>Caro—caro—Ettore, caro colonello</i>—' + and when it was finished, and the little colonel with shabby, humiliated + legs was gone in, he turned to me and said, with challenge that almost + frightened me: + </p> + <p> + '<i>Un brav' uomo</i>.' + </p> + <p> + '<i>Bravissimo</i>,' I said. + </p> + <p> + Then we, too, went indoors. + </p> + <p> + It was all, somehow, grey and hopeless and acrid, unendurable. + </p> + <p> + The colonel, poor devil—we knew him afterwards—is now dead. It + is strange that he is dead. There is something repulsive to me in the + thought of his lying dead: such a humiliating, somehow degraded corpse. + Death has no beauty in Italy, unless it be violent. The death of man or + woman through sickness is an occasion of horror, repulsive. They belong + entirely to life, they are so limited to life, these people. + </p> + <p> + Soon the Giovanni came home, and took his cornet upstairs. Then he came to + see us. He was an ingenuous youth, sordidly shabby and dirty. His fair + hair was long and uneven, his very high starched collar made one aware + that his neck and his ears were not clean, his American crimson tie was + ugly, his clothes looked as if they had been kicking about on the floor + for a year. + </p> + <p> + Yet his blue eyes were warm and his manner and speech very gentle. + </p> + <p> + 'You will speak English with us,' I said. + </p> + <p> + 'Oh,' he said, smiling and shaking his head, 'I could speak English very + well. But it is two years that I don't speak it now, over two years now, + so I don't speak it.' + </p> + <p> + 'But you speak it very well.' + </p> + <p> + 'No. It is two years that I have not spoke, not a word—so, you see, + I have—' + </p> + <p> + 'You have forgotten it? No, you haven't. It will quickly come back.' + </p> + <p> + 'If I hear it—when I go to America—then I shall—I shall—' + </p> + <p> + 'You will soon pick it up.' + </p> + <p> + 'Yes—I shall pick it up.' + </p> + <p> + The landlord, who had been watching with pride, now went away. The wife + also went away, and we were left with the shy, gentle, dirty, and + frowsily-dressed Giovanni. + </p> + <p> + He laughed in his sensitive, quick fashion. + </p> + <p> + 'The women in America, when they came into the store, they said, "Where is + John, where is John?" Yes, they liked me.' + </p> + <p> + And he laughed again, glancing with vague, warm blue eyes, very shy, very + coiled upon himself with sensitiveness. + </p> + <p> + He had managed a store in America, in a smallish town. I glanced at his + reddish, smooth, rather knuckly hands, and thin wrists in the frayed cuff. + They were real shopman's hands. + </p> + <p> + The landlord brought some special feast-day cake, so overjoyed he was to + have his Giovanni speaking English with the Signoria. + </p> + <p> + When we went away, we asked 'John' to come down to our villa to see us. We + scarcely expected him to turn up. + </p> + <p> + Yet one morning he appeared, at about half past nine, just as we were + finishing breakfast. It was sunny and warm and beautiful, so we asked him + please to come with us picnicking. + </p> + <p> + He was a queer shoot, again, in his unkempt longish hair and slovenly + clothes, a sort of very vulgar down-at-heel American in appearance. And he + was transported with shyness. Yet ours was the world he had chosen as his + own, so he took his place bravely and simply, a hanger-on. + </p> + <p> + We climbed up the water-course in the mountain-side, up to a smooth little + lawn under the olive trees, where daisies were flowering and gladioli were + in bud. It was a tiny little lawn of grass in a level crevice, and sitting + there we had the world below us—the lake, the distant island, the + far-off low Verona shore. + </p> + <p> + Then 'John' began to talk, and he talked continuously, like a foreigner, + not saying the things he would have said in Italian, but following the + suggestion and scope of his limited English. + </p> + <p> + In the first place, he loved his father—it was 'my father, my + father' always. His father had a little shop as well as the inn in the + village above. So John had had some education. He had been sent to Brescia + and then to Verona to school, and there had taken his examinations to + become a civil engineer. He was clever, and could pass his examinations. + But he never finished his course. His mother died, and his father, + disconsolate, had wanted him at home. Then he had gone back, when he was + sixteen or seventeen, to the village beyond the lake, to be with his + father and to look after the shop. + </p> + <p> + 'But didn't you mind giving up all your work?' I said. + </p> + <p> + He did not quite understand. + </p> + <p> + 'My father wanted me to come back,' he said. + </p> + <p> + It was evident that Giovanni had had no definite conception of what he was + doing or what he wanted to do. His father, wishing to make a gentleman of + him, had sent him to school in Verona. By accident he had been moved on + into the engineering course. When it all fizzled to an end, and he + returned half-baked to the remote, desolate village of the mountain-side, + he was not disappointed or chagrined. He had never conceived of a coherent + purposive life. Either one stayed in the village, like a lodged stone, or + one made random excursions into the world, across the world. It was all + aimless and purposeless. + </p> + <p> + So he had stayed a while with his father, then he had gone, just as + aimlessly, with a party of men who were emigrating to America. He had + taken some money, had drifted about, living in the most comfortless, + wretched fashion, then he had found a place somewhere in Pennsylvania, in + a dry goods store. This was when he was seventeen or eighteen years old. + </p> + <p> + All this seemed to have happened to him without his being very much + affected, at least consciously. His nature was simple and self-complete. + Yet not so self-complete as that of Il Duro or Paolo. They had passed + through the foreign world and been quite untouched. Their souls were + static, it was the world that had flowed unstable by. + </p> + <p> + But John was more sensitive, he had come more into contact with his new + surroundings. He had attended night classes almost every evening, and had + been taught English like a child. He had loved the American free school, + the teachers, the work. + </p> + <p> + But he had suffered very much in America. With his curious, + over-sensitive, wincing laugh, he told us how the boys had followed him + and jeered at him, calling after him, 'You damn Dago, you damn Dago.' They + had stopped him and his friend in the street and taken away their hats, + and spat into them. So that at last he had gone mad. They were youths and + men who always tortured him, using bad language which startled us very + much as he repeated it, there on the little lawn under the olive trees, + above the perfect lake: English obscenities and abuse so coarse and + startling that we bit our lips, shocked almost into laughter, whilst John, + simple and natural, and somehow, for all his long hair and dirty + appearance, flower-like in soul, repeated to us these things which may + never be repeated in decent company. + </p> + <p> + 'Oh,' he said, 'at last, I get mad. When they come one day, shouting, "You + damn Dago, dirty dog," and will take my hat again, oh, I get mad, and I + would kill them, I would kill them, I am so mad. I run to them, and throw + one to the floor, and I tread on him while I go upon another, the biggest. + Though they hit me and kick me all over, I feel nothing, I am mad. I throw + the biggest to the floor, a man; he is older than I am, and I hit him so + hard I would kill him. When the others see it they are afraid, they throw + stones and hit me on the face. But I don't feel it—I don't know + nothing. I hit the man on the floor, I almost kill him. I forget + everything except I will kill him—' + </p> + <p> + 'But you didn't?' + </p> + <p> + 'No—I don't know—' and he laughed his queer, shaken laugh. + 'The other man that was with me, my friend, he came to me and we went + away. Oh, I was mad. I was completely mad. I would have killed them.' + </p> + <p> + He was trembling slightly, and his eyes were dilated with a strange + greyish-blue fire that was very painful and elemental. He looked beside + himself. But he was by no means mad. + </p> + <p> + We were shaken by the vivid, lambent excitement of the youth, we wished + him to forget. We were shocked, too, in our souls to see the pure + elemental flame shaken out of his gentle, sensitive nature. By his slight, + crinkled laugh we could see how much he had suffered. He had gone out and + faced the world, and he had kept his place, stranger and Dago though he + was. + </p> + <p> + 'They never came after me no more, not all the while I was there.' + </p> + <p> + Then he said he became the foreman in the store—at first he was only + assistant. It was the best store in the town, and many English ladies + came, and some Germans. He liked the English ladies very much: they always + wanted him to be in the store. He wore white clothes there, and they would + say: + </p> + <p> + 'You look very nice in the white coat, John'; or else: + </p> + <p> + 'Let John come, he can find it'; or else they said: + </p> + <p> + 'John speaks like a born American.' + </p> + <p> + This pleased him very much. + </p> + <p> + In the end, he said, he earned a hundred dollars a month. He lived with + the extraordinary frugality of the Italians, and had quite a lot of money. + </p> + <p> + He was not like Il Duro. Faustino had lived in a state of miserliness + almost in America, but then he had had his debauches of shows and wine and + carousals. John went chiefly to the schools, in one of which he was even + asked to teach Italian. His knowledge of his own language was remarkable + and most unusual! + </p> + <p> + 'But what,' I asked, 'brought you back?' + </p> + <p> + 'It was my father. You see, if I did not come to have my military service, + I must stay till I am forty. So I think perhaps my father will be dead, I + shall never see him. So I came.' + </p> + <p> + He had come home when he was twenty to fulfil his military duties. At home + he had married. He was very fond of his wife, but he had no conception of + love in the old sense. His wife was like the past, to which he was wedded. + Out of her he begot his child, as out of the past. But the future was all + beyond her, apart from her. He was going away again, now, to America. He + had been some nine months at home after his military service was over. He + had no more to do. Now he was leaving his wife and child and his father to + go to America. + </p> + <p> + 'But why,' I said, 'why? You are not poor, you can manage the shop in your + village.' + </p> + <p> + 'Yes,' he said. 'But I will go to America. Perhaps I shall go into the + store again, the same.' + </p> + <p> + 'But is it not just the same as managing the shop at home?' + </p> + <p> + 'No—no—it is quite different.' + </p> + <p> + Then he told us how he bought goods in Brescia and in Said for the shop at + home, how he had rigged up a funicular with the assistance of the village, + an overhead wire by which you could haul the goods up the face of the + cliffs right high up, to within a mile of the village. He was very proud + of this. And sometimes he himself went down the funicular to the water's + edge, to the boat, when he was in a hurry. This also pleased him. + </p> + <p> + But he was going to Brescia this day to see about going again to America. + Perhaps in another month he would be gone. + </p> + <p> + It was a great puzzle to me why he would go. He could not say himself. He + would stay four or five years, then he would come home again to see his + father—and his wife and child. + </p> + <p> + There was a strange, almost frightening destiny upon him, which seemed to + take him away, always away from home, from the past, to that great, raw + America. He seemed scarcely like a person with individual choice, more + like a creature under the influence of fate which was disintegrating the + old life and precipitating him, a fragment inconclusive, into the new + chaos. + </p> + <p> + He submitted to it all with a perfect unquestioning simplicity, never even + knowing that he suffered, that he must suffer disintegration from the old + life. He was moved entirely from within, he never questioned his + inevitable impulse. + </p> + <p> + 'They say to me, "Don't go—don't go"—' he shook his head. 'But + I say I will go.' + </p> + <p> + And at that it was finished. + </p> + <p> + So we saw him off at the little quay, going down the lake. He would return + at evening, and be pulled up in his funicular basket. And in a month's + time he would be standing on the same lake steamer going to America. + </p> + <p> + Nothing was more painful than to see him standing there in his degraded, + sordid American clothes, on the deck of the steamer, waving us good-bye, + belonging in his final desire to our world, the world of consciousness and + deliberate action. With his candid, open, unquestioning face, he seemed + like a prisoner being conveyed from one form of life to another, or like a + soul in trajectory, that has not yet found a resting-place. + </p> + <p> + What were wife and child to him?—they were the last steps of the + past. His father was the continent behind him; his wife and child the + foreshore of the past; but his face was set outwards, away from it all—whither, + neither he nor anybody knew, but he called it America. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ITALIANS IN EXILE + </h2> + <p> + When I was in Constance the weather was misty and enervating and + depressing, it was no pleasure to travel on the big flat desolate lake. + </p> + <p> + When I went from Constance, it was on a small steamer down the Rhine to + Schaffhausen. That was beautiful. Still, the mist hung over the waters, + over the wide shallows of the river, and the sun, coming through the + morning, made lovely yellow lights beneath the bluish haze, so that it + seemed like the beginning of the world. And there was a hawk in the upper + air fighting with two crows, or two rooks. Ever they rose higher and + higher, the crow flickering above the attacking hawk, the fight going on + like some strange symbol in the sky, the Germans on deck watching with + pleasure. + </p> + <p> + Then we passed out of sight between wooded banks and under bridges where + quaint villages of old romance piled their red and coloured pointed roofs + beside the water, very still, remote, lost in the vagueness of the past. + It could not be that they were real. Even when the boat put in to shore, + and the customs officials came to look, the village remained remote in the + romantic past of High Germany, the Germany of fairy tales and minstrels + and craftsmen. The poignancy of the past was almost unbearable, floating + there in colour upon the haze of the river. + </p> + <p> + We went by some swimmers, whose white shadowy bodies trembled near the + side of the steamer under water. One man with a round, fair head lifted + his face and one arm from the water and shouted a greeting to us, as if he + were a Niebelung, saluting with bright arm lifted from the water, his face + laughing, the fair moustache hanging over his mouth. Then his white body + swirled in the water, and he was gone, swimming with the side stroke. + </p> + <p> + Schaffhausen the town, half old and bygone, half modern, with breweries + and industries, that is not very real. Schaffhausen Falls, with their + factory in the midst and their hotel at the bottom, and the general + cinematograph effect, they are ugly. + </p> + <p> + It was afternoon when I set out to walk from the Falls to Italy, across + Switzerland. I remember the big, fat, rather gloomy fields of this part of + Baden, damp and unliving. I remember I found some apples under a tree in a + field near a railway embankment, then some mushrooms, and I ate both. Then + I came on to a long, desolate high-road, with dreary, withered trees on + either side, and flanked by great fields where groups of men and women + were working. They looked at me as I went by down the long, long road, + alone and exposed and out of the world. + </p> + <p> + I remember nobody came at the border village to examine my pack, I passed + through unchallenged. All was quiet and lifeless and hopeless, with big + stretches of heavy land. + </p> + <p> + Till sunset came, very red and purple, and suddenly, from the heavy + spacious open land I dropped sharply into the Rhine valley again, + suddenly, as if into another glamorous world. + </p> + <p> + There was the river rushing along between its high, mysterious, romantic + banks, which were high as hills, and covered with vine. And there was the + village of tall, quaint houses flickering its lights on to the + deep-flowing river, and quite silent, save for the rushing of water. + </p> + <p> + There was a fine covered bridge, very dark. I went to the middle and + looked through the opening at the dark water below, at the façade of + square lights, the tall village-front towering remote and silent above the + river. The hill rose on either side the flood; down here was a small, + forgotten, wonderful world that belonged to the date of isolated village + communities and wandering minstrels. + </p> + <p> + So I went back to the inn of The Golden Stag, and, climbing some steps, I + made a loud noise. A woman came, and I asked for food. She led me through + a room where were enormous barrels, ten feet in diameter, lying fatly on + their sides; then through a large stone-clean kitchen, with bright pans, + ancient as the Meistersinger; then up some steps and into the long + guest-room, where a few tables were laid for supper. + </p> + <p> + A few people were eating. I asked for Abendessen, and sat by the window + looking at the darkness of the river below, the covered bridge, the dark + hill opposite, crested with its few lights. + </p> + <p> + Then I ate a very large quantity of knoedel soup and bread, and drank + beer, and was very sleepy. Only one or two village men came in, and these + soon went again; the place was dead still. Only at a long table on the + opposite side of the room were seated seven or eight men, ragged, + disreputable, some impudent—another came in late; the landlady gave + them all thick soup with dumplings and bread and meat, serving them in a + sort of brief disapprobation. They sat at the long table, eight or nine + tramps and beggars and wanderers out of work and they ate with a sort of + cheerful callousness and brutality for the most part, and as if + ravenously, looking round and grinning sometimes, subdued, cowed, like + prisoners, and yet impudent. At the end one shouted to know where he was + to sleep. The landlady called to the young serving-woman, and in a classic + German severity of disapprobation they were led up the stone stairs to + their room. They tramped off in threes and twos, making a bad, mean, + humiliated exit. It was not yet eight o'clock. The landlady sat talking to + one bearded man, staid and severe, whilst, with her work on the table, she + sewed steadily. + </p> + <p> + As the beggars and wanderers went slinking out of the room, some called + impudently, cheerfully: + </p> + <p> + '<i>Nacht, Frau Wirtin—G'Nacht, Wirtin—'te Nacht, Frau</i>,' + to all of which the hostess answered a stereotyped '<i>Gute Nacht</i>,' + never turning her head from her sewing, or indicating by the faintest + movement that she was addressing the men who were filing raggedly to the + doorway. + </p> + <p> + So the room was empty, save for the landlady and her sewing, the staid, + elderly villager to whom she was talking in the unbeautiful dialect, and + the young serving-woman who was clearing away the plates and basins of the + tramps and beggars. + </p> + <p> + Then the villager also went. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Gute Nacht, Frau Seidl</i>,' to the landlady; '<i>Gute Nacht</i>,' at + random, to me. + </p> + <p> + So I looked at the newspaper. Then I asked the landlady for a cigarette, + not knowing how else to begin. So she came to my table, and we talked. + </p> + <p> + It pleased me to take upon myself a sort of romantic, wandering character; + she said my German was '<i>schön</i>'; a little goes a long way. + </p> + <p> + So I asked her who were the men who had sat at the long table. She became + rather stiff and curt. + </p> + <p> + 'They are the men looking for work,' she said, as if the subject were + disagreeable. + </p> + <p> + 'But why do they come here, so many?' I asked. + </p> + <p> + Then she told me that they were going out of the country: this was almost + the last village of the border: that the relieving officer in each village + was empowered to give to every vagrant a ticket entitling the holder to an + evening meal, bed, and bread in the morning, at a certain inn. This was + the inn for the vagrants coming to this village. The landlady received + fourpence per head, I believe it was, for each of these wanderers. + </p> + <p> + 'Little enough,' I said. + </p> + <p> + 'Nothing,' she replied. + </p> + <p> + She did not like the subject at all. Only her respect for me made her + answer. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Bettler, Lumpen, und Taugenichtse!</i>' I said cheerfully. + </p> + <p> + 'And men who are out of work, and are going back to their own parish,' she + said stiffly. + </p> + <p> + So we talked a little, and I too went to bed. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Gute Nacht, Frau Wirtin.</i>' + </p> + <p> + '<i>Gute Nacht, mein Herr.</i>' + </p> + <p> + So I went up more and more stone stairs, attended by the young woman. It + was a great, lofty, old deserted house, with many drab doors. + </p> + <p> + At last, in the distant topmost floor, I had my bedroom, with two beds and + bare floor and scant furniture. I looked down at the river far below, at + the covered bridge, at the far lights on the hill above, opposite. Strange + to be here in this lost, forgotten place, sleeping under the roof with + tramps and beggars. I debated whether they would steal my boots if I put + them out. But I risked it. The door-latch made a loud noise on the + deserted landing, everywhere felt abandoned, forgotten. I wondered where + the eight tramps and beggars were asleep. There was no way of securing the + door. But somehow I felt that, if I were destined to be robbed or + murdered, it would not be by tramps and beggars. So I blew out the candle + and lay under the big feather bed, listening to the running and whispering + of the medieval Rhine. + </p> + <p> + And when I waked up again it was sunny, it was morning on the hill + opposite, though the river deep below ran in shadow. + </p> + <p> + The tramps and beggars were all gone: they must be cleared out by seven + o'clock in the morning. So I had the inn to myself, I, and the landlady, + and the serving-woman. Everywhere was very clean, full of the German + morning energy and brightness, which is so different from the Latin + morning. The Italians are dead and torpid first thing, the Germans are + energetic and cheerful. + </p> + <p> + It was cheerful in the sunny morning, looking down on the swift river, the + covered, picturesque bridge, the bank and the hill opposite. Then down the + curving road of the facing hill the Swiss cavalry came riding, men in blue + uniforms. I went out to watch them. They came thundering romantically + through the dark cavern of the roofed-in bridge, and they dismounted at + the entrance to the village. There was a fresh morning-cheerful newness + everywhere, in the arrival of the troops, in the welcome of the villagers. + </p> + <p> + The Swiss do not look very military, neither in accoutrement nor bearing. + This little squad of cavalry seemed more like a party of common men riding + out in some business of their own than like an army. They were very + republican and very free. The officer who commanded them was one of + themselves, his authority was by consent. + </p> + <p> + It was all very pleasant and genuine; there was a sense of ease and + peacefulness, quite different from the mechanical, slightly sullen + manoeuvring of the Germans. + </p> + <p> + The village baker and his assistant came hot and floury from the + bakehouse, bearing between them a great basket of fresh bread. The cavalry + were all dismounted by the bridge-head, eating and drinking like business + men. Villagers came to greet their friends: one soldier kissed his father, + who came wearing a leathern apron. The school bell tang-tang-tanged from + above, school children merged timidly through the grouped horses, up the + narrow street, passing unwillingly with their books. The river ran + swiftly, the soldiers, very haphazard and slack in uniform, real + shack-bags, chewed their bread in large mouthfuls; the young lieutenant, + who seemed to be an officer only by consent of the men, stood apart by the + bridge-head, gravely. They were all serious and self-contented, very + unglamorous. It was like a business excursion on horseback, harmless and + uninspiring. The uniforms were almost ludicrous, so ill-fitting and + casual. + </p> + <p> + So I shouldered my own pack and set off, through the bridge over the + Rhine, and up the hill opposite. + </p> + <p> + There is something very dead about this country. I remember I picked + apples from the grass by the roadside, and some were very sweet. But for + the rest, there was mile after mile of dead, uninspired country—uninspired, + so neutral and ordinary that it was almost destructive. + </p> + <p> + One gets this feeling always in Switzerland, except high up: this feeling + of average, of utter soulless ordinariness, something intolerable. Mile + after mile, to Zurich, it was just the same. It was just the same in the + tram-car going into Zurich; it was just the same in the town, in the + shops, in the restaurant. All was the utmost level of ordinariness and + well-being, but so ordinary that it was like a blight. All the + picturesqueness of the town is nothing, it is like a most ordinary, + average, usual person in an old costume. The place was soul-killing. + </p> + <p> + So after two hours' rest, eating in a restaurant, wandering by the quay + and through the market, and sitting on a seat by the lake, I found a + steamer that would take me away. That is how I always feel in Switzerland: + the only possible living sensation is the sensation of relief in going + away, always going away. The horrible average ordinariness of it all, + something utterly without flower or soul or transcendence, the horrible + vigorous ordinariness, is too much. + </p> + <p> + So I went on a steamer down the long lake, surrounded by low grey hills. + It was Saturday afternoon. A thin rain came on. I thought I would rather + be in fiery Hell than in this dead level of average life. + </p> + <p> + I landed somewhere on the right bank, about three-quarters of the way down + the lake. It was almost dark. Yet I must walk away. I climbed a long hill + from the lake, came to the crest, looked down the darkness of the valley, + and descended into the deep gloom, down into a soulless village. + </p> + <p> + But it was eight o'clock, and I had had enough. One might as well sleep. I + found the Gasthaus zur Post. + </p> + <p> + It was a small, very rough inn, having only one common room, with bare + tables, and a short, stout, grim, rather surly landlady, and a landlord + whose hair stood up on end, and who was trembling on the edge of delirium + tremens. + </p> + <p> + They could only give me boiled ham: so I ate boiled ham and drank beer, + and tried to digest the utter cold materialism of Switzerland. + </p> + <p> + As I sat with my back to the wall, staring blankly at the trembling + landlord, who was ready at any moment to foam at the mouth, and at the + dour landlady, who was quite capable of keeping him in order, there came + in one of those dark, showy Italian girls with a man. She wore a blouse + and skirt, and no hat. Her hair was perfectly dressed. It was really + Italy. The man was soft, dark, he would get stout later, <i>trapu</i>, he + would have somewhat the figure of Caruso. But as yet he was soft, + sensuous, young, handsome. + </p> + <p> + They sat at the long side-table with their beer, and created another + country at once within the room. Another Italian came, fair and fat and + slow, one from the Venetian province; then another, a little thin young + man, who might have been a Swiss save for his vivid movement. + </p> + <p> + This last was the first to speak to the Germans. The others had just said + '<i>Bier.</i>' But the little newcomer entered into a conversation with + the landlady. + </p> + <p> + At last there were six Italians sitting talking loudly and warmly at the + side-table. The slow, cold German-Swiss at the other tables looked at them + occasionally. The landlord, with his crazed, stretched eyes, glared at + them with hatred. But they fetched their beer from the bar with easy + familiarity, and sat at their table, creating a bonfire of life in the + callousness of the inn. + </p> + <p> + At last they finished their beer and trooped off down the passage. The + room was painfully empty. I did not know what to do. + </p> + <p> + Then I heard the landlord yelling and screeching and snarling from the + kitchen at the back, for all the world like a mad dog. But the Swiss + Saturday evening customers at the other tables smoked on and talked in + their ugly dialect, without trouble. Then the landlady came in, and soon + after the landlord, he collarless, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, showing + his loose throat, and accentuating his round pot-belly. His limbs were + thin and feverish, the skin of his face hung loose, his eyes glaring, his + hands trembled. Then he sat down to talk to a crony. His terrible + appearance was a fiasco; nobody heeded him at all, only the landlady was + surly. + </p> + <p> + From the back came loud noises of pleasure and excitement and banging + about. When the room door was opened I could see down the dark passage + opposite another lighted door. Then the fat, fair Italian came in for more + beer. + </p> + <p> + 'What is all the noise?' I asked the landlady at last. + </p> + <p> + 'It is the Italians,' she said. + </p> + <p> + 'What are they doing?' + </p> + <p> + 'They are doing a play.' + </p> + <p> + 'Where?' + </p> + <p> + She jerked her head: 'In the room at the back.' + </p> + <p> + 'Can I go and look at them?' + </p> + <p> + 'I should think so.' + </p> + <p> + The landlord glaringly watched me go out. I went down the stone passage + and found a great, half-lighted room that might be used to hold meetings, + with forms piled at the side. At one end was raised platform or stage. And + on this stage was a table and a lamp, and the Italians grouped round the + light, gesticulating and laughing. Their beer mugs were on the table and + on the floor of the stage; the little sharp youth was intently looking + over some papers, the others were bending over the table with him. + </p> + <p> + They looked up as I entered from the distance, looked at me in the distant + twilight of the dusky room, as if I were an intruder, as if I should go + away when I had seen them. But I said in German: + </p> + <p> + 'May I look?' + </p> + <p> + They were still unwilling to see or to hear me. + </p> + <p> + 'What do you say?' the small one asked in reply. + </p> + <p> + The others stood and watched, slightly at bay, like suspicious animals. + </p> + <p> + 'If I might come and look,' I said in German; then, feeling very + uncomfortable, in Italian: 'You are doing a drama, the landlady told me.' + </p> + <p> + The big empty room was behind me, dark, the little company of Italians + stood above me in the light of the lamp which was on the table. They all + watched with unseeing, unwilling looks: I was merely an intrusion. + </p> + <p> + 'We are only learning it,' said the small youth. + </p> + <p> + They wanted me to go away. But I wanted to stay. + </p> + <p> + 'May I listen?' I said. 'I don't want to stay in there.' And I indicated, + with a movement of the head, the inn-room beyond. + </p> + <p> + 'Yes,' said the young intelligent man. 'But we are only reading our + parts.' + </p> + <p> + They had all become more friendly to me, they accepted me. + </p> + <p> + 'You are a German?' asked one youth. + </p> + <p> + 'No—English.' + </p> + <p> + 'English? But do you live in Switzerland?' + </p> + <p> + 'No—I am walking to Italy.' + </p> + <p> + 'On foot?' + </p> + <p> + They looked with wakened eyes. + </p> + <p> + 'Yes.' + </p> + <p> + So I told them about my journey. They were puzzled. They did not quite + understand why I wanted to walk. But they were delighted with the idea of + going to Lugano and Como and then to Milan. + </p> + <p> + 'Where do you come from?' I asked them. + </p> + <p> + They were all from the villages between Verona and Venice. They had seen + the Garda. I told them of my living there. + </p> + <p> + 'Those peasants of the mountains,' they said at once, 'they are people of + little education. Rather wild folk.' + </p> + <p> + And they spoke with good-humoured contempt. + </p> + <p> + I thought of Paolo, and Il Duro, and the Signor Pietro, our padrone, and I + resented these factory-hands for criticizing them. + </p> + <p> + So I sat on the edge of the stage whilst they rehearsed their parts. The + little thin intelligent fellow, Giuseppino, was the leader. The others + read their parts in the laborious, disjointed fashion of the peasant, who + can only see one word at a time, and has then to put the words together, + afterwards, to make sense. The play was an amateur melodrama, printed in + little penny booklets, for carnival production. This was only the second + reading they had given it, and the handsome, dark fellow, who was roused + and displaying himself before the girl, a hard, erect piece of + callousness, laughed and flushed and stumbled, and understood nothing till + it was transferred into him direct through Giuseppino. The fat, fair, slow + man was more conscientious. He laboured through his part. The other two + men were in the background more or less. + </p> + <p> + The most confidential was the fat, fair, slow man, who was called Alberto. + His part was not very important, so he could sit by me and talk to me. + </p> + <p> + He said they were all workers in the factory—silk, I think it was—in + the village. They were a whole colony of Italians, thirty or more + families. They had all come at different times. + </p> + <p> + Giuseppino had been longest in the village. He had come when he was + eleven, with his parents, and had attended the Swiss school. So he spoke + perfect German. He was a clever man, was married, and had two children. + </p> + <p> + He himself, Alberto, had been seven years in the valley; the girl, la + Maddelena, had been here ten years; the dark man, Alfredo, who was flushed + with excitement of her, had been in the village about nine years—he + alone of all men was not married. + </p> + <p> + The others had all married Italian wives, and they lived in the great + dwelling whose windows shone yellow by the rattling factory. They lived + entirely among themselves; none of them could speak German, more than a + few words, except the Giuseppino, who was like a native here. + </p> + <p> + It was very strange being among these Italians exiled in Switzerland. + Alfredo, the dark one, the unmarried, was in the old tradition. Yet even + he was curiously subject to a new purpose, as if there were some greater + new will that included him, sensuous, mindless as he was. He seemed to + give his consent to something beyond himself. In this he was different + from Il Duro, in that he had put himself under the control of the outside + conception. + </p> + <p> + It was strange to watch them on the stage, the Italians all lambent, soft, + warm, sensuous, yet moving subject round Giuseppino, who was always quiet, + always ready, always impersonal. There was a look of purpose, almost of + devotion on his face, that singled him out and made him seem the one + stable, eternal being among them. They quarrelled, and he let them quarrel + up to a certain point; then he called them back. He let them do as they + liked so long as they adhered more or less to the central purpose, so long + as they got on in some measure with the play. + </p> + <p> + All the while they were drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. The Alberto + was barman: he went out continually with the glasses. The Maddelena had a + small glass. In the lamplight of the stage the little party read and + smoked and practised, exposed to the empty darkness of the big room. Queer + and isolated it seemed, a tiny, pathetic magicland far away from the + barrenness of Switzerland. I could believe in the old fairy-tales where, + when the rock was opened, a magic underworld was revealed. + </p> + <p> + The Alfredo, flushed, roused, handsome, but very soft and enveloping in + his heat, laughed and threw himself into his pose, laughed foolishly, and + then gave himself up to his part. The Alberto, slow and laborious, yet + with a spark of vividness and natural intensity flashing through, replied + and gesticulated; the Maddelena laid her head on the bosom of Alfredo, the + other men started into action, and the play proceeded intently for half an + hour. + </p> + <p> + Quick, vivid, and sharp, the little Giuseppino was always central. But he + seemed almost invisible. When I think back, I can scarcely see him, I can + only see the others, the lamplight on their faces and on their full + gesticulating limbs. I can see—the Maddelena, rather coarse and hard + and repellent, declaiming her words in a loud, half-cynical voice, falling + on the breast of the Alfredo, who was soft and sensuous, more like a + female, flushing, with his mouth getting wet, his eyes moist, as he was + roused. I can see the Alberto, slow, laboured, yet with a kind of pristine + simplicity in all his movements, that touched his fat commonplaceness with + beauty. Then there were the two other men, shy, inflammable, + unintelligent, with their sudden Italian rushes of hot feeling. All their + faces are distinct in the lamplight, all their bodies ate palpable and + dramatic. + </p> + <p> + But the face of the Giuseppino is like a pale luminousness, a sort of + gleam among all the ruddy glow, his body is evanescent, like a shadow. And + his being seemed to cast its influence over all the others, except perhaps + the woman, who was hard and resistant. The other men seemed all overcast, + mitigated, in part transfigured by the will of the little leader. But they + were very soft stuff, if inflammable. + </p> + <p> + The young woman of the inn, niece of the landlady, came down and called + out across the room. + </p> + <p> + 'We will go away from here now,' said the Giuseppino to me. 'They close at + eleven. But we have another inn in the next parish that is open all night. + Come with us and drink some wine.' + </p> + <p> + 'But,' I said, 'you would rather be alone.' + </p> + <p> + No; they pressed me to go, they wanted me to go with them, they were + eager, they wanted to entertain me. Alfredo, flushed, wet-mouthed, warm, + protested I must drink wine, the real Italian red wine, from their own + village at home. They would have no nay. + </p> + <p> + So I told the landlady. She said I must be back by twelve o'clock. + </p> + <p> + The night was very dark. Below the road the stream was rushing; there was + a great factory on the other side of the water, making faint quivering + lights of reflection, and one could see the working of machinery shadowy + through the lighted windows. Near by was the tall tenement where the + Italians lived. + </p> + <p> + We went on through the straggling, raw village, deep beside the stream, + then over the small bridge, and up the steep hill down which I had come + earlier in the evening. + </p> + <p> + So we arrived at the café. It was so different inside from the German inn, + yet it was not like an Italian café either. It was brilliantly lighted, + clean, new, and there were red-and-white cloths on the tables. The host + was in the room, and his daughter, a beautiful red-haired girl. + </p> + <p> + Greetings were exchanged with the quick, intimate directness of Italy. But + there was another note also, a faint echo of reserve, as though they + reserved themselves from the outer world, making a special inner + community. + </p> + <p> + Alfredo was hot: he took off his coat. We all sat freely at a long table, + whilst the red-haired girl brought a quart of red wine. At other tables + men were playing cards, with the odd Neapolitan cards. They too were + talking Italian. It was a warm, ruddy bit of Italy within the cold + darkness of Switzerland. + </p> + <p> + 'When you come to Italy,' they said to me, 'salute it from us, salute the + sun, and the earth, <i>l'Italia</i>.' + </p> + <p> + So we drank in salute of Italy. They sent their greeting by me. + </p> + <p> + 'You know in Italy there is the sun, the sun,' said Alfredo to me, + profoundly moved, wet-mouthed, tipsy. + </p> + <p> + I was reminded of Enrico Persevalli and his terrifying cry at the end of + <i>Ghosts</i>: + </p> + <p> + '<i>Il sole, il sole!</i>' + </p> + <p> + So we talked for a while of Italy. They had a pained tenderness for it, + sad, reserved. + </p> + <p> + 'Don't you want to go back?' I said, pressing them to tell me definitely. + 'Won't you go back some time?' + </p> + <p> + 'Yes,' they said, 'we will go back.' + </p> + <p> + But they spoke reservedly, without freedom. We talked about Italy, about + songs, and Carnival; about the food, polenta, and salt. They laughed at my + pretending to cut the slabs of polenta with a string: that rejoiced them + all: it took them back to the Italian mezzo-giorno, the bells jangling in + the campanile, the eating after the heavy work on the land. + </p> + <p> + But they laughed with the slight pain and contempt and fondness which + every man feels towards his past, when he has struggled away from that + past, from the conditions which made it. + </p> + <p> + They loved Italy passionately; but they would not go back. All their + blood, all their senses were Italian, needed the Italian sky, the speech, + the sensuous life. They could hardly live except through the senses. Their + minds were not developed, mentally they were children, lovable, naïve, + almost fragile children. But sensually they were men: sensually they were + accomplished. + </p> + <p> + Yet a new tiny flower was struggling to open in them, the flower of a new + spirit. The substratum of Italy has always been pagan, sensuous, the most + potent symbol the sexual symbol. The child is really a non-Christian + symbol: it is the symbol of mans's triumph of eternal life in procreation. + The worship of the Cross never really held good in Italy. The Christianity + of Northern Europe has never had any place there. + </p> + <p> + And now, when Northern Europe is turning back on its own Christianity, + denying it all, the Italians are struggling with might and main against + the sensuous spirit which still dominates them. When Northern Europe, + whether it hates Nietzsche or not, is crying out for the Dionysic ecstasy, + practising on itself the Dionysic ecstasy, Southern Europe is breaking + free from Dionysus, from the triumphal affirmation of life over death, + immortality through procreation. + </p> + <p> + I could see these sons of Italy would never go back. Men like Paolo and Il + Duro broke away only to return. The dominance of the old form was too + strong for them. Call it love of country or love of the village, + campanilismo, or what not, it was the dominance of the old pagan form, the + old affirmation of immortality through procreation, as opposed to the + Christian affirmation of immortality through self-death and social love. + </p> + <p> + But 'John' and these Italians in Switzerland were a generation younger, + and they would not go back, at least not to the old Italy. Suffer as they + might, and they did suffer, wincing in every nerve and fibre from the cold + material insentience of the northern countries and of America, still they + would endure this for the sake of something else they wanted. They would + suffer a death in the flesh, as 'John' had suffered in fighting the street + crowd, as these men suffered year after year cramped in their black gloomy + cold Swiss valley, working in the factory. But there would come a new + spirit out of it. + </p> + <p> + Even Alfredo was submitted to the new process; though he belonged entirely + by nature to the sort of Il Duro, he was purely sensuous and mindless. But + under the influence of Giuseppino he was thrown down, as fallow to the new + spirit that would come. + </p> + <p> + And then, when the others were all partially tipsy, the Giuseppino began + to talk to me. In him was a steady flame burning, burning, burning, a + flame of the mind, of the spirit, something new and clear, something that + held even the soft, sensuous Alfredo in submission, besides all the + others, who had some little development of mind. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Sa signore</i>,' said the Giuseppino to me, quiet, almost invisible or + inaudible, as it seemed, like a spirit addressing me, '<i>l'uomo non ha + patria</i>—a man has no country. What has the Italian Government to + do with us. What does a Government mean? It makes us work, it takes part + of our wages away from us, it makes us soldiers—and what for? What + is government for?' + </p> + <p> + 'Have you been a soldier?' I interrupted him. + </p> + <p> + He had not, none of them had: that was why they could not really go back + to Italy. Now this was out; this explained partly their curious + reservation in speaking about their beloved country. They had forfeited + parents as well as homeland. + </p> + <p> + 'What does the Government do? It takes taxes; it has an army and police, + and it makes roads. But we could do without an army, and we could be our + own police, and we could make our own roads. What is this Government? Who + wants it? Only those who are unjust, and want to have advantage over + somebody else. It is an instrument of injustice and of wrong. + </p> + <p> + 'Why should we have a Government? Here, in this village, there are thirty + families of Italians. There is no government for them, no Italian + Government. And we live together better than in Italy. We are richer and + freer, we have no policemen, no poor laws. We help each other, and there + are no poor. + </p> + <p> + 'Why are these Governments always doing what we don't want them to do? We + should not be fighting in the Cirenaica if we were all Italians. It is the + Government that does it. They talk and talk and do things with us: but we + don't want them.' + </p> + <p> + The others, tipsy, sat round the table with the terrified gravity of + children who are somehow responsible for things they do not understand. + They stirred in their seats, turning aside, with gestures almost of pain, + of imprisonment. Only Alfredo, laying his hand on mine, was laughing, + loosely, floridly. He would upset all the Government with a jerk of his + well-built shoulder, and then he would have a spree—such a spree. He + laughed wetly to me. + </p> + <p> + The Giuseppino waited patiently during this tipsy confidence, but his pale + clarity and beauty was something constant star-like in comparison with the + flushed, soft handsomeness of the other. He waited patiently, looking at + me. + </p> + <p> + But I did not want him to go on: I did not want to answer. I could feel a + new spirit in him, something strange and pure and slightly frightening. He + wanted something which was beyond me. And my soul was somewhere in tears, + crying helplessly like an infant in the night. I could not respond: I + could not answer. He seemed to look at me, me, an Englishman, an educated + man, for corroboration. But I could not corroborate him. I knew the purity + and new struggling towards birth of a true star-like spirit. But I could + not confirm him in his utterance: my soul could not respond. I did not + believe in the perfectibility of man. I did not believe in infinite + harmony among men. And this was his star, this belief. + </p> + <p> + It was nearly midnight. A Swiss came in and asked for beer. The Italians + gathered round them a curious darkness of reserve. And then I must go. + </p> + <p> + They shook hands with me warmly, truthfully, putting a sort of implicit + belief in me, as representative of some further knowledge. But there was a + fixed, calm resolve over the face of the Giuseppino, a sort of steady + faith, even in disappointment. He gave me a copy of a little Anarchist + paper published in Geneva. <i>L'Anarchista</i>, I believe it was called. I + glanced at it. It was in Italian, naïve, simple, rather rhetorical. So + they were all Anarchists, these Italians. + </p> + <p> + I ran down the hill in the thick Swiss darkness to the little bridge, and + along the uneven cobbled street. I did not want to think, I did not want + to know. I wanted to arrest my activity, to keep it confined to the + moment, to the adventure. + </p> + <p> + When I came to the flight of stone steps which led up to the door of the + inn, at the side I saw in the darkness two figures. They said a low good + night and parted; the girl began to knock at the door, the man + disappeared. It was the niece of the landlady parting from her lover. + </p> + <p> + We waited outside the locked door, at the top of the stone steps, in the + darkness of midnight. The stream rustled below. Then came a shouting and + an insane snarling within the passage; the bolts were not withdrawn. + </p> + <p> + 'It is the gentleman, it is the strange gentleman,' called the girl. + </p> + <p> + Then came again the furious shouting snarls, and the landlord's mad voice: + </p> + <p> + 'Stop out, stop out there. The door won't be opened again.' + </p> + <p> + 'The strange gentleman is here,' repeated the girl. + </p> + <p> + Then more movement was heard, and the door was suddenly opened, and the + landlord rushed out upon us, wielding a broom. It was a strange sight, in + the half-lighted passage. I stared blankly in the doorway. The landlord + dropped the broom he was waving and collapsed as if by magic, looking at + me, though he continued to mutter madly, unintelligibly. The girl slipped + past me, and the landlord snarled. Then he picked up the brush, at the + same time crying: + </p> + <p> + 'You are late, the door was shut, it will not be opened. We shall have the + police in the house. We said twelve o'clock; at twelve o'clock the door + must be shut, and must not be opened again. If you are late you stay out—' + </p> + <p> + So he went snarling, his voice rising higher and higher, away into the + kitchen. + </p> + <p> + 'You are coming to your room?' the landlady said to me coldly. And she led + me upstairs. + </p> + <p> + The room was over the road, clean, but rather ugly, with a large tin, that + had once contained lard or Swiss-milk, to wash in. But the bed was good + enough, which was all that mattered. + </p> + <p> + I heard the landlord yelling, and there was a long and systematic thumping + somewhere, thump, thump, thump, and banging. I wondered where it was. I + could not locate it at all, because my room lay beyond another large room: + I had to go through a large room, by the foot of two beds, to get to my + door; so I could not quite tell where anything was. + </p> + <p> + But I went to sleep whilst I was wondering. + </p> + <p> + I woke in the morning and washed in the tin. I could see a few people in + the street, walking in the Sunday morning leisure. It felt like Sunday in + England, and I shrank from it. I could see none of the Italians. The + factory stood there, raw and large and sombre, by the stream, and the + drab-coloured stone tenements were close by. Otherwise the village was a + straggling Swiss street, almost untouched. + </p> + <p> + The landlord was quiet and reasonable, even friendly, in the morning. He + wanted to talk to me: where had I bought my boots, was his first question. + I told him in Munich. And how much had they cost? I told him twenty-eight + marks. He was much impressed by them: such good boots, of such soft, + strong, beautiful leather; he had not seen such boots for a long time. + </p> + <p> + Then I knew it was he who had cleaned my boots. I could see him fingering + them and wondering over them. I rather liked him. I could see he had had + imagination once, and a certain fineness of nature. Now he was corrupted + with drink, too far gone to be even a human being. I hated the village. + </p> + <p> + They set bread and butter and a piece of cheese weighing about five + pounds, and large, fresh, sweet cakes for breakfast. I ate and was + thankful: the food was good. + </p> + <p> + A couple of village youths came in, in their Sunday clothes. They had the + Sunday stiffness. It reminded me of the stiffness and curious + self-consciousness that comes over life in England on a Sunday. But the + Landlord sat with his waistcoat hanging open over his shirt, pot-bellied, + his ruined face leaning forward, talking, always talking, wanting to know. + </p> + <p> + So in a few minutes I was out on the road again, thanking God for the + blessing of a road that belongs to no man, and travels away from all men. + </p> + <p> + I did not want to see the Italians. Something had got tied up in me, and I + could not bear to see them again. I liked them so much; but, for some + reason or other, my mind stopped like clockwork if I wanted to think of + them and of what their lives would be, their future. It was as if some + curious negative magnetism arrested my mind, prevented it from working, + the moment I turned it towards these Italians. + </p> + <p> + I do not know why it was. But I could never write to them, or think of + them, or even read the paper they gave me though it lay in my drawer for + months, in Italy, and I often glanced over six lines of it. And often, + often my mind went back to the group, the play they were rehearsing, the + wine in the pleasant café, and the night. But the moment my memory touched + them, my whole soul stopped and was null; I could not go on. Even now I + cannot really consider them in thought. + </p> + <p> + I shrink involuntarily away. I do not know why this is. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE RETURN JOURNEY + </h2> + <p> + When one walks, one must travel west or south. If one turns northward or + eastward it is like walking down a cul-de-sac, to the blind end. + </p> + <p> + So it has been since the Crusaders came home satiated, and the Renaissance + saw the western sky as an archway into the future. So it is still. We must + go westwards and southwards. + </p> + <p> + It is a sad and gloomy thing to travel even from Italy into France. But it + is a joyful thing to walk south to Italy, south and west. It is so. And + there is a certain exaltation in the thought of going west, even to + Cornwall, to Ireland. It is as if the magnetic poles were south-west and + north-east, for our spirits, with the south-west, under the sunset, as the + positive pole. So whilst I walk through Switzerland, though it is a valley + of gloom and depression, a light seems to flash out under every footstep, + with the joy of progression. + </p> + <p> + It was Sunday morning when I left the valley where the Italians lived. I + went quickly over the stream, heading for Lucerne. It was a good thing to + be out of doors, with one's pack on one's back, climbing uphill. But the + trees were thick by the roadside; I was not yet free. It was Sunday + morning, very still. + </p> + <p> + In two hours I was at the top of the hill, looking out over the + intervening valley at the long lake of Zurich, spread there beyond with + its girdle of low hills, like a relief-map. I could not bear to look at + it, it was so small and unreal. I had a feeling as if it were false, a + large relief-map that I was looking down upon, and which I wanted to + smash. It seemed to intervene between me and some reality. I could not + believe that that was the real world. It was a figment, a fabrication, + like a dull landscape painted on a wall, to hide the real landscape. + </p> + <p> + So I went on, over to the other side of the hill, and I looked out again. + Again there were the smoky-looking hills and the lake like a piece of + looking-glass. But the hills were higher: that big one was the Rigi. I set + off down the hill. + </p> + <p> + There was fat agricultural land and several villages. And church was over. + The churchgoers were all coming home: men in black broadcloth and old + chimney-pot silk hats, carrying their umbrellas; women in ugly dresses, + carrying books and umbrellas. The streets were dotted with these + black-clothed men and stiff women, all reduced to a Sunday nullity. I + hated it. It reminded me of that which I knew in my boyhood, that stiff, + null 'propriety' which used to come over us, like a sort of deliberate and + self-inflicted cramp, on Sundays. I hated these elders in black + broadcloth, with their neutral faces, going home piously to their Sunday + dinners. I hated the feeling of these villages, comfortable, well-to-do, + clean, and proper. + </p> + <p> + And my boot was chafing two of my toes. That always happens. I had come + down to a wide, shallow valley-bed, marshy. So about a mile out of the + village I sat down by a stone bridge, by a stream, and tore up my + handkerchief, and bound up the toes. And as I sat binding my toes, two of + the elders in black, with umbrellas under their arms, approached from the + direction of the village. + </p> + <p> + They made me so furious, I had to hasten to fasten my boot, to hurry on + again, before they should come near me. I could not bear the way they + walked and talked, so crambling and material and mealy-mouthed. + </p> + <p> + Then it did actually begin to rain. I was just going down a short hill. So + I sat under a bush and watched the trees drip. I was so glad to be there, + homeless, without place or belonging, crouching under the leaves in the + copse by the road, that I felt I had, like the meek, inherited the earth. + Some men went by, with their coat-collars turned up, and the rain making + still blacker their black broadcloth shoulders. They did not see me. I was + as safe and separate as a ghost. So I ate the remains of my food that I + had bought in Zurich, and waited for the rain. + </p> + <p> + Later, in the wet Sunday afternoon, I went on to the little lake, past + many inert, neutral, material people, down an ugly road where trams ran. + The blight of Sunday was almost intolerable near the town. + </p> + <p> + So on I went, by the side of the steamy, reedy lake, walking the length of + it. Then suddenly I went in to a little villa by the water for tea. In + Switzerland every house is a villa. + </p> + <p> + But this villa, was kept by two old ladies and a delicate dog, who must + not get his feet wet. I was very happy there. I had good jam and strange + honey-cakes for tea, that I liked, and the little old ladies pattered + round in a great stir, always whirling like two dry leaves after the + restless dog. + </p> + <p> + 'Why must he not go out?' I said. + </p> + <p> + 'Because it is wet,' they answered, 'and he coughs and sneezes.' + </p> + <p> + 'Without a handkerchief, that is not <i>angenehm</i>' I said. + </p> + <p> + So we became bosom friends. + </p> + <p> + 'You are Austrian?' they said to me. + </p> + <p> + I said I was from Graz; that my father was a doctor in Graz, and that I + was walking for my pleasure through the countries of Europe. + </p> + <p> + I said this because I knew a doctor from Graz who was always wandering + about, and because I did not want to be myself, an Englishman, to these + two old ladies. I wanted to be something else. So we exchanged + confidences. + </p> + <p> + They told me, in their queer, old, toothless fashion, about their + visitors, a man who used to fish all day, every day for three weeks, fish + every hour of the day, though many a day he caught nothing—nothing + at all—still he fished from the boat; and so on, such trivialities. + Then they told me of a third sister who had died, a third little old lady. + One could feel the gap in the house. They cried; and I, being an Austrian + from Graz, to my astonishment felt my tears slip over on to the table. I + also <i>was</i> sorry, and I would have kissed the little old ladies to + comfort them. + </p> + <p> + 'Only in heaven it is warm, and it doesn't rain, and no one dies,' I said, + looking at the wet leaves. + </p> + <p> + Then I went away. I would have stayed the night at this house: I wanted + to. But I had developed my Austrian character too far. + </p> + <p> + So I went on to a detestable brutal inn in the town. And the next day I + climbed over the back of the detestable Rigi, with its vile hotel, to come + to Lucerne. There, on the Rigi, I met a lost young Frenchman who could + speak no German, and who said he could not find people to speak French. So + we sat on a stone and became close friends, and I promised faithfully to + go and visit him in his barracks in Algiers: I was to sail from Naples to + Algiers. He wrote me the address on his card, and told me he had friends + in the regiment, to whom I should be introduced, and we could have a good + time, if I would stay a week or two, down there in Algiers. + </p> + <p> + How much more real Algiers was than the rock on the Rigi where we sat, or + the lake beneath, or the mountains beyond. Algiers is very real, though I + have never seen it, and my friend is my friend for ever, though I have + lost his card and forgotten his name. He was a Government clerk from + Lyons, making this his first foreign tour before he began his military + service. He showed me his 'circular excursion ticket'. Then at last we + parted, for he must get to the top of the Rigi, and I must get to the + bottom. + </p> + <p> + Lucerne and its lake were as irritating as ever—like the wrapper + round milk chocolate. I could not sleep even one night there: I took the + steamer down the lake, to the very last station. There I found a good + German inn, and was happy. + </p> + <p> + There was a tall thin young man, whose face was red and inflamed from the + sun. I thought he was a German tourist. He had just come in; and he was + eating bread and milk. He and I were alone in the eating-room. He was + looking at an illustrated paper. + </p> + <p> + 'Does the steamer stop here all night?' I asked him in German, hearing the + boat bustling and blowing her steam on the water outside, and glancing + round at her lights, red and white, in the pitch darkness. + </p> + <p> + He only shook his head over his bread and milk, and did not lift his face. + </p> + <p> + 'Are you English, then?' I said. + </p> + <p> + No one but an Englishman would have hidden his face in a bowl of milk, and + have shaken his red ears in such painful confusion. + </p> + <p> + 'Yes,' he said, 'I am.' + </p> + <p> + And I started almost out of my skin at the unexpected London accent. It + was as if one suddenly found oneself in the Tube. + </p> + <p> + 'So am I,' I said. 'Where have you come from?' + </p> + <p> + Then he began, like a general explaining his plans, to tell me. He had + walked round over the Furka Pass, had been on foot four or five days. He + had walked tremendously. Knowing no German, and nothing of the mountains, + he had set off alone on this tour: he had a fortnight's holiday. So he had + come over the Rhône Glacier across the Furka and down from Andermatt to + the Lake. On this last day he had walked about thirty mountain miles. + </p> + <p> + 'But weren't you tired?' I said, aghast. + </p> + <p> + He was. Under the inflamed redness of his sun- and wind- and snow-burned + face he was sick with fatigue. He had done over a hundred miles in the + last four days. + </p> + <p> + 'Did you enjoy it?' I asked. + </p> + <p> + 'Oh yes. I wanted to do it all.' He wanted to do it, and he <i>had</i> + done it. But God knows what he wanted to do it for. He had now one day at + Lucerne, one day at Interlaken and Berne, then London. + </p> + <p> + I was sorry for him in my soul, he was so cruelly tired, so perishingly + victorious. + </p> + <p> + 'Why did you do so much?' I said. 'Why did you come on foot all down the + valley when you could have taken the train? Was it worth it?' + </p> + <p> + 'I think so,' he said. + </p> + <p> + Yet he was sick with fatigue and over-exhaustion. His eyes were quite + dark, sightless: he seemed to have lost the power of seeing, to be + virtually blind. He hung his head forward when he had to write a post + card, as if he felt his way. But he turned his post card so that I should + not see to whom it was addressed; not that I was interested; only I + noticed his little, cautious, English movement of privacy. + </p> + <p> + 'What time will you be going on?' I asked. + </p> + <p> + 'When is the first steamer?' he said, and he turned out a guide-book with + a time-table. He would leave at about seven. + </p> + <p> + 'But why so early?' I said to him. + </p> + <p> + He must be in Lucerne at a certain hour, and at Interlaken in the evening. + </p> + <p> + 'I suppose you will rest when you get to London?' I said. + </p> + <p> + He looked at me quickly, reservedly. + </p> + <p> + I was drinking beer: I asked him wouldn't he have something. He thought a + moment, then said he would have another glass of hot milk. The landlord + came—'And bread?' he asked. + </p> + <p> + The Englishman refused. He could not eat, really. Also he was poor; he had + to husband his money. The landlord brought the milk and asked me, when + would the gentleman want to go away. So I made arrangements between the + landlord and the stranger. But the Englishman was slightly uncomfortable + at my intervention. He did not like me to know what he would have for + breakfast. + </p> + <p> + I could feel so well the machine that had him in its grip. He slaved for a + year, mechanically, in London, riding in the Tube, working in the office. + Then for a fortnight he was let free. So he rushed to Switzerland, with a + tour planned out, and with just enough money to see him through, and to + buy presents at Interlaken: bits of the edelweiss pottery: I could see him + going home with them. + </p> + <p> + So he arrived, and with amazing, pathetic courage set forth on foot in a + strange land, to face strange landlords, with no language but English at + his command, and his purse definitely limited. Yet he wanted to go among + the mountains, to cross a glacier. So he had walked on and on, like one + possessed, ever forward. His name might have been Excelsior, indeed. + </p> + <p> + But then, when he reached his Furka, only to walk along the ridge and to + descend on the same side! My God, it was killing to the soul. And here he + was, down again from the mountains, beginning his journey home again: + steamer and train and steamer and train and Tube, till he was back in the + machine. + </p> + <p> + It hadn't let him go, and he knew it. Hence his cruel self-torture of + fatigue, his cruel exercise of courage. He who hung his head in his milk + in torment when I asked him a question in German, what courage had he not + needed to take this his very first trip out of England, alone, on foot! + </p> + <p> + His eyes were dark and deep with unfathomable courage. Yet he was going + back in the morning. He was going back. All he had courage for was to go + back. He would go back, though he died by inches. Why not? It was killing + him, it was like living loaded with irons. But he had the courage to + submit, to die that way, since it was the way allotted to him. + </p> + <p> + The way he sank on the table in exhaustion, drinking his milk, his will, + nevertheless, so perfect and unblemished, triumphant, though his body was + broken and in anguish, was almost too much to bear. My heart was wrung for + my countryman, wrung till it bled. + </p> + <p> + I could not bear to understand my countryman, a man who worked for his + living, as I had worked, as nearly all my countrymen work. He would not + give in. On his holiday he would walk, to fulfil his purpose, walk on; no + matter how cruel the effort were, he would not rest, he would not + relinquish his purpose nor abate his will, not by one jot or tittle. His + body must pay whatever his will demanded, though it were torture. + </p> + <p> + It all seemed to me so foolish. I was almost in tears. He went to bed. I + walked by the dark lake, and talked to the girl in the inn. She was a + pleasant girl: it was a pleasant inn, a homely place. One could be happy + there. + </p> + <p> + In the morning it was sunny, the lake was blue. By night I should be + nearly at the crest of my journey. I was glad. + </p> + <p> + The Englishman had gone. I looked for his name in the book. It was written + in a fair, clerkly hand. He lived at Streatham. Suddenly I hated him. The + dogged fool, to keep his nose on the grindstone like that. What was all + his courage but the very tip-top of cowardice? What a vile nature—almost + Sadish, proud, like the infamous Red Indians, of being able to stand + torture. + </p> + <p> + The landlord came to talk to me. He was fat and comfortable and too + respectful. But I had to tell him all the Englishman had done, in the way + of a holiday, just to shame his own fat, ponderous, inn-keeper's + luxuriousness that was too gross. Then all I got out of his enormous + comfortableness was: + </p> + <p> + 'Yes, that's a <i>very</i> long step to take.' + </p> + <p> + So I set off myself, up the valley between the close, snow-topped + mountains, whose white gleamed above me as I crawled, small as an insect, + along the dark, cold valley below. + </p> + <p> + There had been a cattle fair earlier in the morning, so troops of cattle + were roving down the road, some with bells tang-tanging, all with soft + faces and startled eyes and a sudden swerving of horns. The grass was very + green by the roads and by the streams; the shadows of the mountain slopes + were very dark on either hand overhead, and the sky with snowy flanks and + tips was high up. + </p> + <p> + Here, away from the world, the villages were quiet and obscure—left + behind. They had the same fascinating atmosphere of being forgotten, left + out of the world, that old English villages have. And buying apples and + cheese and bread in a little shop that sold everything and smelled of + everything, I felt at home again. + </p> + <p> + But climbing gradually higher, mile after mile, always between the shadows + of the high mountains, I was glad I did not live in the Alps. The villages + on the slopes, the people there, seemed, as if they <i>must</i> gradually, + bit by bit, slide down and tumble to the water-course, and be rolled on + away, away to the sea. Straggling, haphazard little villages ledged on the + slope, high up, beside their wet, green, hanging meadows, with pine trees + behind and the valley bottom far below, and rocks right above, on both + sides, seemed like little temporary squattings of outcast people. It + seemed impossible that they should persist there, with great shadows + wielded over them, like a menace, and gleams of brief sunshine, like a + window. There was a sense of momentariness and expectation. It seemed as + though some dramatic upheaval must take place, the mountains fall down + into their own shadows. The valley beds were like deep graves, the sides + of the mountains like the collapsing walls of a grave. The very + mountain-tops above, bright with transcendent snow, seemed like death, + eternal death. + </p> + <p> + There, it seemed, in the glamorous snow, was the source of death, which + fell down in great waves of shadow and rock, rushing to the level earth. + And all the people of the mountains, on the slopes, in the valleys, seemed + to live upon this great, rushing wave of death, of breaking-down, of + destruction. + </p> + <p> + The very pure source of breaking-down, decomposition, the very quick of + cold death, is the snowy mountain-peak above. There, eternally, goes on + the white foregathering of the crystals, out of the deathly cold of the + heavens; this is the static nucleus where death meets life in its + elementality. And thence, from their white, radiant nucleus of death in + life, flows the great flux downwards, towards life and warmth. And we + below, we cannot think of the flux upwards, that flows from the + needle-point of snow to the unutterable cold and death. + </p> + <p> + The people under the mountains, they seem to live in the flux of death, + the last, strange, overshadowed units of life. Big shadows wave over them, + there is the eternal noise of water falling icily downwards from the + source of death overhead. + </p> + <p> + And the people under the shadows, dwelling in the tang of snow and the + noise of icy water, seem dark, almost sordid, brutal. There is no + flowering or coming to flower, only this persistence, in the ice-touched + air, of reproductive life. + </p> + <p> + But it is difficult to get a sense of a native population. Everywhere are + the hotels and the foreigners, the parasitism. Yet there is, unseen, this + overshadowed, overhung, sordid mountain population, ledged on the slopes + and in the crevices. In the wider valleys there is still a sense of + cowering among the people. But they catch a new tone from their contact + with the foreigners. And in the towns are nothing but tradespeople. + </p> + <p> + So I climbed slowly up, for a whole day, first along the highroad, + sometimes above and sometimes below the twisting, serpentine railway, then + afterwards along a path on the side of the hill—a path that went + through the crew-yards of isolated farms and even through the garden of a + village priest. The priest was decorating an archway. He stood on a chair + in the sunshine, reaching up with a garland, whilst the serving-woman + stood below, talking loudly. + </p> + <p> + The valley here seemed wider, the great flanks of the mountains gave + place, the peaks above were further back. So one was happier. I was + pleased as I sat by the thin track of single flat stones that dropped + swiftly downhill. + </p> + <p> + At the bottom was a little town with a factory or quarry, or a foundry, + some place with long, smoking chimneys; which made me feel quite at home + among the mountains. + </p> + <p> + It is the hideous rawness of the world of men, the horrible, desolating + harshness of the advance of the industrial world upon the world of nature, + that is so painful. It looks as though the industrial spread of mankind + were a sort of dry disintegration advancing and advancing, a process of + dry disintegration. If only we could learn to take thought for the whole + world instead of for merely tiny bits of it. + </p> + <p> + I went through the little, hideous, crude factory-settlement in the high + valley, where the eternal snows gleamed, past the enormous advertisements + for chocolate and hotels, up the last steep slope of the pass to where the + tunnel begins. Göschenen, the village at the mouth of the tunnel, is all + railway sidings and haphazard villas for tourists, post cards, and touts + and weedy carriages; disorder and sterile chaos, high up. How should any + one stay there! + </p> + <p> + I went on up the pass itself. There were various parties of visitors on + the roads and tracks, people from towns incongruously walking and driving. + It was drawing on to evening. I climbed slowly, between the great cleft in + the rock where are the big iron gates, through which the road winds, winds + half-way down the narrow gulley of solid, living rock, the very throat of + the path, where hangs a tablet in memory of many Russians killed. + </p> + <p> + Emerging through the dark rocky throat of the pass I came to the upper + world, the level upper world. It was evening, livid, cold. On either side + spread the sort of moorland of the wide pass-head. I drew near along the + high-road, to Andermatt. + </p> + <p> + Everywhere were soldiers moving about the livid, desolate waste of this + upper world. I passed the barracks and the first villas for visitors. + Darkness was coming on; the straggling, inconclusive street of Andermatt + looked as if it were some accident—houses, hotels, barracks, + lodging-places tumbled at random as the caravan of civilization crossed + this high, cold, arid bridge of the European world. + </p> + <p> + I bought two post cards and wrote them out of doors in the cold, livid + twilight. Then I asked a soldier where was the post-office. He directed + me. It was something like sending post cards from Skegness or Bognor, + there in the post-office. + </p> + <p> + I was trying to make myself agree to stay in Andermatt for the night. But + I could not. The whole place was so terribly raw and flat and accidental, + as if great pieces of furniture had tumbled out of a pantechnicon and lay + discarded by the road. I hovered in the street, in the twilight, trying to + make myself stay. I looked at the announcements of lodgings and boarding + for visitors. It was no good. I could not go into one of these houses. + </p> + <p> + So I passed on, through the old, low, broad-eaved houses that cringe down + to the very street, out into the open again. The air was fierce and + savage. On one side was a moorland, level; on the other a sweep of naked + hill, curved concave, and sprinkled with snow. I could see how wonderful + it would all be, under five or six feet of winter snow, skiing and + tobogganing at Christmas. But it needed the snow. In the summer there is + to be seen nothing but the winter's broken detritus. + </p> + <p> + The twilight deepened, though there was still the strange, glassy + translucency of the snow-lit air. A fragment of moon was in the sky. A + carriage-load of French tourists passed me. There was the loud noise of + water, as ever, something eternal and maddening in its sound, like the + sound of Time itself, rustling and rushing and wavering, but never for a + second ceasing. The rushing of Time that continues throughout eternity, + this is the sound of the icy streams of Switzerland, something that mocks + and destroys our warm being. + </p> + <p> + So I came, in the early darkness, to the little village with the broken + castle that stands for ever frozen at the point where the track parts, one + way continuing along the ridge, to the Furka Pass, the other swerving over + the hill to the left, over the Gotthardt. + </p> + <p> + In this village I must stay. I saw a woman looking hastily, furtively from + a doorway. I knew she was looking for visitors. I went on up the hilly + street. There were only a few wooden houses and a gaily lighted wooden + inn, where men were laughing, and strangers, men, standing talking loudly + in the doorway. + </p> + <p> + It was very difficult to go to a house this night. I did not want to + approach any of them. I turned back to the house of the peering woman. She + had looked hen-like and anxious. She would be glad of a visitor to help + her pay her rent. + </p> + <p> + It was a clean, pleasant wooden house, made to keep out the cold. That + seemed its one function: to defend the inmates from the cold. It was + furnished like a hut, just tables and chairs and bare wooden walls. One + felt very close and secure in the room, as in a hut, shut away from the + outer world. + </p> + <p> + The hen-like woman came. + </p> + <p> + 'Can I have a bed,' I said, 'for the night?' + </p> + <p> + '<i>Abendessen, ja!</i>' she replied. 'Will you have soup and boiled beef + and vegetables?' + </p> + <p> + I said I would, so I sat down to wait, in the utter silence. I could + scarcely hear the ice-stream, the silence seemed frozen, the house empty. + The woman seemed to be flitting aimlessly, scurriedly, in reflex against + the silence. One could almost touch the stillness as one could touch the + walls, or the stove, or the table with white American oil-cloth. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly she appeared again. + </p> + <p> + 'What will you drink?' + </p> + <p> + She watched my face anxiously, and her voice was pathetic, slightly + pleading in its quickness. + </p> + <p> + 'Wine or beer?' she said. + </p> + <p> + I would not trust the coldness of beer. + </p> + <p> + 'A half of red wine,' I said. + </p> + <p> + I knew she was going to keep me an indefinite time. + </p> + <p> + She appeared with the wine and bread. + </p> + <p> + 'Would you like omelette after the beef?' she asked. 'Omelette with cognac—I + can make it <i>very</i> good.' + </p> + <p> + I knew I should be spending too much, but I said yes. After all, why + should I not eat, after the long walk? + </p> + <p> + So she left me again, whilst I sat in the utter isolation and stillness, + eating bread and drinking the wine, which was good. And I listened for any + sound: only the faint noise of the stream. And I wondered, Why am I here, + on this ridge of the Alps, in the lamp-lit, wooden, close-shut room, + alone? Why am I here? + </p> + <p> + Yet somehow I was glad, I was happy even: such splendid silence and + coldness and clean isolation. It was something eternal, unbroachable: I + was free, in this heavy, ice-cold air, this upper world, alone. London, + far away below, beyond, England, Germany, France—they were all so + unreal in the night. It was a sort of grief that this continent all + beneath was so unreal, false, non-existent in its activity. Out of the + silence one looked down on it, and it seemed to have lost all importance, + all significance. It was so big, yet it had no significance. The kingdom + of the world had no significance: what could one do but wander about? + </p> + <p> + The woman came with my soup. I asked her, did not many people come in the + summer. But she was scared away, she did not answer, she went like a leaf + in the wind. However, the soup was good and plentiful. + </p> + <p> + She was a long time before she came with the next course. Then she put the + tray on the table, and looking at me, then looking away, shrinking, she + said: + </p> + <p> + 'You must excuse me if I don't answer you—I don't hear well—I + am rather deaf.' + </p> + <p> + I looked at her, and I winced also. She shrank in such simple pain from + the fact of her defect. I wondered if she were bullied because of it, or + only afraid lest visitors would dislike it. + </p> + <p> + She put the dishes in order, set me my plate, quickly, nervously, and was + gone again, like a scared chicken. Being tired, I wanted to weep over her, + the nervous, timid hen, so frightened by her own deafness. The house was + silent of her, empty. It was perhaps her deafness which created this empty + soundlessness. + </p> + <p> + When she came with the omelette, I said to her loudly: + </p> + <p> + 'That was very good, the soup and meat.' So she quivered nervously, and + said, 'Thank you,' and I managed to talk to her. She was like most deaf + people, in that her terror of not hearing made her six times worse than + she actually was. + </p> + <p> + She spoke with a soft, strange accent, so I thought she was perhaps a + foreigner. But when I asked her she misunderstood, and I had not the heart + to correct her. I can only remember she said her house was always full in + the winter, about Christmas-time. People came for the winter sport. There + were two young English ladies who always came to her. + </p> + <p> + She spoke of them warmly. Then, suddenly afraid, she drifted off again. I + ate the omelette with cognac, which was very good, then I looked in the + street. It was very dark, with bright stars, and smelled of snow. Two + village men went by. I was tired, I did not want to go to the inn. + </p> + <p> + So I went to bed, in the silent, wooden house. I had a small bedroom, + clean and wooden and very cold. Outside, the stream was rushing. I covered + myself with a great depth of featherbed, and looked at the stars, and the + shadowy upper world, and went to sleep. + </p> + <p> + In the morning I washed in the ice-cold water, and was glad to set out. An + icy mist was over the noisy stream, there were a few meagre, shredded + pine-trees. I had breakfast and paid my bill: it was seven francs—more + than I could afford; but that did not matter, once I was out in the air. + </p> + <p> + The sky was blue and perfect, it was a ringing morning, the village was + very still. I went up the hill till I came to the signpost. I looked down + the direction of the Furka, and thought of my tired Englishman from + Streatham, who would be on his way home. Thank God I need not go home: + never, perhaps. I turned up the track to the left, to the Gothard. + </p> + <p> + Standing looking round at the mountain-tops, at the village and the broken + castle below me, at the scattered debris of Andermatt on the moor in the + distance, I was jumping in my soul with delight. Should one ever go down + to the lower world? + </p> + <p> + Then I saw another figure striding along, a youth with knee-breeches and + Alpine hat and braces over his shirt, walking manfully, his coat slung in + his rucksack behind. I laughed, and waited. He came my way. + </p> + <p> + 'Are you going over the Gothard?' I said. + </p> + <p> + 'Yes,' he replied. 'Are you also?' + </p> + <p> + 'Yes' I said. 'We will go together.' + </p> + <p> + So we set off, climbing a track up the heathy rocks. + </p> + <p> + He was a pale, freckled town youth from Basel, seventeen years old. He was + a clerk in a baggage-transport firm—Gondrand Frères, I believe. He + had a week's holiday, in which time he was going to make a big circular + walk, something like the Englishman's. But he was accustomed to this + mountain walking: he belonged to a Sportverein. Manfully he marched in his + thick hob-nailed boots, earnestly he scrambled up the rocks. + </p> + <p> + We were in the crest of the pass. Broad snow-patched slopes came down from + the pure sky; the defile was full of stones, all bare stones, enormous + ones as big as a house, and small ones, pebbles. Through these the road + wound in silence, through this upper, transcendent desolation, wherein was + only the sound of the stream. Sky and snow-patched slopes, then the stony, + rocky bed of the defile, full of morning sunshine: this was all. We were + crossing in silence from the northern world to the southern. + </p> + <p> + But he, Emil, was going to take the train back, through the tunnel, in the + evening, to resume his circular walk at Göschenen. + </p> + <p> + I, however, was going on, over the ridge of the world, from the north into + the south. So I was glad. + </p> + <p> + We climbed up the gradual incline for a long time. The slopes above became + lower, they began to recede. The sky was very near, we were walking under + the sky. + </p> + <p> + Then the defile widened out, there was an open place before us, the very + top of the pass. Also there were low barracks, and soldiers. We heard + firing. Standing still, we saw on the slopes of snow, under the radiant + blue heaven, tiny puffs of smoke, then some small black figures crossing + the snow patch, then another rattle of rifle-fire, rattling dry and + unnatural in the upper, skyey air, between the rocks. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Das ist schön</i>,' said my companion, in his simple admiration. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Hübsch</i>,' I said. + </p> + <p> + 'But that would be splendid, to be firing up there, manoeuvring up in the + snow.' + </p> + <p> + And he began to tell me how hard a soldier's life was, how hard the + soldier was drilled. + </p> + <p> + 'You don't look forward to it?' I said. + </p> + <p> + 'Oh yes, I do. I want to be a soldier, I want to serve my time.' + </p> + <p> + 'Why?'I said. + </p> + <p> + 'For the exercise, the life, the drilling. One becomes strong.' + </p> + <p> + 'Do all the Swiss want to serve their time in the army?' I asked. + </p> + <p> + 'Yes—they all want to. It is good for every man, and it keeps us all + together. Besides, it is only for a year. For a year it is very good. The + Germans have three years—that is too long, that is bad.' + </p> + <p> + I told him how the soldiers in Bavaria hated the military service. + </p> + <p> + 'Yes,' he said, 'that is true of Germans. The system is different. Ours is + much better; in Switzerland a man enjoys his time as a soldier. I want to + go.' + </p> + <p> + So we watched the black dots of soldiers crawling over the high snow, + listened to the unnatural dry rattle of guns, up there. + </p> + <p> + Then we were aware of somebody whistling, of soldiers yelling down the + road. We were to come on, along the level, over the bridge. So we marched + quickly forward, away from the slopes, towards the hotel, once a + monastery, that stood in the distance. The light was blue and clear on the + reedy lakes of this upper place; it was a strange desolation of water and + bog and rocks and road, hedged by the snowy slopes round the rim, under + the very sky. + </p> + <p> + The soldier was yelling again. I could not tell what he said. + </p> + <p> + 'He says if we don't run we can't come at all,' said Emil. + </p> + <p> + 'I won't run,' I said. + </p> + <p> + So we hurried forwards, over the bridge, where the soldier on guard was + standing. + </p> + <p> + 'Do you want to be shot?' he said angrily, as we came up. + </p> + <p> + 'No, thanks,' I said. + </p> + <p> + Emil was very serious. + </p> + <p> + 'How long should we have had to wait if we hadn't got through now?' he + asked the soldier, when we were safely out of danger. + </p> + <p> + 'Till one o'clock,' was the reply. + </p> + <p> + 'Two hours!' said Emil, strangely elated. 'We should have had to wait two + hours before we could come on. He was riled that we didn't run,' and he + laughed with glee. + </p> + <p> + So we marched over the level to the hotel. We called in for a glass of hot + milk. I asked in German. But the maid, a pert hussy, elegant and superior, + was French. She served us with great contempt, as two worthless creatures, + poverty-stricken. It abashed poor Emil, but we managed to laugh at her. + This made her very angry. In the smoking-room she raised up her voice in + French: + </p> + <p> + '<i>Du lait chaud pour les chameaux.</i>' + </p> + <p> + 'Some hot milk for the camels, she says,' I translated for Emil. He was + covered with confusion and youthful anger. + </p> + <p> + But I called to her, tapped the table and called: + </p> + <p> + '<i>Mademoiselle!</i>' + </p> + <p> + She appeared flouncingly in the doorway. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Encore du lait pour les chameaux</i>,' I said. + </p> + <p> + And she whisked our glasses off the table, and flounced out without a + word. + </p> + <p> + But she would not come in again with the milk. A German girl brought it. + We laughed, and she smiled primly. + </p> + <p> + When we set forth again, Emil rolled up his sleeves and turned back his + shirt from his neck and breast, to do the thing thoroughly. Besides, it + was midday, and the sun was hot; and, with his bulky pack on his back, he + suggested the camel of the French maid more than ever. + </p> + <p> + We were on the downward slope. Only a short way from the hotel, and there + was the drop, the great cleft in the mountains running down from this + shallow pot among the peaks. + </p> + <p> + The descent on the south side is much more precipitous and wonderful than + the ascent from the north. On the south, the rocks are craggy and + stupendous; the little river falls headlong down; it is not a stream, it + is one broken, panting cascade far away in the gulley below, in the + darkness. + </p> + <p> + But on the slopes the sun pours in, the road winds down with its tail in + its mouth, always in endless loops returning on itself. The mules that + travel upward seem to be treading in a mill. + </p> + <p> + Emil took the narrow tracks, and, like the water, we cascaded down, + leaping from level to level, leaping, running, leaping, descending + headlong, only resting now and again when we came down on to another level + of the high-road. + </p> + <p> + Having begun, we could not help ourselves, we were like two stones + bouncing down. Emil was highly elated. He waved his thin, bare, white arms + as he leapt, his chest grew pink with the exercise. Now he felt he was + doing something that became a member of his Sportverein. Down we went, + jumping, running, britching. + </p> + <p> + It was wonderful on this south side, so sunny, with feathery trees and + deep black shadows. It reminded me of Goethe, of the romantic period: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>Kennst du das Land, wo die Citronen blühen?</i> +</pre> + <p> + So we went tumbling down into the south, very swiftly, along with the + tumbling stream. But it was very tiring. We went at a great pace down the + gully, between the sheer rocks. Trees grew in the ledges high over our + heads, trees grew down below. And ever we descended. + </p> + <p> + Till gradually the gully opened, then opened into a wide valley-head, and + we saw Airolo away below us, the railway emerging from its hole, the whole + valley like a cornucopia full of sunshine. + </p> + <p> + Poor Emil was tired, more tired than I was. And his big boots had hurt his + feet in the descent. So, having come to the open valley-head, we went more + gently. He had become rather quiet. + </p> + <p> + The head of the valley had that half-tamed, ancient aspect that reminded + me of the Romans. I could only expect the Roman legions to be encamped + down there; and the white goats feeding on the bushes belonged to a Roman + camp. + </p> + <p> + But no, we saw again the barracks of the Swiss soldiery, and again we were + in the midst of rifle-fire and manoeuvres. But we went evenly, tired now, + and hungry. We had nothing to eat. + </p> + <p> + It is strange how different the sun-dried, ancient, southern slopes of the + world are, from the northern slopes. It is as if the god Pan really had + his home among these sun-bleached stones and tough, sun-dark trees. And + one knows it all in one's blood, it is pure, sun-dried memory. So I was + content, coming down into Airolo. + </p> + <p> + We found the streets were Italian, the houses sunny outside and dark + within, like Italy, there were laurels in the road. Poor Emil was a + foreigner all at once. He rolled down his shirt sleeves and fastened his + shirt-neck, put on his coat and collar, and became a foreigner in his + soul, pale and strange. + </p> + <p> + I saw a shop with vegetables and grapes, a real Italian shop, a dark cave. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Quanto costa l'uva?</i>' were my first words in the south. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Sessanta al chilo</i>,' said the girl. + </p> + <p> + And it was as pleasant as a drink of wine, the Italian. + </p> + <p> + So Emil and I ate the sweet black grapes as we went to the station. + </p> + <p> + He was very poor. We went into the third-class restaurant at the station. + He ordered beer and bread and sausage; I ordered soup and boiled beef and + vegetables. + </p> + <p> + They brought me a great quantity, so, whilst the girl was serving + coffee-with-rum to the men at the bar, I took another spoon and knife and + fork and plates for Emil, and we had two dinners from my one. When the + girl—she was a woman of thirty-five—came back, she looked at + us sharply. I smiled at her coaxingly; so she gave a small, kindly smile + in reply. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Ja, dies ist reizend</i>,' said Emil, <i>sotto voce</i>, exulting. He + was very shy. But we were curiously happy, in that railway restaurant. + </p> + <p> + Then we sat very still, on the platform, and waited for the train. It was + like Italy, pleasant and social to wait in the railway station, all the + world easy and warm in its activity, with the sun shining. + </p> + <p> + I decided to take a franc's worth of train-journey. So I chose my station. + It was one franc twenty, third class. Then my train came, and Emil and I + parted, he waving to me till I was out of sight. I was sorry he had to go + back, he did so want to venture forth. + </p> + <p> + So I slid for a dozen miles or more, sleepily, down the Ticino valley, + sitting opposite two fat priests in their feminine black. + </p> + <p> + When I got out at my station I felt for the first time ill at ease. Why + was I getting out at this wayside place, on to the great, raw high-road? I + did not know. But I set off walking. It was nearly tea-time. + </p> + <p> + Nothing in the world is more ghastly than these Italian roads, new, + mechanical, belonging to a machine life. The old roads are wonderful, + skilfully aiming their way. But these new great roads are desolating, more + desolating than all the ruins in the world. + </p> + <p> + I walked on and on, down the Ticino valley, towards Bellinzona. The valley + was perhaps beautiful: I don't know. I can only remember the road. It was + broad and new, and it ran very often beside the railway. It ran also by + quarries and by occasional factories, also through villages. And the + quality of its sordidness is something that does not bear thinking of, a + quality that has entered Italian life now, if it was not there before. + </p> + <p> + Here and there, where there were quarries or industries, great + lodging-houses stood naked by the road, great, grey, desolate places; and + squalid children were playing round the steps, and dirty men slouched in. + Everything seemed under a weight. + </p> + <p> + Down the road of the Ticino valley I felt again my terror of this new + world which is coming into being on top of us. One always feels it in a + suburb, on the edge of a town, where the land is being broken under the + advance of houses. But this is nothing, in England, to the terror one + feels on the new Italian roads, where these great blind cubes of dwellings + rise stark from the destroyed earth, swarming with a sort of verminous + life, really verminous, purely destructive. + </p> + <p> + It seems to happen when the peasant suddenly leaves his home and becomes a + workman. Then an entire change comes over everywhere. Life is now a matter + of selling oneself to slave-work, building roads or labouring in quarries + or mines or on the railways, purposeless, meaningless, really slave-work, + each integer doing his mere labour, and all for no purpose, except to have + money, and to get away from the old system. + </p> + <p> + These Italian navvies work all day long, their whole life is engaged in + the mere brute labour. And they are the navvies of the world. And whilst + they are navvying, they are almost shockingly indifferent to their + circumstances, merely callous to the dirt and foulness. + </p> + <p> + It is as if the whole social form were breaking down, and the human + element swarmed within the disintegration, like maggots in cheese. The + roads, the railways are built, the mines and quarries are excavated, but + the whole organism of life, the social organism, is slowly crumbling and + caving in, in a kind of process of dry rot, most terrifying to see. So + that it seems as though we should be left at last with a great system of + roads and railways and industries, and a world of utter chaos seething + upon these fabrications: as if we had created a steel framework, and the + whole body of society were crumbling and rotting in between. It is most + terrifying to realize; and I have always felt this terror upon a new + Italian high-road—more there than anywhere. + </p> + <p> + The remembrance of the Ticino valley is a sort of nightmare to me. But it + was better when at last, in the darkness of night, I got into Bellinzona. + In the midst of the town one felt the old organism still living. It is + only at its extremities that it is falling to pieces, as in dry rot. + </p> + <p> + In the morning, leaving Bellinzona, again I went in terror of the new, + evil high-road, with its skirting of huge cubical houses and its seething + navvy population. Only the peasants driving in with fruit were consoling. + But I was afraid of them: the same spirit had set in in them. + </p> + <p> + I was no longer happy in Switzerland, not even when I was eating great + blackberries and looking down at the Lago Maggiore, at Locarno, lying by + the lake; the terror of the callous, disintegrating process was too strong + in me. + </p> + <p> + At a little inn a man was very good to me. He went into his garden and + fetched me the first grapes and apples and peaches, bringing them in + amongst leaves, and heaping them before me. He was Italian-Swiss; he had + been in a bank in Bern; now he had retired, had bought his paternal home, + and was a free man. He was about fifty years old; he spent all his time in + his garden; his daughter attended to the inn. + </p> + <p> + He talked to me, as long as I stayed, about Italy and Switzerland and work + and life. He was retired, he was free. But he was only nominally free. He + had only achieved freedom from labour. He knew that the system he had + escaped at last, persisted, and would consume his sons and his + grandchildren. He himself had more or less escaped back to the old form; + but as he came with me on to the hillside, looking down the high-road at + Lugano in the distance, he knew that his old order was collapsing by a + slow process of disintegration. + </p> + <p> + Why did he talk to me as if I had any hope, as if I represented any + positive truth as against this great negative truth that was advancing up + the hill-side. Again I was afraid. I hastened down the high-road, past the + houses, the grey, raw crystals of corruption. + </p> + <p> + I saw a girl with handsome bare legs, ankles shining like brass in the + sun. She was working in a field, on the edge of a vineyard. I stopped to + look at her, suddenly fascinated by her handsome naked flesh that shone + like brass. + </p> + <p> + Then she called out to me, in a jargon I could not understand, something + mocking and challenging. And her voice was raucous and challenging; I went + on, afraid. + </p> + <p> + In Lugano I stayed at a German hotel. I remember sitting on a seat in the + darkness by the lake, watching the stream of promenaders patrolling the + edge of the water, under the trees and the lamps. I can still see many of + their faces: English, German, Italian, French. And it seemed here, here in + this holiday-place, was the quick of the disintegration, the dry-rot, in + this dry, friable flux of people backwards and forwards on the edge of the + lake, men and women from the big hotels, in evening dress, curiously + sinister, and ordinary visitors, and tourists, and workmen, youths, men of + the town, laughing, jeering. It was curiously and painfully sinister, + almost obscene. + </p> + <p> + I sat a long time among them, thinking of the girl with her limbs of + glowing brass. Then at last I went up to the hotel, and sat in the lounge + looking at the papers. It was the same here as down below, though not so + intense, the feeling of horror. + </p> + <p> + So I went to bed. The hotel was on the edge of a steep declivity. I + wondered why the whole hills did not slide down, in some great natural + catastrophe. + </p> + <p> + In the morning I walked along the side of the Lake of Lugano, to where I + could take a steamer to ferry me down to the end. The lake is not + beautiful, only picturesque. I liked most to think of the Romans coming to + it. + </p> + <p> + So I steamed down to the lower end of the water. When I landed and went + along by a sort of railway I saw a group of men. Suddenly they began to + whoop and shout. They were hanging on to an immense pale bullock, which + was slung up to be shod; and it was lunging and kicking with terrible + energy. It was strange to see that mass of pale, soft-looking flesh + working with such violent frenzy, convulsed with violent, active frenzy, + whilst men and women hung on to it with ropes, hung on and weighed it + down. But again it scattered some of them in its terrible convulsion. + Human beings scattered into the road, the whole place was covered with hot + dung. And when the bullock began to lunge again, the men set up a howl, + half of triumph, half of derision. + </p> + <p> + I went on, not wanting to see. I went along a very dusty road. But it was + not so terrifying, this road. Perhaps it was older. + </p> + <p> + In dreary little Chiasso I drank coffee, and watched the come and go + through the Customs. The Swiss and the Italian Customs officials had their + offices within a few yards of each other, and everybody must stop. I went + in and showed my rucksack to the Italian, then I mounted a tram, and went + to the Lake of Como. + </p> + <p> + In the tram were dressed-up women, fashionable, but business-like. They + had come by train to Chiasso, or else had been shopping in the town. + </p> + <p> + When we came to the terminus a young miss, dismounting before me, left + behind her parasol. I had been conscious of my dusty, grimy appearance as + I sat in the tram, I knew they thought me a workman on the roads. However, + I forgot that when it was time to dismount. + </p> + <p> + '<i>Pardon, Mademoiselle</i>,' I said to the young miss. She turned and + withered me with a rather overdone contempt—'<i>bourgeoise</i>,' I + said to myself, as I looked at her—'<i>Vous avez laissé votre + parasol</i>.' + </p> + <p> + She turned, and with a rapacious movement darted upon her parasol. How her + soul was in her possessions! I stood and watched her. Then she went into + the road and under the trees, haughty, a demoiselle. She had on white kid + boots. + </p> + <p> + I thought of the Lake of Como what I had thought of Lugano: it must have + been wonderful when the Romans came there. Now it is all villas. I think + only the sunrise is still wonderful, sometimes. + </p> + <p> + I took the steamer down to Como, and slept in a vast old stone cavern of + an inn, a remarkable place, with rather nice people. In the morning I went + out. The peace and the bygone beauty of the cathedral created the glow of + the great past. And in the market-place they were selling chestnuts + wholesale, great heaps of bright, brown chestnuts, and sacks of chestnuts, + and peasants very eager selling and buying. I thought of Como, it must + have been wonderful even a hundred years ago. Now it is cosmopolitan, the + cathedral is like a relic, a museum object, everywhere stinks of + mechanical money-pleasure. I dared not risk walking to Milan: I took a + train. And there, in Milan, sitting in the Cathedral Square, on Saturday + afternoon, drinking Bitter Campari and watching the swarm of Italian + city-men drink and talk vivaciously, I saw that here the life was still + vivid, here the process of disintegration was vigorous, and centred in a + multiplicity of mechanical activities that engage the human mind as well + as the body. But always there was the same purpose stinking in it all, the + mechanizing, the perfect mechanizing of human life. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Twilight in Italy, by D. H. 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Lawrence + +Posting Date: August 5, 2012 [EBook #9497] +Release Date: December, 2005 +First Posted: October 6, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT IN ITALY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + +TWILIGHT IN ITALY + + +By D. H. Lawrence + +1916 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE CRUCIFIX ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS + +ON THE LAGO DI GARDA + 1 _The Spinner and the Monks_ + 2 _The Lemon Gardens_ + 3 _The Theatre_ + 4 _San Gaudenzio_ + 5 _The Dance_ + 6 _Il Duro_ + 7 _John_ + +ITALIANS IN EXILE + +THE RETURN JOURNEY + + + + +_The Crucifix Across the Mountains_ + + +The imperial road to Italy goes from Munich across the Tyrol, through +Innsbruck and Bozen to Verona, over the mountains. Here the great +processions passed as the emperors went South, or came home again from +rosy Italy to their own Germany. + +And how much has that old imperial vanity clung to the German soul? Did +not the German kings inherit the empire of bygone Rome? It was not a +very real empire, perhaps, but the sound was high and splendid. + +Maybe a certain Groessenwahn is inherent in the German nature. If only +nations would realize that they have certain natural characteristics, if +only they could understand and agree to each other's particular nature, +how much simpler it would all be. + +The imperial procession no longer crosses the mountains, going South. +That is almost forgotten, the road has almost passed out of mind. But +still it is there, and its signs are standing. + +The crucifixes are there, not mere attributes of the road, yet still +having something to do with it. The imperial processions, blessed by the +Pope and accompanied by the great bishops, must have planted the holy +idol like a new plant among the mountains, there where it multiplied and +grew according to the soil, and the race that received it. + +As one goes among the Bavarian uplands and foothills, soon one realizes +here is another land, a strange religion. It is a strange country, +remote, out of contact. Perhaps it belongs to the forgotten, imperial +processions. + +Coming along the clear, open roads that lead to the mountains, one +scarcely notices the crucifixes and the shrines. Perhaps one's interest +is dead. The crucifix itself is nothing, a factory-made piece of +sentimentalism. The soul ignores it. + +But gradually, one after another looming shadowily under their hoods, +the crucifixes seem to create a new atmosphere over the whole of the +countryside, a darkness, a weight in the air that is so unnaturally +bright and rare with the reflection from the snows above, a darkness +hovering just over the earth. So rare and unearthly the light is, from +the mountains, full of strange radiance. Then every now and again recurs +the crucifix, at the turning of an open, grassy road, holding a shadow +and a mystery under its pointed hood. + +I was startled into consciousness one evening, going alone over a marshy +place at the foot of the mountains, when the sky was pale and unearthly, +invisible, and the hills were nearly black. At a meeting of the tracks +was a crucifix, and between the feet of the Christ a handful of withered +poppies. It was the poppies I saw, then the Christ. + +It was an old shrine, the wood-sculpture of a Bavarian peasant. The +Christ was a peasant of the foot of the Alps. He had broad cheekbones +and sturdy limbs. His plain, rudimentary face stared fixedly at the +hills, his neck was stiffened, as if in resistance to the fact of the +nails and the cross, which he could not escape. It was a man nailed down +in spirit, but set stubbornly against the bondage and the disgrace. He +was a man of middle age, plain, crude, with some of the meanness of the +peasant, but also with a kind of dogged nobility that does not yield its +soul to the circumstance. Plain, almost blank in his soul, the +middle-aged peasant of the crucifix resisted unmoving the misery of his +position. He did not yield. His soul was set, his will was fixed. He was +himself, let his circumstances be what they would, his life fixed down. + +Across the marsh was a tiny square of orange-coloured light, from the +farm-house with the low, spreading roof. I remembered how the man and +his wife and the children worked on till dark, silent and intent, +carrying the hay in their arms out of the streaming thunder-rain into +the shed, working silent in the soaking rain. + +The body bent forward towards the earth, closing round on itself; the +arms clasped full of hay, clasped round the hay that presses soft and +close to the breast and the body, that pricks heat into the arms and the +skin of the breast, and fills the lungs with the sleepy scent of dried +herbs: the rain that falls heavily and wets the shoulders, so that the +shirt clings to the hot, firm skin and the rain comes with heavy, +pleasant coldness on the active flesh, running in a trickle down towards +the loins, secretly; this is the peasant, this hot welter of physical +sensation. And it is all intoxicating. It is intoxicating almost like a +soporific, like a sensuous drug, to gather the burden to one's body in +the rain, to stumble across the living grass to the shed, to relieve +one's arms of the weight, to throw down the hay on to the heap, to feel +light and free in the dry shed, then to return again into the chill, +hard rain, to stoop again under the rain, and rise to return again with +the burden. + +It is this, this endless heat and rousedness of physical sensation which +keeps the body full and potent, and flushes the mind with a blood heat, +a blood sleep. And this sleep, this heat of physical experience, becomes +at length a bondage, at last a crucifixion. It is the life and the +fulfilment of the peasant, this flow of sensuous experience. But at last +it drives him almost mad, because he cannot escape. + +For overhead there is always the strange radiance of the mountains, +there is the mystery of the icy river rushing through its pink shoals +into the darkness of the pine-woods, there is always the faint tang of +ice on the air, and the rush of hoarse-sounding water. + +And the ice and the upper radiance of snow are brilliant with timeless +immunity from the flux and the warmth of life. Overhead they transcend +all life, all the soft, moist fire of the blood. So that a man must +needs live under the radiance of his own negation. + +There is a strange, clear beauty of form about the men of the Bavarian +highlands, about both men and women. They are large and clear and +handsome in form, with blue eyes very keen, the pupil small, tightened, +the iris keen, like sharp light shining on blue ice. Their large, +full-moulded limbs and erect bodies are distinct, separate, as if they +were perfectly chiselled out of the stuff of life, static, cut off. +Where they are everything is set back, as in a clear frosty air. + +Their beauty is almost this, this strange, clean-cut isolation, as if +each one of them would isolate himself still further and for ever from +the rest of his fellows. + +Yet they are convivial, they are almost the only race with the souls of +artists. Still they act the mystery plays with instinctive fullness of +interpretation, they sing strangely in the mountain fields, they love +make-belief and mummery, their processions and religious festivals are +profoundly impressive, solemn, and rapt. + +It is a race that moves on the poles of mystic sensual delight. Every +gesture is a gesture from the blood, every expression is a symbolic +utterance. + +For learning there is sensuous experience, for thought there is myth and +drama and dancing and singing. Everything is of the blood, of the +senses. There is no mind. The mind is a suffusion of physical heat, it +is not separated, it is kept submerged. + +At the same time, always, overhead, there is the eternal, negative +radiance of the snows. Beneath is life, the hot jet of the blood playing +elaborately. But above is the radiance of changeless not-being. And life +passes away into this changeless radiance. Summer and the prolific +blue-and-white flowering of the earth goes by, with the labour and the +ecstasy of man, disappears, and is gone into brilliance that hovers +overhead, the radiant cold which waits to receive back again all that +which has passed for the moment into being. + +The issue is too much revealed. It leaves the peasant no choice. The +fate gleams transcendent above him, the brightness of eternal, +unthinkable not-being. And this our life, this admixture of labour and +of warm experience in the flesh, all the time it is steaming up to the +changeless brilliance above, the light of the everlasting snows. This is +the eternal issue. + +Whether it is singing or dancing or play-acting or physical transport of +love, or vengeance or cruelty, or whether it is work or sorrow or +religion, the issue is always the same at last, into the radiant +negation of eternity. Hence the beauty and completeness, the finality of +the highland peasant. His figure, his limbs, his face, his motion, it is +all formed in beauty, and it is all completed. There is no flux nor hope +nor becoming, all is, once and for all. The issue is eternal, timeless, +and changeless. All being and all passing away is part of the issue, +which is eternal and changeless. Therefore there is no becoming and no +passing away. Everything is, now and for ever. Hence the strange beauty +and finality and isolation of the Bavarian peasant. + +It is plain in the crucifixes. Here is the essence rendered in sculpture +of wood. The face is blank and stiff, almost expressionless. One +realizes with a start how unchanging and conventionalized is the face of +the living man and woman of these parts, handsome, but motionless as +pure form. There is also an underlying meanness, secretive, cruel. It is +all part of the beauty, the pure, plastic beauty. The body also of the +Christus is stiff and conventionalized, yet curiously beautiful in +proportion, and in the static tension which makes it unified into one +clear thing. There is no movement, no possible movement. The being is +fixed, finally. The whole body is locked in one knowledge, beautiful, +complete. It is one with the nails. Not that it is languishing or dead. +It is stubborn, knowing its own undeniable being, sure of the absolute +reality of the sensuous experience. Though he is nailed down upon an +irrevocable fate, yet, within that fate he has the power and the delight +of all sensuous experience. So he accepts the fate and the mystic +delight of the senses with one will, he is complete and final. His +sensuous experience is supreme, a consummation of life and death +at once. + +It is the same at all times, whether it is moving with the scythe on the +hill-slopes, or hewing the timber, or steering the raft down the river +which is all effervescent with ice; whether it is drinking in the +Gasthaus, or making love, or playing some mummer's part, or hating +steadily and cruelly, or whether it is kneeling in spellbound subjection +in the incense-filled church, or walking in the strange, dark, +subject-procession to bless the fields, or cutting the young birch-trees +for the feast of Frohenleichnam, it is always the same, the dark, +powerful mystic, sensuous experience is the whole of him, he is mindless +and bound within the absoluteness of the issue, the unchangeability of +the great icy not-being which holds good for ever, and is supreme. + +Passing further away, towards Austria, travelling up the Isar, till the +stream becomes smaller and whiter and the air is colder, the full +glamour of the northern hills, which are so marvellously luminous and +gleaming with flowers, wanes and gives way to a darkness, a sense of +ominousness. Up there I saw another little Christ, who seemed the very +soul of the place. The road went beside the river, that was seething +with snowy ice-bubbles, under the rocks and the high, wolf-like +pine-trees, between the pinkish shoals. The air was cold and hard and +high, everything was cold and separate. And in a little glass case +beside the road sat a small, hewn Christ, the head resting on the hand; +and he meditates, half-wearily, doggedly, the eyebrows lifted in strange +abstraction, the elbow resting on the knee. Detached, he sits and dreams +and broods, wearing his little golden crown of thorns, and his little +cloak of red flannel that some peasant woman has stitched for him. + +No doubt he still sits there, the small, blank-faced Christ in the cloak +of red flannel, dreaming, brooding, enduring, persisting. There is a +wistfulness about him, as if he knew that the whole of things was too +much for him. There was no solution, either, in death. Death did not +give the answer to the soul's anxiety. That which is, is. It does not +cease to be when it is cut. Death cannot create nor destroy. What +is, is. + +The little brooding Christ knows this. What is he brooding, then? His +static patience and endurance is wistful. What is it that he secretly +yearns for, amid all the placidity of fate? 'To be, or not to be,' this +may be the question, but is it not a question for death to answer. It is +not a question of living or not-living. It is a question of being--to be +or not to be. To persist or not to persist, that is not the question; +neither is it to endure or not to endure. The issue, is it eternal +not-being? If not, what, then, is being? For overhead the eternal +radiance of the snow gleams unfailing, it receives the efflorescence of +all life and is unchanged, the issue is bright and immortal, the snowy +not-being. What, then, is being? + +As one draws nearer to the turning-point of the Alps, towards the +culmination and the southern slope, the influence of the educated world +is felt once more. Bavaria is remote in spirit, as yet unattached. Its +crucifixes are old and grey and abstract, small like the kernel of the +truth. Further into Austria they become new, they are painted white, +they are larger, more obtrusive. They are the expressions of a later, +newer phase, more introspective and self-conscious. But still they are +genuine expressions of the people's soul. + +Often one can distinguish the work of a particular artist here and there +in a district. In the Zemm valley, in the heart of the Tyrol, behind +Innsbruck, there are five or six crucifixes by one sculptor. He is no +longer a peasant working out an idea, conveying a dogma. He is an +artist, trained and conscious, probably working in Vienna. He is +consciously trying to convey a _feeling_, he is no longer striving +awkwardly to render a truth, a religious fact. + +The chief of his crucifixes stands deep in the Klamm, in the dank gorge +where it is always half-night. The road runs under the rock and the +trees, half-way up the one side of the pass. Below, the stream rushes +ceaselessly, embroiled among great stones, making an endless loud noise. +The rock face opposite rises high overhead, with the sky far up. So that +one is walking in a half-night, an underworld. And just below the path, +where the pack-horses go climbing to the remote, infolded villages, in +the cold gloom of the pass hangs the large, pale Christ. He is larger +than life-size. He has fallen forward, just dead, and the weight of the +full-grown, mature body hangs on the nails of the hands. So the dead, +heavy body drops forward, sags, as if it would tear away and fall under +its own weight. + +It is the end. The face is barren with a dead expression of weariness, +and brutalized with pain and bitterness. The rather ugly, passionate +mouth is set for ever in the disillusionment of death. Death is the +complete disillusionment, set like a seal over the whole body and being, +over the suffering and weariness and the bodily passion. + +The pass is gloomy and damp, the water roars unceasingly, till it is +almost like a constant pain. The driver of the pack-horses, as he comes +up the narrow path in the side of the gorge, cringes his sturdy +cheerfulness as if to obliterate himself, drawing near to the large, +pale Christ, and he takes his hat off as he passes, though he does not +look up, but keeps his face averted from the crucifix. He hurries by in +the gloom, climbing the steep path after his horses, and the large white +Christ hangs extended above. + +The driver of the pack-horses is afraid. The fear is always there in +him, in spite of his sturdy, healthy robustness. His soul is not sturdy. +It is blenched and whitened with fear. The mountains are dark overhead, +the water roars in the gloom below. His heart is ground between the +mill-stones of dread. When he passes the extended body of the dead +Christ he takes off his hat to the Lord of Death. Christ is the Deathly +One, He is Death incarnate. + +And the driver of the pack-horses acknowledges this deathly Christ as +supreme Lord. The mountain peasant seems grounded upon fear, the fear of +death, of physical death. Beyond this he knows nothing. His supreme +sensation is in physical pain, and in its culmination. His great climax, +his consummation, is death. Therefore he worships it, bows down before +it, and is fascinated by it all the while. It is his fulfilment, death, +and his approach to fulfilment is through physical pain. + +And so these monuments to physical death are found everywhere in the +valleys. By the same hand that carved the big Christ, a little further +on, at the end of a bridge, was another crucifix, a small one. This +Christ had a fair beard, and was thin, and his body was hanging almost +lightly, whereas the other Christ was large and dark and handsome. But +in this, as well as in the other, was the same neutral triumph of death, +complete, negative death, so complete as to be abstract, beyond cynicism +in its completeness of leaving off. + +Everywhere is the same obsession with the fact of physical pain, +accident, and sudden death. Wherever a misfortune has befallen a man, +there is nailed up a little memorial of the event, in propitiation of +the God of hurt and death. A man is standing up to his waist in water, +drowning in full stream, his arms in the air. The little painting in its +wooden frame is nailed to the tree, the spot is sacred to the accident. +Again, another little crude picture fastened to a rock: a tree, falling +on a man's leg, smashes it like a stalk, while the blood flies up. +Always there is the strange ejaculation of anguish and fear, perpetuated +in the little paintings nailed up in the place of the disaster. + +This is the worship, then, the worship of death and the approaches to +death, physical violence, and pain. There is something crude and +sinister about it, almost like depravity, a form of reverting, turning +back along the course of blood by which we have come. + +Turning the ridge on the great road to the south, the imperial road to +Rome, a decisive change takes place. The Christs have been taking on +various different characters, all of them more or less realistically +conveyed. One Christus is very elegant, combed and brushed and foppish +on his cross, as Gabriele D'Annunzio's son posing as a martyred saint. +The martyrdom of this Christ is according to the most polite convention. +The elegance is very important, and very Austrian. One might almost +imagine the young man had taken up this striking and original position +to create a delightful sensation among the ladies. It is quite in the +Viennese spirit. There is something brave and keen in it, too. The +individual pride of body triumphs over every difficulty in the +situation. The pride and satisfaction in the clean, elegant form, the +perfectly trimmed hair, the exquisite bearing, are more important than +the fact of death or pain. This may be foolish, it is at the same time +admirable. + +But the tendency of the crucifix, as it nears the ridge to the south, is +to become weak and sentimental. The carved Christs turn up their faces +and roll back their eyes very piteously, in the approved Guido Reni +fashion. They are overdoing the pathetic turn. They are looking to +heaven and thinking about themselves, in self-commiseration. Others +again are beautiful as elegies. It is dead Hyacinth lifted and extended +to view, in all his beautiful, dead youth. The young, male body droops +forward on the cross, like a dead flower. It looks as if its only true +nature were to be dead. How lovely is death, how poignant, real, +satisfying! It is the true elegiac spirit. + +Then there are the ordinary, factory-made Christs, which are not very +significant. They are as null as the Christs we see represented in +England, just vulgar nothingness. But these figures have gashes of red, +a red paint of blood, which is sensational. + +Beyond the Brenner, I have only seen vulgar or sensational crucifixes. +There are great gashes on the breast and the knees of the Christ-figure, +and the scarlet flows out and trickles down, till the crucified body has +become a ghastly striped thing of red and white, just a sickly thing of +striped red. + +They paint the rocks at the corners of the tracks, among the mountains; +a blue and white ring for the road to Ginzling, a red smear for the way +to St Jakob. So one follows the blue and white ring, or the three +stripes of blue and white, or the red smear, as the case may be. And the +red on the rocks, the dabs of red paint, are of just the same colour as +the red upon the crucifixes; so that the red upon the crucifixes is +paint, and the signs on the rocks are sensational, like blood. + +I remember the little brooding Christ of the Isar, in his little cloak +of red flannel and his crown of gilded thorns, and he remains real and +dear to me, among all this violence of representation. + +'_Couvre-toi de gloire, Tartarin--couvre-toi de flanelle._' Why should +it please me so that his cloak is of red flannel? + +In a valley near St Jakob, just over the ridge, a long way from the +railway, there is a very big, important shrine by the roadside. It is a +chapel built in the baroque manner, florid pink and cream outside, with +opulent small arches. And inside is the most startling sensational +Christus I have ever seen. He is a big, powerful man, seated after the +crucifixion, perhaps after the resurrection, sitting by the grave. He +sits sideways, as if the extremity were over, finished, the agitation +done with, only the result of the experience remaining. There is some +blood on his powerful, naked, defeated body, that sits rather hulked. +But it is the face which is so terrifying. It is slightly turned over +the hulked, crucified shoulder, to look. And the look of this face, of +which the body has been killed, is beyond all expectation horrible. The +eyes look at one, yet have no seeing in them, they seem to see only +their own blood. For they are bloodshot till the whites are scarlet, the +iris is purpled. These red, bloody eyes with their stained pupils, +glancing awfully at all who enter the shrine, looking as if to see +through the blood of the late brutal death, are terrible. The naked, +strong body has known death, and sits in utter dejection, finished, +hulked, a weight of shame. And what remains of life is in the face, +whose expression is sinister and gruesome, like that of an unrelenting +criminal violated by torture. The criminal look of misery and hatred on +the fixed, violated face and in the bloodshot eyes is almost impossible. +He is conquered, beaten, broken, his body is a mass of torture, an +unthinkable shame. Yet his will remains obstinate and ugly, integral +with utter hatred. + +It is a great shock to find this figure sitting in a handsome, baroque, +pink-washed shrine in one of those Alpine valleys which to our thinking +are all flowers and romance, like the picture in the Tate Gallery. +'Spring in the Austrian Tyrol' is to our minds a vision of pristine +loveliness. It contains also this Christ of the heavy body defiled by +torture and death, the strong, virile life overcome by physical +violence, the eyes still looking back bloodshot in consummate hate +and misery. + +The shrine was well kept and evidently much used. It was hung with +ex-voto limbs and with many gifts. It was a centre of worship, of a sort +of almost obscene worship. Afterwards the black pine-trees and the river +of that valley seemed unclean, as if an unclean spirit lived there. The +very flowers seemed unnatural, and the white gleam on the mountain-tops +was a glisten of supreme, cynical horror. + +After this, in the populous valleys, all the crucifixes were more or +less tainted and vulgar. Only high up, where the crucifix becomes +smaller and smaller, is there left any of the old beauty and religion. +Higher and higher, the monument becomes smaller and smaller, till in the +snows it stands out like a post, or a thick arrow stuck barb upwards. +The crucifix itself is a small thing under the pointed hood, the barb of +the arrow. The snow blows under the tiny shed, upon the little, exposed +Christ. All round is the solid whiteness of snow, the awful curves and +concaves of pure whiteness of the mountain top, the hollow whiteness +between the peaks, where the path crosses the high, extreme ridge of the +pass. And here stands the last crucifix, half buried, small and tufted +with snow. The guides tramp slowly, heavily past, not observing the +presence of the symbol, making no salute. Further down, every mountain +peasant lifted his hat. But the guide tramps by without concern. His is +a professional importance now. + +On a small mountain track on the Jaufen, not far from Meran, was a +fallen Christus. I was hurrying downhill to escape from an icy wind +which almost took away my consciousness, and I was looking up at the +gleaming, unchanging snow-peaks all round. They seemed like blades +immortal in the sky. So I almost ran into a very old Martertafel. It +leaned on the cold, stony hillside surrounded by the white peaks in the +upper air. + +The wooden hood was silver-grey with age, and covered, on the top, with +a thicket of lichen, which stuck up in hoary tufts. But on the rock at +the foot of the post was the fallen Christ, armless, who had tumbled +down and lay in an unnatural posture, the naked, ancient wooden +sculpture of the body on the naked, living rock. It was one of the old +uncouth Christs hewn out of bare wood, having the long, wedge-shaped +limbs and thin flat legs that are significant of the true spirit, the +desire to convey a religious truth, not a sensational experience. + +The arms of the fallen Christ had broken off at the shoulders, and they +hung on their nails, as ex-voto limbs hang in the shrines. But these +arms dangled from the palms, one at each end of the cross, the muscles, +carved sparely in the old wood, looking all wrong, upside down. And the +icy wind blew them backwards and forwards, so that they gave a painful +impression, there in the stark, sterile place of rock and cold. Yet I +dared not touch the fallen body of the Christ, that lay on its back in +so grotesque a posture at the foot of the post. I wondered who would +come and take the broken thing away, and for what purpose. + + + + +_On the Lago di Garda_ + + + +_1_ + +THE SPINNER AND THE MONKS + + +The Holy Spirit is a Dove, or an Eagle. In the Old Testament it was an +Eagle; in the New Testament it is a Dove. + +And there are, standing over the Christian world, the Churches of the +Dove and the Churches of the Eagle. There are, moreover, the Churches +which do not belong to the Holy Spirit at all, but which are built to +pure fancy and logic; such as the Wren Churches in London. + +The Churches of the Dove are shy and hidden: they nestle among trees, +and their bells sound in the mellowness of Sunday; or they are gathered +into a silence of their own in the very midst of the town, so that one +passes them by without observing them; they are as if invisible, +offering no resistance to the storming of the traffic. + +But the Churches of the Eagle stand high, with their heads to the skies, +as if they challenged the world below. They are the Churches of the +Spirit of David, and their bells ring passionately, imperiously, falling +on the subservient world below. + +The Church of San Francesco was a Church of the Dove. I passed it +several times in the dark, silent little square, without knowing it was +a church. Its pink walls were blind, windowless, unnoticeable, it gave +no sign, unless one caught sight of the tan curtain hanging in the door, +and the slit of darkness beneath. Yet it was the chief church of +the village. + +But the Church of San Tommaso perched over the village. Coming down the +cobbled, submerged street, many a time I looked up between the houses +and saw the thin old church standing above in the light, as if it +perched on the house-roofs. Its thin grey neck was held up stiffly, +beyond was a vision of dark foliage, and the high hillside. + +I saw it often, and yet for a long time it never occurred to me that it +actually existed. It was like a vision, a thing one does not expect to +come close to. It was there standing away upon the house-tops, against a +glamour of foliaged hillside. I was submerged in the village, on the +uneven, cobbled street, between old high walls and cavernous shops and +the houses with flights of steps. + +For a long time I knew how the day went, by the imperious clangour of +midday and evening bells striking down upon the houses and the edge of +the lake. Yet it did not occur to me to ask where these bells rang. Till +at last my everyday trance was broken in upon, and I knew the ringing of +the Church of San Tommaso. The church became a living connexion with me. + +So I set out to find it, I wanted to go to it. It was very near. I could +see it from the piazza by the lake. And the village itself had only a +few hundreds of inhabitants. The church must be within a stone's throw. + +Yet I could not find it. I went out of the back door of the house, into +the narrow gully of the back street. Women glanced down at me from the +top of the flights of steps, old men stood, half-turning, half-crouching +under the dark shadow of the walls, to stare. It was as if the strange +creatures of the under-shadow were looking at me. I was of +another element. + +The Italian people are called 'Children of the Sun'. They might better +be called 'Children of the Shadow'. Their souls are dark and nocturnal. +If they are to be easy, they must be able to hide, to be hidden in lairs +and caves of darkness. Going through these tiny chaotic backways of the +village was like venturing through the labyrinth made by furtive +creatures, who watched from out of another element. And I was pale, and +clear, and evanescent, like the light, and they were dark, and close, +and constant, like the shadow. + +So I was quite baffled by the tortuous, tiny, deep passages of the +village. I could not find my way. I hurried towards the broken end of a +street, where the sunshine and the olive trees looked like a mirage +before me. And there above me I saw the thin, stiff neck of old San +Tommaso, grey and pale in the sun. Yet I could not get up to the church, +I found myself again on the piazza. + +Another day, however, I found a broken staircase, where weeds grew in +the gaps the steps had made in falling, and maidenhair hung on the +darker side of the wall. I went up unwillingly, because the Italians +used this old staircase as a privy, as they will any deep side-passage. + +But I ran up the broken stairway, and came out suddenly, as by a +miracle, clean on the platform of my San Tommaso, in the +tremendous sunshine. + +It was another world, the world of the eagle, the world of fierce +abstraction. It was all clear, overwhelming sunshine, a platform hung in +the light. Just below were the confused, tiled roofs of the village, and +beyond them the pale blue water, down below; and opposite, opposite my +face and breast, the clear, luminous snow of the mountain across the +lake, level with me apparently, though really much above. + +I was in the skies now, looking down from my square terrace of cobbled +pavement, that was worn like the threshold of the ancient church. Round +the terrace ran a low, broad wall, the coping of the upper heaven where +I had climbed. + +There was a blood-red sail like a butterfly breathing down on the blue +water, whilst the earth on the near side gave off a green-silver smoke +of olive trees, coming up and around the earth-coloured roofs. + +It always remains to me that San Tommaso and its terrace hang suspended +above the village, like the lowest step of heaven, of Jacob's ladder. +Behind, the land rises in a high sweep. But the terrace of San Tommaso +is let down from heaven, and does not touch the earth. + +I went into the church. It was very dark, and impregnated with centuries +of incense. It affected me like the lair of some enormous creature. My +senses were roused, they sprang awake in the hot, spiced darkness. My +skin was expectant, as if it expected some contact, some embrace, as if +it were aware of the contiguity of the physical world, the physical +contact with the darkness and the heavy, suggestive substance of the +enclosure. It was a thick, fierce darkness of the senses. But my +soul shrank. + +I went out again. The pavemented threshold was clear as a jewel, the +marvellous clarity of sunshine that becomes blue in the height seemed to +distil me into itself. + +Across, the heavy mountain crouched along the side of the lake, the +upper half brilliantly white, belonging to the sky, the lower half dark +and grim. So, then, that is where heaven and earth are divided. From +behind me, on the left, the headland swept down out of a great, +pale-grey, arid height, through a rush of russet and crimson, to the +olive smoke and the water of the level earth. And between, like a blade +of the sky cleaving the earth asunder, went the pale-blue lake, cleaving +mountain from mountain with the triumph of the sky. + +Then I noticed that a big, blue-checked cloth was spread on the parapet +before me, over the parapet of heaven. I wondered why it hung there. + +Turning round, on the other side of the terrace, under a caper-bush that +hung like a blood-stain from the grey wall above her, stood a little +grey woman whose fingers were busy. Like the grey church, she made me +feel as if I were not in existence. I was wandering by the parapet of +heaven, looking down. But she stood back against the solid wall, under +the caper-bush, unobserved and unobserving. She was like a fragment of +earth, she was a living stone of the terrace, sun-bleached. She took no +notice of me, who was hesitating looking down at the earth beneath. She +stood back under the sun-bleached solid wall, like a stone rolled down +and stayed in a crevice. + +Her head was tied in a dark-red kerchief, but pieces of hair, like dirty +snow, quite short, stuck out over her ears. And she was spinning. I +wondered so much, that I could not cross towards her. She was grey, and +her apron, and her dress, and her kerchief, and her hands and her face +were all sun-bleached and sun-stained, greyey, bluey, browny, like +stones and half-coloured leaves, sunny in their colourlessness. In my +black coat, I felt myself wrong, false, an outsider. + +She was spinning, spontaneously, like a little wind. Under her arm she +held a distaff of dark, ripe wood, just a straight stick with a clutch +at the end, like a grasp of brown fingers full of a fluff of blackish, +rusty fleece, held up near her shoulder. And her fingers were plucking +spontaneously at the strands of wool drawn down from it. And hanging +near her feet, spinning round upon a black thread, spinning busily, like +a thing in a gay wind, was her shuttle, her bobbin wound fat with the +coarse, blackish worsted she was making. + +All the time, like motion without thought, her fingers teased out the +fleece, drawing it down to a fairly uniform thickness: brown, old, +natural fingers that worked as in a sleep, the thumb having a long grey +nail; and from moment to moment there was a quick, downward rub, between +thumb and forefinger, of the thread that hung in front of her apron, the +heavy bobbin spun more briskly, and she felt again at the fleece as she +drew it down, and she gave a twist to the thread that issued, and the +bobbin spun swiftly. + +Her eyes were clear as the sky, blue, empyrean, transcendent. They were +dear, but they had no looking in them. Her face was like a +sun-worn stone. + +'You are spinning,' I said to her. + +Her eyes glanced over me, making no effort of attention. + +'Yes,' she said. + +She saw merely a man's figure, a stranger standing near. I was a bit of +the outside, negligible. She remained as she was, clear and sustained +like an old stone upon the hillside. She stood short and sturdy, looking +for the most part straight in front, unseeing, but glancing from time to +time, with a little, unconscious attention, at the thread. She was +slightly more animated than the sunshine and the stone and the +motionless caper-bush above her. Still her fingers went along the strand +of fleece near her breast. + +'That is an old way of spinning,' I said. + +'What?' + +She looked up at me with eyes clear and transcendent as the heavens. But +she was slightly roused. There was the slight motion of the eagle in her +turning to look at me, a faint gleam of rapt light in her eyes. It was +my unaccustomed Italian. + +'That is an old way of spinning,' I repeated. + +'Yes--an old way,' she repeated, as if to say the words so that they +should be natural to her. And I became to her merely a transient +circumstance, a man, part of the surroundings. We divided the gift of +speech, that was all. + +She glanced at me again, with her wonderful, unchanging eyes, that were +like the visible heavens, unthinking, or like two flowers that are open +in pure clear unconsciousness. To her I was a piece of the environment. +That was all. Her world was clear and absolute, without consciousness of +self. She was not self-conscious, because she was not aware that there +was anything in the universe except _her_ universe. In her universe I +was a stranger, a foreign _signore_. That I had a world of my own, other +than her own, was not conceived by her. She did not care. + +So we conceive the stars. We are told that they are other worlds. But +the stars are the clustered and single gleaming lights in the night-sky +of our world. When I come home at night, there are the stars. When I +cease to exist as the microcosm, when I begin to think of the cosmos, +then the stars are other worlds. Then the macrocosm absorbs me. But the +macrocosm is not me. It is something which I, the microcosm, am not. + +So that there is something which is unknown to me and which nevertheless +exists. I am finite, and my understanding has limits. The universe is +bigger than I shall ever see, in mind or spirit. There is that which +is not me. + +If I say 'The planet Mars is inhabited,' I do not know what I mean by +'inhabited', with reference to the planet Mars. I can only mean that +that world is not my world. I can only know there is that which is not +me. I am the microcosm, but the macrocosm is that also which I am not. + +The old woman on the terrace in the sun did not know this. She was +herself the core and centre to the world, the sun, and the single +firmament. She knew that I was an inhabitant of lands which she had +never seen. But what of that! There were parts of her own body which she +had never seen, which physiologically she could never see. They were +none the less her own because she had never seen them. The lands she had +not seen were corporate parts of her own living body, the knowledge she +had not attained was only the hidden knowledge of her own self. She +_was_ the substance of the knowledge, whether she had the knowledge in +her mind or not. There was nothing which was not herself, ultimately. +Even the man, the male, was part of herself. He was the mobile, separate +part, but he was none the less herself because he was sometimes severed +from her. If every apple in the world were cut in two, the apple would +not be changed. The reality is the apple, which is just the same in the +half-apple as in the whole. + +And she, the old spinning-woman, was the apple, eternal, unchangeable, +whole even in her partiality. It was this which gave the wonderful clear +unconsciousness to her eyes. How could she be conscious of herself when +all was herself? + +She was talking to me of a sheep that had died, but I could not +understand because of her dialect. It never occurred to her that I could +not understand. She only thought me different, stupid. And she talked +on. The ewes had lived under the house, and a part was divided off for +the he-goat, because the other people brought their she-goats to be +covered by the he-goat. But how the ewe came to die I could not +make out. + +Her fingers worked away all the time in a little, half-fretful movement, +yet spontaneous as butterflies leaping here and there. She chattered +rapidly on in her Italian that I could not understand, looking meanwhile +into my face, because the story roused her somewhat. Yet not a feature +moved. Her eyes remained candid and open and unconscious as the skies. +Only a sharp will in them now and then seemed to gleam at me, as if to +dominate me. + +Her shuttle had caught in a dead chicory plant, and spun no more. She +did not notice. I stooped and broke off the twigs. There was a glint of +blue on them yet. Seeing what I was doing, she merely withdrew a few +inches from the plant. Her bobbin hung free. + +She went on with her tale, looking at me wonderfully. She seemed like +the Creation, like the beginning of the world, the first morning. Her +eyes were like the first morning of the world, so ageless. + +Her thread broke. She seemed to take no notice, but mechanically picked +up the shuttle, wound up a length of worsted, connected the ends from +her wool strand, set the bobbin spinning again, and went on talking, in +her half-intimate, half-unconscious fashion, as if she were talking to +her own world in me. + +So she stood in the sunshine on the little platform, old and yet like +the morning, erect and solitary, sun-coloured, sun-discoloured, whilst I +at her elbow, like a piece of night and moonshine, stood smiling into +her eyes, afraid lest she should deny me existence. + +Which she did. She had stopped talking, did not look at me any more, but +went on with her spinning, the brown shuttle twisting gaily. So she +stood, belonging to the sunshine and the weather, taking no more notice +of me than of the dark-stained caper-bush which hung from the wall above +her head, whilst I, waiting at her side, was like the moon in the +daytime sky, overshone, obliterated, in spite of my black clothes. + +'How long has it taken you to do that much?' I asked. + +She waited a minute, glanced at her bobbin. + +'This much? I don't know. A day or two.' + +'But you do it quickly.' + +She looked at me, as if suspiciously and derisively. Then, quite +suddenly, she started forward and went across the terrace to the great +blue-and-white checked cloth that was drying on the wall. I hesitated. +She had cut off her consciousness from me. So I turned and ran away, +taking the steps two at a time, to get away from her. In a moment I was +between the walls, climbing upwards, hidden. + +The schoolmistress had told me I should find snowdrops behind San +Tommaso. If she had not asserted such confident knowledge I should have +doubted her translation of _perce-neige_. She meant Christmas roses all +the while. + +However, I went looking for snowdrops. The walls broke down suddenly, +and I was out in a grassy olive orchard, following a track beside pieces +of fallen overgrown masonry. So I came to skirt the brink of a steep +little gorge, at the bottom of which a stream was rushing down its steep +slant to the lake. Here I stood to look for my snowdrops. The grassy, +rocky bank went down steep from my feet. I heard water tittle-tattling +away in deep shadow below. There were pale flecks in the dimness, but +these, I knew, were primroses. So I scrambled down. + +Looking up, out of the heavy shadow that lay in the cleft, I could see, +right in the sky, grey rocks shining transcendent in the pure empyrean. +'Are they so far up?' I thought. I did not dare to say, 'Am I so far +down?' But I was uneasy. Nevertheless it was a lovely place, in the cold +shadow, complete; when one forgot the shining rocks far above, it was a +complete, shadowless world of shadow. Primroses were everywhere in nests +of pale bloom upon the dark, steep face of the cleft, and tongues of +fern hanging out, and here and there under the rods and twigs of bushes +were tufts of wrecked Christmas roses, nearly over, but still, in the +coldest corners, the lovely buds like handfuls of snow. There had been +such crowded sumptuous tufts of Christmas roses everywhere in the +stream-gullies, during the shadow of winter, that these few remaining +flowers were hardly noticeable. + +I gathered instead the primroses, that smelled of earth and of the +weather. There were no snowdrops. I had found the day before a bank of +crocuses, pale, fragile, lilac-coloured flowers with dark veins, +pricking up keenly like myriad little lilac-coloured flames among the +grass, under the olive trees. And I wanted very much to find the +snowdrops hanging in the gloom. But there were not any. + +I gathered a handful of primroses, then I climbed suddenly, quickly out +of the deep watercourse, anxious to get back to the sunshine before the +evening fell. Up above I saw the olive trees in the sunny golden grass, +and sunlit grey rocks immensely high up. I was afraid lest the evening +would fall whilst I was groping about like an otter in the damp and the +darkness, that the day of sunshine would be over. + +Soon I was up in the sunshine again, on the turf under the olive trees, +reassured. It was the upper world of glowing light, and I was +safe again. + +All the olives were gathered, and the mills were going night and day, +making a great, acrid scent of olive oil in preparation, by the lake. +The little stream rattled down. A mule driver 'Hued!' to his mules on +the Strada Vecchia. High up, on the Strada Nuova, the beautiful, new, +military high-road, which winds with beautiful curves up the +mountain-side, crossing the same stream several times in clear-leaping +bridges, travelling cut out of sheer slope high above the lake, winding +beautifully and gracefully forward to the Austrian frontier, where it +ends: high up on the lovely swinging road, in the strong evening +sunshine, I saw a bullock wagon moving like a vision, though the +clanking of the wagon and the crack of the bullock whip responded close +in my ears. + +Everything was clear and sun-coloured up there, clear-grey rocks +partaking of the sky, tawny grass and scrub, browny-green spires of +cypresses, and then the mist of grey-green olives fuming down to the +lake-side. There was no shadow, only clear sun-substance built up to the +sky, a bullock wagon moving slowly in the high sunlight, along the +uppermost terrace of the military road. It sat in the warm stillness of +the transcendent afternoon. + +The four o'clock steamer was creeping down the lake from the Austrian +end, creeping under the cliffs. Far away, the Verona side, beyond the +Island, lay fused in dim gold. The mountain opposite was so still, that +my heart seemed to fade in its beating as if it too would be still. All +was perfectly still, pure substance. The little steamer on the floor of +the world below, the mules down the road cast no shadow. They too were +pure sun-substance travelling on the surface of the sun-made world. + +A cricket hopped near me. Then I remembered that it was Saturday +afternoon, when a strange suspension comes over the world. And then, +just below me, I saw two monks walking in their garden between the +naked, bony vines, walking in their wintry garden of bony vines and +olive trees, their brown cassocks passing between the brown vine-stocks, +their heads bare to the sunshine, sometimes a glint of light as their +feet strode from under their skirts. + +It was so still, everything so perfectly suspended, that I felt them +talking. They marched with the peculiar march of monks, a long, loping +stride, their heads together, their skirts swaying slowly, two brown +monks with hidden hands, sliding under the bony vines and beside the +cabbages, their heads always together in hidden converse. It was as if I +were attending with my dark soul to their inaudible undertone. All the +time I sat still in silence, I was one with them, a partaker, though I +could hear no sound of their voices. I went with the long stride of +their skirted feet, that slid springless and noiseless from end to end +of the garden, and back again. Their hands were kept down at their +sides, hidden in the long sleeves, and the skirts of their robes. They +did not touch each other, nor gesticulate as they walked. There was no +motion save the long, furtive stride and the heads leaning together. Yet +there was an eagerness in their conversation. Almost like +shadow-creatures ventured out of their cold, obscure element, they went +backwards and forwards in their wintry garden, thinking nobody could +see them. + +Across, above them, was the faint, rousing dazzle of snow. They never +looked up. But the dazzle of snow began to glow as they walked, the +wonderful, faint, ethereal flush of the long range of snow in the +heavens, at evening, began to kindle. Another world was coming to pass, +the cold, rare night. It was dawning in exquisite, icy rose upon the +long mountain-summit opposite. The monks walked backwards and forwards, +talking, in the first undershadow. + +And I noticed that up above the snow, frail in the bluish sky, a frail +moon had put forth, like a thin, scalloped film of ice floated out on +the slow current of the coming night. And a bell sounded. + +And still the monks were pacing backwards and forwards, backwards and +forwards, with a strange, neutral regularity. + +The shadows were coming across everything, because of the mountains in +the west. Already the olive wood where I sat was extinguished. This was +the world of the monks, the rim of pallor between night and day. Here +they paced, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, in the +neutral, shadowless light of shadow. + +Neither the flare of day nor the completeness of night reached them, +they paced the narrow path of the twilight, treading in the neutrality +of the law. Neither the blood nor the spirit spoke in them, only the +law, the abstraction of the average. The infinite is positive and +negative. But the average is only neutral. And the monks trod backward +and forward down the line of neutrality. + +Meanwhile, on the length of mountain-ridge, the snow grew +rosy-incandescent, like heaven breaking into blossom. After all, eternal +not-being and eternal being are the same. In the rosy snow that shone in +heaven over a darkened earth was the ecstasy of consummation. Night and +day are one, light and dark are one, both the same in the origin and in +the issue, both the same in the moment, of ecstasy, light fused in +darkness and darkness fused in light, as in the rosy snow above +the twilight. + +But in the monks it was not ecstasy, in them it was neutrality, the +under earth. Transcendent, above the shadowed, twilit earth was the rosy +snow of ecstasy. But spreading far over us, down below, was the +neutrality of the twilight, of the monks. The flesh neutralizing the +spirit, the spirit neutralizing the flesh, the law of the average +asserted, this was the monks as they paced backward and forward. + +The moon climbed higher, away from the snowy, fading ridge, she became +gradually herself. Between the roots of the olive tree was a rosy-tipped +daisy just going to sleep. I gathered it and put it among the frail, +moony little bunch of primroses, so that its sleep should warm the rest. +Also I put in some little periwinkles, that were very blue, reminding me +of the eyes of the old woman. + +The day was gone, the twilight was gone, and the snow was invisible as I +came down to the side of the lake. Only the moon, white and shining, was +in the sky, like a woman glorying in her own loveliness as she loiters +superbly to the gaze of all the world, looking sometimes through the +fringe of dark olive leaves, sometimes looking at her own superb, +quivering body, wholly naked in the water of the lake. + +My little old woman was gone. She, all day-sunshine, would have none of +the moon. Always she must live like a bird, looking down on all the +world at once, so that it lay all subsidiary to herself, herself the +wakeful consciousness hovering over the world like a hawk, like a sleep +of wakefulness. And, like a bird, she went to sleep as the shadows came. + +She did not know the yielding up of the senses and the possession of the +unknown, through the senses, which happens under a superb moon. The +all-glorious sun knows none of these yieldings up. He takes his way. And +the daisies at once go to sleep. And the soul of the old spinning-woman +also closed up at sunset, the rest was a sleep, a cessation. + +It is all so strange and varied: the dark-skinned Italians ecstatic in +the night and the moon, the blue-eyed old woman ecstatic in the busy +sunshine, the monks in the garden below, who are supposed to unite both, +passing only in the neutrality of the average. Where, then, is the +meeting-point: where in mankind is the ecstasy of light and dark +together, the supreme transcendence of the afterglow, day hovering in +the embrace of the coming night like two angels embracing in the +heavens, like Eurydice in the arms of Orpheus, or Persephone embraced +by Pluto? + +Where is the supreme ecstasy in mankind, which makes day a delight and +night a delight, purpose an ecstasy and a concourse in ecstasy, and +single abandon of the single body and soul also an ecstasy under the +moon? Where is the transcendent knowledge in our hearts, uniting sun and +darkness, day and night, spirit and senses? Why do we not know that the +two in consummation are one; that each is only part; partial and alone +for ever; but that the two in consummation are perfect, beyond the range +of loneliness or solitude? + + + +_2_ + +THE LEMON GARDENS + + +The padrone came just as we were drinking coffee after dinner. It was +two o'clock, because the steamer going down the lake to Desenzano had +bustled through the sunshine, and the rocking of the water still made +lights that danced up and down upon the wall among the shadows by +the piano. + +The signore was very apologetic. I found him bowing in the hall, cap in +one hand, a slip of paper in the other, protesting eagerly, in broken +French, against disturbing me. + +He is a little, shrivelled man, with close-cropped grey hair on his +skull, and a protruding jaw, which, with his gesticulations, always +makes me think of an ancient, aristocratic monkey. The signore is a +gentleman, and the last, shrivelled representative of his race. His only +outstanding quality, according to the villagers, is his avarice. + +_'Mais--mais, monsieur--je crains que--que--que je vous derange--'_ + +He spreads wide his hands and bows, looking up at me with implicit brown +eyes, so ageless in his wrinkled, monkey's face, like onyx. He loves to +speak French, because then he feels grand. He has a queer, naive, +ancient passion to be grand. As the remains of an impoverished family, +he is not much better than a well-to-do peasant. But the old spirit is +eager and pathetic in him. + +He loves to speak French to me. He holds his chin and waits, in his +anxiety for the phrase to come. Then it stammers forth, a little rush, +ending in Italian. But his pride is all on edge: we must continue +in French. + +The hall is cold, yet he will not come into the large room. This is not +a courtesy visit. He is not here in his quality of gentleman. He is only +an anxious villager. + +'_Voyez, monsieur--cet--cet--qu'est-ce que--qu'est-ce que veut dire +cet--cela?_' + +He shows me the paper. It is an old scrap of print, the picture of an +American patent door-spring, with directions: 'Fasten the spring either +end up. Wind it up. Never unwind.' + +It is laconic and American. The signore watches me anxiously, waiting, +holding his chin. He is afraid he ought to understand my English. I +stutter off into French, confounded by the laconic phrases of the +directions. Nevertheless, I make it clear what the paper says. + +He cannot believe me. It must say something else as well. He has not +done anything contrary to these directions. He is most distressed. + +'_Mais, monsieur, la porte--la porte--elle ferme_ pas--_elle s'ouvre_--' + +He skipped to the door and showed me the whole tragic mystery. The door, +it is shut--_ecco_! He releases the catch, and pouf!--she flies open. +She flies _open_. It is quite final. + +The brown, expressionless, ageless eyes, that remind me of a monkey's, +or of onyx, wait for me. I feel the responsibility devolve upon me. I +am anxious. + +'Allow me,' I said, 'to come and look at the door.' + +I feel uncomfortably like Sherlock Holmes. The padrone protests--_non, +monsieur, non, cela vous derange_--that he only wanted me to translate +the words, he does not want to disturb me. Nevertheless, we go. I feel I +have the honour of mechanical England in my hands. + +The Casa di Paoli is quite a splendid place. It is large, pink and +cream, rising up to a square tower in the centre, throwing off a painted +loggia at either extreme of the facade. It stands a little way back from +the road, just above the lake, and grass grows on the bay of cobbled +pavement in front. When at night the moon shines full on this pale +facade, the theatre is far outdone in staginess. + +The hall is spacious and beautiful, with great glass doors at either +end, through which shine the courtyards where bamboos fray the sunlight +and geraniums glare red. The floor is of soft red tiles, oiled and +polished like glass, the walls are washed grey-white, the ceiling is +painted with pink roses and birds. This is half-way between the outer +world and the interior world, it partakes of both. + +The other rooms are dark and ugly. There is no mistake about their being +interior. They are like furnished vaults. The red-tiled, polished floor +in the drawing-room seems cold and clammy, the carved, cold furniture +stands in its tomb, the air has been darkened and starved to death, it +is perished. + +Outside, the sunshine runs like birds singing. Up above, the grey rocks +build the sun-substance in heaven, San Tommaso guards the terrace. But +inside here is the immemorial shadow. + +Again I had to think of the Italian soul, how it is dark, cleaving to +the eternal night. It seems to have become so, at the Renaissance, after +the Renaissance. + +In the Middle Ages Christian Europe seems to have been striving, out of +a strong, primitive, animal nature, towards the self-abnegation and the +abstraction of Christ. This brought about by itself a great sense of +completeness. The two halves were joined by the effort towards the one +as yet unrealized. There was a triumphant joy in the Whole. + +But the movement all the time was in one direction, towards the +elimination of the flesh. Man wanted more and more to become purely free +and abstract. Pure freedom was in pure abstraction. The Word was +absolute. When man became as the Word, a pure law, then he was free. + +But when this conclusion was reached, the movement broke. Already +Botticelli painted Aphrodite, queen of the senses, supreme along with +Mary, Queen of Heaven. And Michelangelo suddenly turned back on the +whole Christian movement, back to the flesh. The flesh was supreme and +god-like, in the oneness of the flesh, in the oneness of our physical +being, we are one with God, with the Father. God the Father created man +in the flesh, in His own image. Michelangelo swung right back to the old +Mosaic position. Christ did not exist. To Michelangelo there was no +salvation in the spirit. There was God the Father, the Begetter, the +Author of all flesh. And there was the inexorable law of the flesh, the +Last Judgement, the fall of the immortal flesh into Hell. + +This has been the Italian position ever since. The mind, that is the +Light; the senses, they are the Darkness. Aphrodite, the queen of the +senses, she, born of the sea-foam, is the luminousness of the gleaming +senses, the phosphorescence of the sea, the senses become a conscious +aim unto themselves; she is the gleaming darkness, she is the luminous +night, she is goddess of destruction, her white, cold fire consumes and +does not create. + +This is the soul of the Italian since the Renaissance. In the sunshine +he basks asleep, gathering up a vintage into his veins which in the +night-time he will distil into ecstatic sensual delight, the intense, +white-cold ecstasy of darkness and moonlight, the raucous, cat-like, +destructive enjoyment, the senses conscious and crying out in their +consciousness in the pangs of the enjoyment, which has consumed the +southern nation, perhaps all the Latin races, since the Renaissance. + +It is a lapse back, back to the original position, the Mosaic position, +of the divinity of the flesh, and the absoluteness of its laws. But also +there is the Aphrodite-worship. The flesh, the senses, are now +self-conscious. They know their aim. Their aim is in supreme sensation. +They seek the maximum of sensation. They seek the reduction of the +flesh, the flesh reacting upon itself, to a crisis, an ecstasy, a +phosphorescent transfiguration in ecstasy. + +The mind, all the time, subserves the senses. As in a cat, there is +subtlety and beauty and the dignity of the darkness. But the fire is +cold, as in the eyes of a cat, it is a green fire. It is fluid, +electric. At its maximum it is the white ecstasy of phosphorescence, in +the darkness, always amid the darkness, as under the black fur of a cat. +Like the feline fire, it is destructive, always consuming and reducing +to the ecstasy of sensation, which is the end in itself. + +There is the I, always the I. And the mind is submerged, overcome. But +the senses are superbly arrogant. The senses are the absolute, the +god-like. For I can never have another man's senses. These are me, my +senses absolutely me. And all that is can only come to me through my +senses. So that all is me, and is administered unto me. The rest, that +is not me, is nothing, it is something which is nothing. So the Italian, +through centuries, has avoided our Northern purposive industry, because +it has seemed to him a form of nothingness. + +It is the spirit of the tiger. The tiger is the supreme manifestation of +the senses made absolute. This is the + + Tiger, tiger burning bright, + In the forests of the night + +of Blake. It does indeed burn within the darkness. But the +_essential_ fate, of the tiger is cold and white, a white ecstasy. +It is seen in the white eyes of the blazing cat. This is the supremacy +of the flesh, which devours all, and becomes transfigured into a +magnificent brindled flame, a burning bush indeed. + +This is one way of transfiguration into the eternal flame, the +transfiguration through ecstasy in the flesh. Like the tiger in the +night, I devour all flesh, I drink all blood, until this fuel blazes up +in me to the consummate fire of the Infinite. In the ecstacy I am +Infinite, I become again the great Whole, I am a flame of the One White +Flame which is the Infinite, the Eternal, the Originator, the Creator, +the Everlasting God. In the sensual ecstasy, having drunk all blood and +devoured all flesh, I am become again the eternal Fire, I am infinite. + +This is the way of the tiger; the tiger is supreme. His head is +flattened as if there were some great weight on the hard skull, +pressing, pressing, pressing the mind into a stone, pressing it down +under the blood, to serve the blood. It is the subjugate instrument of +the blood. The will lies above the loins, as it were at the base of the +spinal column, there is the living will, the living mind of the tiger, +there in the slender loins. That is the node, there in the spinal cord. + +So the Italian, so the soldier. This is the spirit of the soldier. He, +too, walks with his consciousness concentrated at the base of the spine, +his mind subjugated, submerged. The will of the soldier is the will of +the great cats, the will to ecstasy in destruction, in absorbing life +into his own life, always his own life supreme, till the ecstasy burst +into the white, eternal flame, the Infinite, the Flame of the Infinite. +Then he is satisfied, he has been consummated in the Infinite. + +This is the true soldier, this is the immortal climax of the senses. +This is the acme of the flesh, the one superb tiger who has devoured all +living flesh, and now paces backwards and forwards in the cage of its +own infinite, glaring with blind, fierce, absorbed eyes at that which is +nothingness to it. + +The eyes of the tiger cannot see, except with the light from within +itself, by the light of its own desire. Its own white, cold light is so +fierce that the other warm light of day is outshone, it is not, it does +not exist. So the white eyes of the tiger gleam to a point of +concentrated vision, upon that which does not exist. Hence its +terrifying sightlessness. The something which I know I am is hollow +space to its vision, offers no resistance to the tiger's looking. It can +only see of me that which it knows I am, a scent, a resistance, a +voluptuous solid, a struggling warm violence that it holds overcome, a +running of hot blood between its Jaws, a delicious pang of live flesh in +the mouth. This it sees. The rest is not. + +And what is the rest, that which is-not the tiger, that which the tiger +is-not? What is this? + +What is that which parted ways with the terrific eagle-like angel of the +senses at the Renaissance? The Italians said, 'We are one in the Father: +we will go back.' The Northern races said, 'We are one in Christ: we +will go on.' + +What _is_ the consummation in Christ? Man knows satisfaction when he +surpasses all conditions and becomes, to himself, consummate in the +Infinite, when he reaches a state of infinity. In the supreme ecstasy +of the flesh, the Dionysic ecstasy, he reaches this state. But how does +it come to pass in Christ? + +It is not the mystic ecstasy. The mystic ecstasy is a special sensual +ecstasy, it is the senses satisfying themselves with a self-created +object. It is self-projection into the self, the sensuous self satisfied +in a projected self. + + Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. + + Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for + theirs is the kingdom of heaven. + +The kingdom of heaven is this Infinite into which we may be consummated, +then, if we are poor in spirit or persecuted for righteousness' sake. + + Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other + also. + + Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that + hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and + persecute you. + + Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is + perfect. + +To be perfect, to be one with God, to be infinite and eternal, what +shall we do? We must turn the other cheek, and love our enemies. + +Christ is the lamb which the eagle swoops down upon, the dove taken by +the hawk, the deer which the tiger devours. + +What then, if a man come to me with a sword, to kill me, and I do not +resist him, but suffer his sword and the death from his sword, what am +I? Am I greater than he, am I stronger than he? Do I know a consummation +in the Infinite, I, the prey, beyond the tiger who devours me? By my +non-resistance I have robbed him of his consummation. For a tiger knows +no consummation unless he kill a violated and struggling prey. There is +no consummation merely for the butcher, nor for a hyena. I can rob the +tiger of his ecstasy, his consummation, his very __my non-resistance. In +my non-resistance the tiger is infinitely destroyed. + +But I, what am I? 'Be ye therefore perfect.' Wherein am I perfect in +this submission? Is there an affirmation, behind my negation, other than +the tiger's affirmation of his own glorious infinity? + +What is the Oneness to which I subscribe, I who offer no resistance in +the flesh? + +Have I only the negative ecstasy of being devoured, of becoming thus +part of the Lord, the Great Moloch, the superb and terrible God? I have +this also, this subject ecstasy of consummation. But is there +nothing else? + +The Word of the tiger is: my senses are supremely Me, and my senses are +God in me. But Christ said: God is in the others, who are not-me. In all +the multitude of the others is God, and this is the great God, greater +than the God which is Me. God is that which is Not-Me. + +And this is the Christian truth, a truth complementary to the pagan +affirmation: 'God is that which is Me.' + +God is that which is Not-Me. In realizing the Not-Me I am consummated, I +become infinite. In turning the other cheek I submit to God who is +greater than I am, other than I am, who is in that which is not me. This +is the supreme consummation. To achieve this consummation I love my +neighbour as myself. My neighbour is all that is not me. And if I love +all this, have I not become one with the Whole, is not my consummation +complete, am I not one with God, have I not achieved the Infinite? + +After the Renaissance the Northern races continued forward to put into +practice this religious belief in the God which is Not-Me. Even the idea +of the saving of the soul was really negative: it was a question of +escaping damnation. The Puritans made the last great attack on the God +who is Me. When they beheaded Charles the First, the king by Divine +Right, they destroyed, symbolically, for ever, the supremacy of the Me +who am the image of God, the Me of the flesh, of the senses, Me, the +tiger burning bright, me the king, the Lord, the aristocrat, me who am +divine because I am the body of God. + +After the Puritans, we have been gathering data for the God who is +not-me. When Pope said 'Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The +proper study of mankind is Man,' he was stating the proposition: A man +is right, he is consummated, when he is seeking to know Man, the great +abstract; and the method of knowledge is by the analysis, which is the +destruction, of the Self. The proposition up to that time was, a man is +the epitome of the universe. He has only to express himself, to fulfil +his desires, to satisfy his supreme senses. + +Now the change has come to pass. The individual man is a limited being, +finite in himself. Yet he is capable of apprehending that which is not +himself. 'The proper study of mankind is Man.' This is another way of +saying, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' Which means, a man +is consummated in his knowledge of that which is not himself, the +abstract Man. Therefore the consummation lies in seeking that other, in +knowing that other. Whereas the Stuart proposition was: 'A man is +consummated in expressing his own Self.' + +The new spirit developed into the empirical and ideal systems of +philosophy. Everything that is, is consciousness. And in every man's +consciousness, Man is great and illimitable, whilst the individual is +small and fragmentary. Therefore the individual must sink himself in the +great whole of Mankind. + +This is the spirituality of Shelley, the perfectibility of man. This is +the way in which we fulfil the commandment, 'Be ye therefore perfect, +even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.' This is Saint +Paul's, 'Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am known.' + +When a man knows everything and understands everything, then he will be +perfect, and life will be blessed. He is capable of knowing everything +and understanding everything. Hence he is justified in his hope of +infinite freedom and blessedness. + +The great inspiration of the new religion was the inspiration of +freedom. When I have submerged or distilled away my concrete body and my +limited desires, when I am like the skylark dissolved in the sky yet +filling heaven and earth with song, then I am perfect, consummated in +the Infinite. When I am all that is not-me, then I have perfect liberty, +I know no limitation. Only I must eliminate the Self. + +It was this religious belief which expressed itself in science. Science +was the analysis of the outer self, the elementary substance of the +self, the outer world. And the machine is the great reconstructed +selfless power. Hence the active worship to which we were given at the +end of the last century, the worship of mechanized force. + +Still we continue to worship that which is not-me, the Selfless world, +though we would fain bring in the Self to help us. We are shouting the +Shakespearean advice to warriors: 'Then simulate the action of the +tiger.' We are trying to become again the tiger, the supreme, imperial, +warlike Self. At the same time our ideal is the selfless world +of equity. + +We continue to give service to the Selfless God, we worship the great +selfless oneness in the spirit, oneness in service of the great +humanity, that which is Not-Me. This selfless God is He who works for +all alike, without consideration. And His image is the machine which +dominates and cows us, we cower before it, we run to serve it. For it +works for all humanity alike. + +At the same time, we want to be warlike tigers. That is the horror: the +confusing of the two ends. We warlike tigers fit ourselves out with +machinery, and our blazing tiger wrath is emitted through a machine. It +is a horrible thing to see machines hauled about by tigers, at the mercy +of tigers, forced to express the tiger. It is a still more horrible +thing to see tigers caught up and entangled and torn in machinery. It is +horrible, a chaos beyond chaos, an unthinkable hell. + +The tiger is not wrong, the machine is not wrong, but we, liars, +lip-servers, duplicate fools, we are unforgivably wrong. We say: 'I will +be a tiger because I love mankind; out of love for other people, out of +selfless service to that which is not me, I will even become a tiger.' +Which is absurd. A tiger devours because it is consummated in devouring, +it achieves its absolute self in devouring. It does not devour because +its unselfish conscience bids it do so, for the sake of the other deer +and doves, or the other tigers. + +Having arrived at the one extreme of mechanical selflessness, we +immediately embrace the other extreme of the transcendent Self. But we +try to be both at once. We do not cease to be the one before we become +the other. We do not even play the roles in turn. We want to be the +tiger and the deer both in one. Which is just ghastly nothingness. We +try to say, 'The tiger is the lamb and the lamb is the tiger.' Which is +nil, nihil, nought. + +The padrone took me into a small room almost contained in the thickness +of the wall. There the Signora's dark eyes glared with surprise and +agitation, seeing me intrude. She is younger than the Signore, a mere +village tradesman's daughter, and, alas, childless. + +It was quite true, the door stood open. Madame put down the screw-driver +and drew herself erect. Her eyes were a flame of excitement. This +question of a door-spring that made the door fly open when it should +make it close roused a vivid spark in her soul. It was she who was +wrestling with the angel of mechanism. + +She was about forty years old, and flame-like and fierily sad. I think +she did not know she was sad. But her heart was eaten by some impotence +in her life. + +She subdued her flame of life to the little padrone. He was strange and +static, scarcely human, ageless, like a monkey. She supported him with +her flame, supported his static, ancient, beautiful form, kept it +intact. But she did not believe in him. + +Now, the Signora Gemma held her husband together whilst he undid the +screw that fixed the spring. If they had been alone, she would have done +it, pretending to be under his direction. But since I was there, he did +it himself; a grey, shaky, highly-bred little gentleman, standing on a +chair with a long screw-driver, whilst his wife stood behind him, her +hands half-raised to catch him if he should fall. Yet he was strangely +absolute, with a strange, intact force in his breeding. + +They had merely adjusted the strong spring to the shut door, and +stretched it slightly in fastening it to the door-jamb, so that it drew +together the moment the latch was released, and the door flew open. + +We soon made it right. There was a moment of anxiety, the screw was +fixed. And the door swung to. They were delighted. The Signora Gemma, +who roused in me an electric kind of melancholy, clasped her hands +together in ecstasy as the door swiftly shut itself. + +'_Ecco!_' she cried, in her vibrating, almost warlike woman's voice: +'_Ecco!_' + +Her eyes were aflame as they looked at the door. She ran forward to try +it herself. She opened the door expectantly, eagerly. Pouf!--it shut +with a bang. + +'_Ecco!_' she cried, her voice quivering like bronze, overwrought but +triumphant. + +I must try also. I opened the door. Pouf! It shut with a bang. We all +exclaimed with joy. + +Then the Signor di Paoli turned to me, with a gracious, bland, formal +grin. He turned his back slightly on the woman, and stood holding his +chin, his strange horse-mouth grinning almost pompously at me. It was an +affair of gentlemen. His wife disappeared as if dismissed. Then the +padrone broke into cordial motion. We must drink. + +He would show me the estate. I had already seen the house. We went out +by the glass doors on the left, into the domestic courtyard. + +It was lower than the gardens round it, and the sunshine came through +the trellised arches on to the flagstones, where the grass grew fine and +green in the cracks, and all was deserted and spacious and still. There +were one or two orange-tubs in the light. + +Then I heard a noise, and there in the corner, among all the pink +geraniums and the sunshine, the Signora Gemma sat laughing with a baby. +It was a fair, bonny thing of eighteen months. The Signora was +concentrated upon the child as he sat, stolid and handsome, in his +little white cap, perched on a bench picking at the pink geraniums. + +She laughed, bent forward her dark face out of the shadow, swift into a +glitter of sunshine near the sunny baby, laughing again excitedly, +making mother-noises. The child took no notice of her. She caught him +swiftly into the shadow, and they were obscured; her dark head was +against the baby's wool jacket, she was kissing his neck, avidly, under +the creeper leaves. The pink geraniums still frilled joyously in +the sunshine. + +I had forgotten the padrone. Suddenly I turned to him inquiringly. + +'The Signora's nephew,' he explained, briefly, curtly, in a small voice. +It was as if he were ashamed, or too deeply chagrined. + +The woman had seen us watching, so she came across the sunshine with the +child, laughing, talking to the baby, not coming out of her own world to +us, not acknowledging us, except formally. + +The Signor Pietro, queer old horse, began to laugh and neigh at the +child, with strange, rancorous envy. The child twisted its face to cry. +The Signora caught it away, dancing back a few yards from her +old husband. + +'I am a stranger,' I said to her across the distance. 'He is afraid of a +stranger.' + +'No, no,' she cried back, her eyes flaring up. 'It is the man. He always +cries at the men.' + +She advanced again, laughing and roused, with the child in her arms. Her +husband stood as if overcast, obliterated. She and I and the baby, in +the sunshine, laughed a moment. Then I heard the neighing, forced laugh +of the old man. He would not be left out. He seemed to force himself +forward. He was bitter, acrid with chagrin and obliteration, struggling +as if to assert his own existence. He was nullified. + +The woman also was uncomfortable. I could see she wanted to go away with +the child, to enjoy him alone, with palpitating, pained enjoyment. It +was her brother's boy. And the old padrone was as if nullified by her +ecstasy over the baby. He held his chin, gloomy, fretful, unimportant. + +He was annulled. I was startled when I realized it. It was as though his +reality were not attested till he had a child. It was as if his _raison +d'etre_ had been to have a son. And he had no children. Therefore he had +no _raison d'etre_. He was nothing, a shadow that vanishes into nothing. +And he was ashamed, consumed by his own nothingness. + +I was startled. This, then, is the secret of Italy's attraction for us, +this phallic worship. To the Italian the phallus is the symbol of +individual creative immortality, to each man his own Godhead. The child +is but the evidence of the Godhead. + +And this is why the Italian is attractive, supple, and beautiful, +because he worships the Godhead in the flesh. We envy him, we feel pale +and insignificant beside him. Yet at the same time we feel superior to +him, as if he were a child and we adult. + +Wherein are we superior? Only because we went beyond the phallus in the +search of the Godhead, the creative origin. And we found the physical +forces and the secrets of science. + +We have exalted Man far above the man who is in each one of us. Our aim +is a perfect humanity, a perfect and equable human consciousness, +selfless. And we obtain it in the subjection, reduction, analysis, and +destruction of the Self. So on we go, active in science and mechanics, +and social reform. + +But we have exhausted ourselves in the process. We have found great +treasures, and we are now impotent to use them. So we have said: 'What +good are these treasures, they are vulgar nothings.' We have said: 'Let +us go back from this adventuring, let us enjoy our own flesh, like the +Italian.' But our habit of life, our very constitution, prevents our +being quite like the Italian. The phallus will never serve us as a +Godhead, because we do not believe in it: no Northern race does. +Therefore, either we set ourselves to serve our children, calling them +'the future', or else we turn perverse and destructive, give ourselves +joy in the destruction of the flesh. + +The children are not the future. The living truth is the future. Time +and people do not make the future. Retrogression is not the future. +Fifty million children growing up purposeless, with no purpose save the +attainment of their own individual desires, these are not the future, +they are only a disintegration of the past. The future is in living, +growing truth, in advancing fulfilment. + +But it is no good. Whatever we do, it is within the greater will towards +self-reduction and a perfect society, analysis on the one hand, and +mechanical construction on the other. This will dominates us as a whole, +and until the whole breaks down, the will must persist. So that now, +continuing in the old, splendid will for a perfect selfless humanity, we +have become inhuman and unable to help ourselves, we are but attributes +of the great mechanized society we have created on our way to +perfection. And this great mechanized society, being selfless, is +pitiless. It works on mechanically and destroys us, it is our master +and our God. + +It is past the time to leave off, to cease entirely from what we are +doing, and from what we have been doing for hundreds of years. It is +past the time to cease seeking one Infinite, ignoring, striving to +eliminate the other. The Infinite is twofold, the Father and the Son, +the Dark and the Light, the Senses and the Mind, the Soul and the +Spirit, the self and the not-self, the Eagle and the Dove, the Tiger and +the Lamb. The consummation of man is twofold, in the Self and in +Selflessness. By great retrogression back to the source of darkness in +me, the Self, deep in the senses, I arrive at the Original, Creative +Infinite. By projection forth from myself, by the elimination of my +absolute sensual self, I arrive at the Ultimate Infinite, Oneness in the +Spirit. They are two Infinites, twofold approach to God. And man must +know both. + +But he must never confuse them. They are eternally separate. The lion +shall never lie down with the lamb. The lion eternally shall devour the +lamb, the lamb eternally shall be devoured. Man knows the great +consummation in the flesh, the sensual ecstasy, and that is eternal. +Also the spiritual ecstasy of unanimity, that is eternal. But the two +are separate and never to be confused. To neutralize the one with the +other is unthinkable, an abomination. Confusion is horror and +nothingness. + +The two Infinites, negative and positive, they are always related, but +they are never identical. They are always opposite, but there exists a +relation between them. This is the Holy Ghost of the Christian Trinity. +And it is this, the relation which is established between the two +Infinites, the two natures of God, which we have transgressed, +forgotten, sinned against. The Father is the Father, and the Son is the +Son. I may know the Son and deny the Father, or know the Father and deny +the Son. But that which I may never deny, and which I have denied, is +the Holy Ghost which relates the dual Infinites into One Whole, which +relates and keeps distinct the dual natures of God. To say that the two +are one, this is the inadmissible lie. The two are related, by the +intervention of the Third, into a Oneness. + +There are two ways, there is not only One. There are two opposite ways +to consummation. But that which relates them, like the base of the +triangle, this is the constant, the Absolute, this makes the Ultimate +Whole. And in the Holy Spirit I know the Two Ways, the Two Infinites, +the Two Consummations. And knowing the Two, I admit the Whole. But +excluding One, I exclude the Whole. And confusing the two, I make +nullity nihil. + +'_Mais_,' said the Signore, starting from his scene of ignominy, where +his wife played with another man's child, '_mais--voulez-vous vous +promener dans mes petites terres?_' + +It came out fluently, he was so much roused in self-defence and +self-assertion. + +We walked under the pergola of bony vine-stocks, secure in the sunshine +within the walls, only the long mountain, parallel with us, looking in. + +I said how I liked the big vine-garden, I asked when it ended. The pride +of the padrone came back with a click. He pointed me to the terrace, to +the great shut lemon-houses above. They were all his. But--he shrugged +his Italian shoulders--it was nothing, just a little garden, _vous +savez, monsieur_. I protested it was beautiful, that I loved it, and +that it seemed to me _very_ large indeed. He admitted that today, +perhaps, it was beautiful. + +'_Perche--parce que--il fait un tempo--cosi--tres bell'--tres beau, +ecco!_' + +He alighted on the word _beau_ hurriedly, like a bird coming to ground +with a little bounce. + +The terraces of the garden are held up to the sun, the sun falls full +upon them, they are like a vessel slanted up, to catch the superb, heavy +light. Within the walls we are remote, perfect, moving in heavy spring +sunshine, under the bony avenue of vines. The padrone makes little +exclamatory noises that mean nothing, and teaches me the names of +vegetables. The land is rich and black. + +Opposite us, looking down on our security, is the long, arched mountain +of snow. We climbed one flight of steps, and we could see the little +villages on the opposite side of the lake. We climbed again, and could +see the water rippling. + +We came to a great stone building that I had thought was a storehouse, +for open-air storage, because the walls are open halfway up, showing the +darkness inside and the corner pillar very white and square and distinct +in front of it. + +Entering carelessly into the dimness, I started, for at my feet was a +great floor of water, clear and green in its obscurity, going down +between the walls, a reservoir in the gloom. The Signore laughed at my +surprise. It was for irrigating the land, he said. It stank, slightly, +with a raw smell; otherwise, I said, what a wonderful bath it would +make. The old Signore gave his little neighing laugh at the idea. + +Then we climbed into a great loft of leaves, ruddy brown, stored in a +great bank under the roof, seeming to give off a little red heat, as +they gave off the lovely perfume of the hills. We passed through, and +stood at the foot of the lemon-house. The big, blind building rose high +in the sunshine before us. + +All summer long, upon the mountain slopes steep by the lake, stands the +rows of naked pillars rising out of the green foliage like ruins of +temples: white, square pillars of masonry, standing forlorn in their +colonnades and squares, rising up the mountain-sides here and there, as +if they remained from some great race that had once worshipped here. And +still, in the winter, some are seen, standing away in lonely places +where the sun streams full, grey rows of pillars rising out of a broken +wall, tier above tier, naked to the sky, forsaken. + +They are the lemon plantations, and the pillars are to support the heavy +branches of the trees, but finally to act as scaffolding of the great +wooden houses that stand blind and ugly, covering the lemon trees in +the winter. + +In November, when cold winds came down and snow had fallen on the +mountains, from out of the storehouses the men were carrying timber, and +we heard the clang of falling planks. Then, as we walked along the +military road on the mountain-side, we saw below, on the top of the +lemon gardens, long, thin poles laid from pillar to pillar, and we heard +the two men talking and singing as they walked across perilously, +placing the poles. In their clumsy zoccoli they strode easily across, +though they had twenty or thirty feet to fall if they slipped. But the +mountain-side, rising steeply, seemed near, and above their heads the +rocks glowed high into the sky, so that the sense of elevation must have +been taken away. At any rate, they went easily from pillar-summit to +pillar-summit, with a great cave of space below. Then again was the +rattle and clang of planks being laid in order, ringing from the +mountain-side over the blue lake, till a platform of timber, old and +brown, projected from the mountain-side, a floor when seen from above, a +hanging roof when seen from below. And we, on the road above, saw the +men sitting easily on this flimsy hanging platform, hammering the +planks. And all day long the sound of hammering echoed among the rocks +and olive woods, and came, a faint, quick concussion, to the men on the +boats far out. When the roofs were on they put in the fronts, blocked in +between the white pillars withhold, dark wood, in roughly made panels. +And here and there, at irregular intervals, was a panel of glass, pane +overlapping pane in the long strip of narrow window. So that now these +enormous, unsightly buildings bulge out on the mountain-sides, rising in +two or three receding tiers, blind, dark, sordid-looking places. + +In the morning I often lie in bed and watch the sunrise. The lake lies +dim and milky, the mountains are dark blue at the back, while over them +the sky gushes and glistens with light. At a certain place on the +mountain ridge the light burns gold, seems to fuse a little groove on +the hill's rim. It fuses and fuses at this point, till of a sudden it +comes, the intense, molten, living light. The mountains melt suddenly, +the light steps down, there is a glitter, a spangle, a clutch of +spangles, a great unbearable sun-track flashing across the milky lake, +and the light falls on my face. Then, looking aside, I hear the little +slotting noise which tells me they are opening the lemon gardens, a long +panel here and there, a long slot of darkness at irregular intervals +between the brown wood and the glass stripes. + +'_Voulez-vous_'--the Signore bows me in with outstretched +hand--'_voulez-vous entrer, monsieur?_' + +I went into the lemon-house, where the poor threes seem to mope in the +darkness. It is an immense, dark, cold place. Tall lemon trees, heavy +with half-visible fruit, crowd together, and rise in the gloom. They +look like ghosts in the darkness of the underworld, stately, and as if +in life, but only grand shadows of themselves. And lurking here and +there, I see one of the pillars, But he, too, seems a shadow, not one of +the dazzling white fellows I knew. Here we are trees, men, pillars, the +dark earth, the sad black paths, shut in in this enormous box. It is +true, there are long strips of window and slots of space, so that the +front is striped, and an occasional beam of light fingers the leaves of +an enclosed tree and the sickly round lemons. But it is nevertheless +very gloomy. + +'But it is much colder in here than outside,' I said. + +'Yes,' replied the Signore, 'now. But at night--I _think_--' + +I almost wished it were night to try. I wanted to imagine the trees +cosy. They seemed now in the underworld. Between the lemon trees, beside +the path, were little orange trees, and dozens of oranges hanging like +hot coals in the twilight. When I warm my hands at them the Signore +breaks me off one twig after another, till I have a bunch of burning +oranges among dark leaves, a heavy bouquet. Looking down the Hades of +the lemon-house, the many ruddy-clustered oranges beside the path remind +me of the lights of a village along the lake at night, while the pale +lemons above are the stars. There is a subtle, exquisite scent of lemon +flowers. Then I notice a citron. He hangs heavy and bloated upon so +small a tree, that he seems a dark green enormity. There is a great host +of lemons overhead, half-visible, a swarm of ruddy oranges by the paths, +and here and there a fat citron. It is almost like being under the sea. + +At the corners of the path were round little patches of ash and stumps +of charred wood, where fires had been kindled inside the house on cold +nights. For during the second and third weeks in January the snow came +down so low on the mountains that, after climbing for an hour, I found +myself in a snow lane, and saw olive orchards on lawns of snow. + +The padrone says that all lemons and sweet oranges are grafted on a +bitter-orange stock. The plants raised from seed, lemon and sweet +orange, fell prey to disease, so the cultivators found it safe only to +raise the native bitter orange, and then graft upon it. + +And the maestra--she is the schoolmistress, who wears black gloves while +she teaches us Italian--says that the lemon was brought by St Francis of +Assisi, who came to the Garda here and founded a church and a monastery. +Certainly the church of San Francesco is very old and dilapidated, and +its cloisters have some beautiful and original carvings of leaves and +fruit upon the pillars, which seem to connect San Francesco with the +lemon. I imagine him wandering here with a lemon in his pocket. Perhaps +he made lemonade in the hot summer. But Bacchus had been before him in +the drink trade. + +Looking at his lemons, the Signore sighed. I think he hates them. They +are leaving him in the lurch. They are sold retail at a halfpenny each +all the year round. 'But that is as dear, or dearer, than in England,' I +say. 'Ah, but,' says the maestra, 'that is because your lemons are +outdoor fruit from Sicily. _Pero_--one of our lemons is as good as _two_ +from elsewhere.' + +It is true these lemons have an exquisite fragrance and perfume, but +whether their force as lemons is double that of an ordinary fruit is a +question. Oranges are sold at fourpence halfpenny the kilo--it comes +about five for twopence, small ones. The citrons are sold also by weight +in Salo for the making of that liqueur known as 'Cedro'. One citron +fetches sometimes a shilling or more, but then the demand is necessarily +small. So that it is evident, from these figures, the Lago di Garda +cannot afford to grow its lemons much longer. The gardens are already +many of them in ruins, and still more 'Da Vendere'. + +We went out of the shadow of the lemon-house on to the roof of the +section below us. When we came to the brink of the roof I sat down. The +padrone stood behind me, a shabby, shaky little figure on his roof in +the sky, a little figure of dilapidation, dilapidated as the +lemon-houses themselves. + +We were always level with the mountain-snow opposite. A film of pure +blue was on the hills to the right and the left. There had been a wind, +but it was still now. The water breathed an iridescent dust on the far +shore, where the villages were groups of specks. + +On the low level of the world, on the lake, an orange-sailed boat leaned +slim to the dark-blue water, which had flecks of foam. A woman went +down-hill quickly, with two goats and a sheep. Among the olives a man +was whistling. + +'_Voyez_,' said the padrone, with distant, perfect melancholy. 'There +was once a lemon garden also there--you see the short pillars, cut off +to make a pergola for the vine. Once there were twice as many lemons as +now. Now we must have vine instead. From that piece of land I had two +hundred lire a year, in lemons. From the vine I have only eighty.' + +'But wine is a valuable crop,' I said. + +'Ah--_cosi-cosi_! For a man who grows much. For me--_poco, poco--peu_.' + +Suddenly his face broke into a smile of profound melancholy, almost a +grin, like a gargoyle. It was the real Italian melancholy, very +deep, static. + +'_Vous voyez, monsieur_--the lemon, it is all the year, all the year. +But the vine--one crop--?' + +He lifts his shoulders and spreads his hands with that gesture of +finality and fatality, while his face takes the blank, ageless look of +misery, like a monkey's. There is no hope. There is the present. Either +that is enough, the present, or there is nothing. + +I sat and looked at the lake. It was beautiful as paradise, as the first +creation. On the shores were the ruined lemon-pillars standing out in +melancholy, the clumsy, enclosed lemon-houses seemed ramshackle, bulging +among vine stocks and olive trees. The villages, too, clustered upon +their churches, seemed to belong to the past. They seemed to be +lingering in bygone centuries. + +'But it is very beautiful,' I protested. 'In England--' + +'Ah, in England,' exclaimed the padrone, the same ageless, monkey-like +grin of fatality, tempered by cunning, coming on his face, 'in England +you have the wealth--_les richesses_--you have the mineral coal and the +machines, _vous savez_. Here we have the sun--' + +He lifted his withered hand to the sky, to the wonderful source of that +blue day, and he smiled, in histrionic triumph. But his triumph was only +histrionic. The machines were more to his soul than the sun. He did not +know these mechanisms, their great, human-contrived, inhuman power, and +he wanted to know them. As for the sun, that is common property, and no +man is distinguished by it. He wanted machines, machine production, +money, and human power. He wanted to know the joy of man who has got the +earth in his grip, bound it up with railways, burrowed it with iron +fingers, subdued it. He wanted this last triumph of the ego, this last +reduction. He wanted to go where the English have gone, beyond the Self, +into the great inhuman Not Self, to create the great unliving creators, +the machines, out of the active forces of nature that existed +before flesh. + +But he is too old. It remains for the young Italian to embrace his +mistress, the machine. + +I sat on the roof of the lemon-house, with the lake below and the snowy +mountain opposite, and looked at the ruins on the old, olive-fuming +shores, at all the peace of the ancient world still covered in sunshine, +and the past seemed to me so lovely that one must look towards it, +backwards, only backwards, where there is peace and beauty and no more +dissonance. + +I thought of England, the great mass of London, and the black, fuming, +laborious Midlands and north-country. It seemed horrible. And yet, it +was better than the padrone, this old, monkey-like cunning of fatality. +It is better to go forward into error than to stay fixed inextricably +in the past. + +Yet what should become of the world? There was London and the industrial +counties spreading like a blackness over all the world, horrible, in the +end destructive. And the Garda was so lovely under the sky of sunshine, +it was intolerable. For away, beyond, beyond all the snowy Alps, with +the iridescence of eternal ice above them, was this England, black and +foul and dry, with her soul worn down, almost worn away. And England was +conquering the world with her machines and her horrible destruction of +natural life. She was conquering the whole world. + +And yet, was she not herself finished in this work? She had had enough. +She had conquered the natural life to the end: she was replete with the +conquest of the outer world, satisfied with the destruction of the Self. +She would cease, she would turn round; or else expire. + +If she still lived, she would begin to build her knowledge into a great +structure of truth. There it lay, vast masses of rough-hewn knowledge, +vast masses of machines and appliances, vast masses of ideas and +methods, and nothing done with it, only teeming swarms of disintegrated +human beings seething and perishing rapidly away amongst it, till it +seems as if a world will be left covered with huge ruins, and scored by +strange devices of industry, and quite dead, the people disappeared, +swallowed up in the last efforts towards a perfect, selfless society. + + + +_3_ + +THE THEATRE + + +During carnival a company is playing in the theatre. On Christmas Day +the padrone came in with the key of his box, and would we care to see +the drama? The theatre was small, a mere nothing, in fact; a mere affair +of peasants, you understand; and the Signor Di Paoli spread his hands +and put his head on one side, parrot-wise; but we might find a little +diversion--_un peu de divertiment_. With this he handed me the key. + +I made suitable acknowledgements, and was really impressed. To be handed +the key of a box at the theatre, so simply and pleasantly, in the large +sitting-room looking over the grey lake of Christmas Day; it seemed to +me a very graceful event. The key had a chain and a little shield of +bronze, on which was beaten out a large figure 8. + +So the next day we went to see _I Spettri_, expecting some good, crude +melodrama. The theatre is an old church. Since that triumph of the deaf +and dumb, the cinematograph, has come to give us the nervous excitement +of speed--grimace agitation, and speed, as of flying atoms, chaos--many +an old church in Italy has taken a new lease of life. + +This cast-off church made a good theatre. I realized how cleverly it had +been constructed for the dramatic presentation of religious ceremonies. +The east end is round, the walls are windowless, sound is well +distributed. Now everything is theatrical, except the stone floor and +two pillars at the back of the auditorium, and the slightly +ecclesiastical seats below. + +There are two tiers of little boxes in the theatre, some forty in all, +with fringe and red velvet, and lined with dark red paper, quite like +real boxes in a real theatre. And the padrone's is one of the best. It +just holds three people. + +We paid our threepence entrance fee in the stone hall and went upstairs. +I opened the door of Number 8, and we were shut in our little cabin, +looking down on the world. Then I found the barber, Luigi, bowing +profusely in a box opposite. It was necessary to make bows all round: +ah, the chemist, on the upper tier, near the barber; how-do-you-do to +the padrona of the hotel, who is our good friend, and who sits, wearing +a little beaver shoulder-cape, a few boxes off; very cold salutation to +the stout village magistrate with the long brown beard, who leans +forward in the box facing the stage, while a grouping of faces look out +from behind him; a warm smile to the family of the Signora Gemma, across +next to the stage. Then we are settled. + +I cannot tell why I hate the village magistrate. He looks like a family +portrait by a Flemish artist, he himself weighing down the front of the +picture with his portliness and his long brown beard, whilst the faces +of his family are arranged in two groups for the background. I think he +is angry at our intrusion. He is very republican and self-important. But +we eclipse him easily, with the aid of a large black velvet hat, and +black furs, and our Sunday clothes. + +Downstairs the villagers are crowding, drifting like a heavy current. +The women are seated, by church instinct, all together on the left, with +perhaps an odd man at the end of a row, beside his wife. On the right, +sprawling in the benches, are several groups of bersaglieri, in grey +uniforms and slanting cock's-feather hats; then peasants, fishermen, and +an odd couple or so of brazen girls taking their places on the +men's side. + +At the back, lounging against the pillars or standing very dark and +sombre, are the more reckless spirits of the village. Their black felt +hats are pulled down, their cloaks are thrown over their mouths, they +stand very dark and isolated in their moments of stillness, they shout +and wave to each other when anything occurs. + +The men are clean, their clothes are all clean washed. The rags of the +poorest porter are always well washed. But it is Sunday tomorrow, and +they are shaved only on a Sunday. So that they have a week's black +growth on their chins. But they have dark, soft eyes, unconscious and +vulnerable. They move and balance with loose, heedless motion upon their +clattering zoccoli, they lounge with wonderful ease against the wall at +the back, or against the two pillars, unconscious of the patches on +their clothes or of their bare throats, that are knotted perhaps with a +scarlet rag. Loose and abandoned, they lounge and talk, or they watch +with wistful absorption the play that is going on. + +They are strangely isolated in their own atmosphere, and as if revealed. +It is as if their vulnerable being was exposed and they have not the wit +to cover it. There is a pathos of physical sensibility and mental +inadequacy. Their mind is not sufficiently alert to run with their +quick, warm senses. + +The men keep together, as if to support each other, the women also are +together; in a hard, strong herd. It is as if the power, the hardness, +the triumph, even in this Italian village, were with the women in their +relentless, vindictive unity. + +That which drives men and women together, the indomitable necessity, is +like a bondage upon the people. They submit as under compulsion, under +constraint. They come together mostly in anger and in violence of +destructive passion. There is no comradeship between men and women, none +whatsoever, but rather a condition of battle, reserve, hostility. + +On Sundays the uncomfortable, excited, unwilling youth walks for an hour +with his sweetheart, at a little distance from her, on the public +highway in the afternoon. This is a concession to the necessity for +marriage. There is no real courting, no happiness of being together, +only the roused excitement which is based on a fundamental hostility. +There is very little flirting, and what there is is of the subtle, cruel +kind, like a sex duel. On the whole, the men and women avoid each other, +almost shun each other. Husband and wife are brought together in a +child, which they both worship. But in each of them there is only the +great reverence for the infant, and the reverence for fatherhood or +motherhood, as the case may be; there is no spiritual love. + +In marriage, husband and wife wage the subtle, satisfying war of sex +upon each other. It gives a profound satisfaction, a profound intimacy. +But it destroys all joy, all unanimity in action. + +On Sunday afternoons the uncomfortable youth walks by the side of his +maiden for an hour in the public highway. Then he escapes; as from a +bondage he goes back to his men companions. On Sunday afternoons and +evenings the married woman, accompanied by a friend or by a child--she +dare not go alone, afraid of the strange, terrible sex-war between her +and the drunken man--is seen leading home the wine-drunken, liberated +husband. Sometimes she is beaten when she gets home. It is part of the +process. But there is no synthetic love between men and women, there is +only passion, and passion is fundamental hatred, the act of love is +a fight. + +The child, the outcome, is divine. Here the union, the oneness, is +manifest. Though spirit strove with spirit, in mortal conflict, during +the sex-passion, yet the flesh united with flesh in oneness. The phallus +is still divine. But the spirit, the mind of man, this has +become nothing. + +So the women triumph. They sit down below in the theatre, their +perfectly dressed hair gleaming, their backs very straight, their heads +carried tensely. They are not very noticeable. They seem held in +reserve. They are just as tense and stiff as the men are slack and +abandoned. Some strange will holds the women taut. They seem like +weapons, dangerous. There is nothing charming nor winning about them; at +the best a full, prolific maternity, at the worst a yellow poisonous +bitterness of the flesh that is like a narcotic. But they are too strong +for the men. The male spirit, which would subdue the immediate flesh to +some conscious or social purpose, is overthrown. The woman in her +maternity is the law-giver, the supreme authority. The authority of the +man, in work, in public affairs, is something trivial in comparison. The +pathetic ignominy of the village male is complete on Sunday afternoon, +on his great day of liberation, when he is accompanied home, drunk but +sinister, by the erect, unswerving, slightly cowed woman. His drunken +terrorizing is only pitiable, she is so obviously the more +constant power. + +And this is why the men must go away to America. It is not the money. It +is the profound desire to rehabilitate themselves, to recover some +dignity as men, as producers, as workers, as creators from the spirit, +not only from the flesh. It is a profound desire to get away from women +altogether, the terrible subjugation to sex, the phallic worship. + +The company of actors in the little theatre was from a small town away +on the plain, beyond Brescia. The curtain rose, everybody was still, +with that profound, naive attention which children give. And after a few +minutes I realized that _I Spettri_ was Ibsen's _Ghosts_. The peasants +and fishermen of the Garda, even the rows of ungovernable children, sat +absorbed in watching as the Norwegian drama unfolded itself. + +The actors are peasants. The leader is the son of a peasant proprietor. +He is qualified as a chemist, but is unsettled, vagrant, prefers +play-acting. The Signer Pietro di Paoli shrugs his shoulders and +apologizes for their vulgar accent. It is all the same to me. I am +trying to get myself to rights with the play, which I have just lately +seen in Munich, perfectly produced and detestable. + +It was such a change from the hard, ethical, slightly mechanized +characters in the German play, which was as perfect an interpretation as +I can imagine, to the rather pathetic notion of the Italian peasants, +that I had to wait to adjust myself. + +The mother was a pleasant, comfortable woman harassed by something, she +did not quite know what. The pastor was a ginger-haired caricature +imitated from the northern stage, quite a lay figure. The peasants never +laughed, they watched solemnly and absorbedly like children. The servant +was just a slim, pert, forward hussy, much too flagrant. And then the +son, the actor-manager: he was a dark, ruddy man, broad and thick-set, +evidently of peasant origin, but with some education now; he was the +important figure, the play was his. + +And he was strangely disturbing. Dark, ruddy, and powerful, he could not +be the blighted son of 'Ghosts', the hectic, unsound, northern issue of +a diseased father. His flashy Italian passion for his half-sister was +real enough to make one uncomfortable: something he wanted and would +have in spite of his own soul, something which fundamentally he did +not want. + +It was this contradiction within the man that made the play so +interesting. A robust, vigorous man of thirty-eight, flaunting and +florid as a rather successful Italian can be, there was yet a secret +sickness which oppressed him. But it was no taint in the blood, it was +rather a kind of debility in the soul. That which he wanted and would +have, the sensual excitement, in his soul he did not want it, no, not at +all. And yet he must act from his physical desires, his physical will. + +His true being, his real self, was impotent. In his soul he was +dependent, forlorn. He was childish and dependent on the mother. To hear +him say, '_Grazia, mamma!_' would have tormented the mother-soul in any +woman living. Such a child crying in the night! And for what? + +For he was hot-blooded, healthy, almost in his prime, and free as a man +can be in his circumstances. He had his own way, he admitted no +thwarting. He governed his circumstances pretty much, coming to our +village with his little company, playing the plays he chose himself. And +yet, that which he would have he did not vitally want, it was only a +sort of inflamed obstinacy that made him so insistent, in the masculine +way. He was not going to be governed by women, he was not going to be +dictated to in the least by any one. And this because he was beaten by +his own flesh. + +His real man's soul, the soul that goes forth and builds up a new world +out of the void, was ineffectual. It could only revert to the senses. +His divinity was the phallic divinity. The other male divinity, which is +the spirit that fulfils in the world the new germ of an idea, this was +denied and obscured in him, unused. And it was this spirit which cried +out helplessly in him through the insistent, inflammable flesh. Even +this play-acting was a form of physical gratification for him, it had in +it neither real mind nor spirit. + +It was so different from Ibsen, and so much more moving. Ibsen is +exciting, nervously sensational. But this was really moving, a real +crying in the night. One loved the Italian nation, and wanted to help it +with all one's soul. But when one sees the perfect Ibsen, how one hates +the Norwegian and Swedish nations! They are detestable. + +They seem to be fingering with the mind the secret places and sources of +the blood, impertinent, irreverent, nasty. There is a certain +intolerable nastiness about the real Ibsen: the same thing is in +Strindberg and in most of the Norwegian and Swedish writings. It is with +them a sort of phallic worship also, but now the worship is mental and +perverted: the phallus is the real fetish, but it is the source of +uncleanliness and corruption and death, it is the Moloch, worshipped in +obscenity. + +Which is unbearable. The phallus is a symbol of creative divinity. But +it represents only part of creative divinity. The Italian has made it +represent the whole. Which is now his misery, for he has to destroy his +symbol in himself. + +Which is why the Italian men have the enthusiasm for war, unashamed. +Partly it is the true phallic worship, for the phallic principle is to +absorb and dominate all life. But also it is a desire to expose +themselves to death, to know death, that death may destroy in them this +too strong dominion of the blood, may once more liberate the spirit of +outgoing, of uniting, of making order out of chaos, in the outer world, +as the flesh makes a new order from chaos in begetting a new life, set +them free to know and serve a greater idea. + +The peasants below sat and listened intently, like children who hear and +do not understand, yet who are spellbound. The children themselves sit +spellbound on the benches till the play is over. They do not fidget or +lose interest. They watch with wide, absorbed eyes at the mystery, held +in thrall by the sound of emotion. + +But the villagers do not really care for Ibsen. They let it go. On the +feast of Epiphany, as a special treat, was given a poetic drama by +D'Annunzio, _La Fiaccola sotto il Moggio_--_The Light under the Bushel_. + +It is a foolish romantic play of no real significance. There are several +murders and a good deal of artificial horror. But it is all a very nice +and romantic piece of make-believe, like a charade. + +So the audience loved it. After the performance of _Ghosts_ I saw the +barber, and he had the curious grey clayey look of an Italian who is +cold and depressed. The sterile cold inertia, which the so-called +passionate nations know so well, had settled on him, and he went +obliterating himself in the street, as if he were cold, dead. + +But after the D'Annunzio play he was like a man who has drunk sweet wine +and is warm. + +'_Ah, bellissimo, bellissimo_!' he said, in tones of intoxicated +reverence, when he saw me. + +'Better than _I Spettri_?' I said. + +He half-raised his hands, as if to imply the fatuity of the question. + +'Ah, but--' he said, 'it was D'Annunzio. The other....' + +'That was Ibsen--a great Norwegian,' I said, 'famous all over the +world.' + +'But you know--D'Annunzio is a poet--oh, beautiful, beautiful!' There +was no going beyond this '_bello--bellissimo_'. + +It was the language which did it. It was the Italian passion for +rhetoric, for the speech which appeals to the senses and makes no demand +on the mind. When an Englishman listens to a speech he wants at least to +imagine that he understands thoroughly and impersonally what is meant. +But an Italian only cares about the emotion. It is the movement, the +physical effect of the language upon the blood which gives him supreme +satisfaction. His mind is scarcely engaged at all. He is like a child, +hearing and feeling without understanding. It is the sensuous +gratification he asks for. Which is why D'Annunzio is a god in Italy. He +can control the current of the blood with his words, and although much +of what he says is bosh, yet his hearer is satisfied, fulfilled. + +Carnival ends on the 5th of February, so each Thursday there is a Serata +d' Onore of one of the actors. The first, and the only one for which +prices were raised--to a fourpence entrance fee instead of +threepence--was for the leading lady. The play was _The Wife of the +Doctor_, a modern piece, sufficiently uninteresting; the farce that +followed made me laugh. + +Since it was her Evening of Honour, Adelaida was the person to see. She +is very popular, though she is no longer young. In fact, she is the +mother of the young pert person of _Ghosts_. + +Nevertheless, Adelaida, stout and blonde and soft and pathetic, is the +real heroine of the theatre, the prima. She is very good at sobbing; and +afterwards the men exclaim involuntarily, out of their strong emotion, +'_bella, bella_!' The women say nothing. They sit stiffly and +dangerously as ever. But, no doubt, they quite agree this is the true +picture of ill-used, tear-stained woman, the bearer of many wrongs. +Therefore they take unto themselves the homage of the men's '_bella, +bella_!' that follows the sobs: it is due recognition of their hard +wrongs: 'the woman pays.' Nevertheless, they despise in their souls the +plump, soft Adelaida. + +Dear Adelaida, she is irreproachable. In every age, in every clime, she +is dear, at any rate to the masculine soul, this soft, tear-blenched, +blonde, ill-used thing. She must be ill-used and unfortunate. Dear +Gretchen, dear Desdemona, dear Iphigenia, dear Dame aux Camelias, dear +Lucy of Lammermoor, dear Mary Magdalene, dear, pathetic, unfortunate +soul, in all ages and lands, how we love you. In the theatre she +blossoms forth, she is the lily of the stage. Young and inexperienced as +I am, I have broken my heart over her several times. I could write a +sonnet-sequence to her, yes, the fair, pale, tear-stained thing, +white-robed, with her hair down her back; I could call her by a hundred +names, in a hundred languages, Melisande, Elizabeth, Juliet, Butterfly, +Phedre, Minnehaha, etc. Each new time I hear her voice, with its faint +clang of tears, my heart grows big and hot, and my bones melt. I detest +her, but it is no good. My heart begins to swell like a bud under the +plangent rain. + +The last time I saw her was here, on the Garda, at Salo. She was the +chalked, thin-armed daughter of Rigoletto. I detested her, her voice had +a chalky squeak in it. And yet, by the end, my heart was overripe in my +breast, ready to burst with loving affection. I was ready to walk on to +the stage, to wipe out the odious, miscreant lover, and to offer her all +myself, saying, 'I can see it is real _love_ you want, and you shall +have it: _I_ will give it to you.' + +Of course I know the secret of the Gretchen magic; it is all in the +'Save me, Mr Hercules!' phrase. Her shyness, her timidity, her +trustfulness, her tears foster my own strength and grandeur. I am the +positive half of the universe. But so I am, if it comes to that, just as +positive as the other half. + +Adelaida is plump, and her voice has just that moist, plangent strength +which gives one a real voluptuous thrill. The moment she comes on the +stage and looks round--a bit scared--she is _she_, Electra, Isolde, +Sieglinde, Marguerite. She wears a dress of black voile, like the lady +who weeps at the trial in the police-court. This is her modern uniform. +Her antique garment is of trailing white, with a blonde pigtail and a +flower. Realistically, it is black voile and a handkerchief. + +Adelaida always has a handkerchief. And still I cannot resist it. I say, +'There's the hanky!' Nevertheless, in two minutes it has worked its way +with me. She squeezes it in her poor, plump hand as the tears begin to +rise; Fate, or man, is inexorable, so cruel. There is a sob, a cry; she +presses the fist and the hanky to her eyes, one eye, then the other. She +weeps real tears, tears shaken from the depths of her soft, vulnerable, +victimized female self. I cannot stand it. There I sit in the padrone's +little red box and stifle my emotion, whilst I repeat in my heart: 'What +a shame, child, what a shame!' She is twice my age, but what is age in +such circumstances? 'Your poor little hanky, it's sopping. There, then, +don't cry. It'll be all right. _I'll_ see you're all right. _All_ men +are not beasts, you know.' So I cover her protectively in my arms, and +soon I shall be kissing her, for comfort, in the heat and prowess of my +compassion, kissing her soft, plump cheek and neck closely, bringing my +comfort nearer and nearer. + +It is a pleasant and exciting role for me to play. Robert Burns did the +part to perfection: + + O wert thou in the cauld blast + On yonder lea, on yonder lea. + +How many times does one recite that to all the Ophelias and Gretchens in +the world: + + Thy bield should be my bosom. + +How one admires one's bosom in that capacity! Looking down at one's +shirt-front, one is filled with strength and pride. + +Why are the women so bad at playing this part in real life, this +Ophelia-Gretchen role? Why are they so unwilling to go mad and die for +our sakes? They do it regularly on the stage. + +But perhaps, after all, we write the plays. What a villain I am, what a +black-browed, passionate, ruthless, masculine villain I am to the +leading lady on the stage; and, on the other hand, dear heart, what a +hero, what a fount of chivalrous generosity and faith! I am _anything_ +but a dull and law-abiding citizen. I am a Galahad, full of purity and +spirituality, I am the Lancelot of valour and lust; I fold my hands, or +I cock my hat in one side, as the case may be: I am _myself_. Only, I am +not a respectable citizen, not that, in this hour of my glory and +my escape. + +Dear Heaven, how Adelaida wept, her voice plashing like violin music, at +my ruthless, masculine cruelty. Dear heart, how she sighed to rest on my +sheltering bosom! And how I enjoyed my dual nature! How I +admired myself! + +Adelaida chose _La Moglie del Dottore_ for her Evening of Honour. During +the following week came a little storm of coloured bills: 'Great Evening +of Honour of Enrico Persevalli.' + +This is the leader, the actor-manager. What should he choose for his +great occasion, this broad, thick-set, ruddy descendant of the peasant +proprietors of the plain? No one knew. The title of the play was +not revealed. + +So we were staying at home, it was cold and wet. But the maestra came +inflammably on that Thursday evening, and were we not going to the +theatre, to see _Amleto_? + +Poor maestra, she is yellow and bitter-skinned, near fifty, but her dark +eyes are still corrosively inflammable. She was engaged to a lieutenant +in the cavalry, who got drowned when she was twenty-one. Since then she +has hung on the tree unripe, growing yellow and bitter-skinned, never +developing. + +'_Amleto!_' I say. '_Non lo conosco._' + +A certain fear comes into her eyes. She is schoolmistress, and has a +mortal dread of being wrong. + +'_Si_,' she cries, wavering, appealing, '_una dramma inglese_.' + +'English!' I repeated. + +'Yes, an English drama.' + +'How do you write it?' + +Anxiously, she gets a pencil from her reticule, and, with black-gloved +scrupulousness, writes _Amleto_. + +'_Hamlet_!' I exclaim wonderingly. + +'_Ecco, Amleto!_' cries the maestra, her eyes aflame with thankful +justification. + +Then I knew that Signore Enrico Persevalli was looking to me for an +audience. His Evening of Honour would be a bitter occasion to him if the +English were not there to see his performance. + +I hurried to get ready, I ran through the rain. I knew he would take it +badly that it rained on his Evening of Honour. He counted himself a man +who had fate against him. + +'_Sono un disgraziato, io._' + +I was late. The First Act was nearly over. The play was not yet alive, +neither in the bosoms of the actors nor in the audience. I closed the +door of the box softly, and came forward. The rolling Italian eyes of +Hamlet glanced up at me. There came a new impulse over the Court +of Denmark. + +Enrico looked a sad fool in his melancholy black. The doublet sat close, +making him stout and vulgar, the knee-breeches seemed to exaggerate the +commonness of his thick, rather short, strutting legs. And he carried a +long black rag, as a cloak, for histrionic purposes. And he had on his +face a portentous grimace of melancholy and philosophic importance. His +was the caricature of Hamlet's melancholy self-absorption. + +I stooped to arrange my footstool and compose my countenance. I was +trying not to grin. For the first time, attired in philosophic +melancholy of black silk, Enrico looked a boor and a fool. His +close-cropped, rather animal head was common above the effeminate +doublet, his sturdy, ordinary figure looked absurd in a +melancholic droop. + +All the actors alike were out of their element. Their Majesties of +Denmark were touching. The Queen, burly little peasant woman, was ill at +ease in her pink satin. Enrico had had no mercy. He knew she loved to be +the scolding servant or housekeeper, with her head tied up in a +handkerchief, shrill and vulgar. Yet here she was pranked out in an +expanse of satin, la Regina. Regina, indeed! + +She obediently did her best to be important. Indeed, she rather fancied +herself; she looked sideways at the audience, self-consciously, quite +ready to be accepted as an imposing and noble person, if they would +esteem her such. Her voice sounded hoarse and common, but whether it was +the pink satin in contrast, or a cold, I do not know. She was almost +childishly afraid to move. Before she began a speech she looked down and +kicked her skirt viciously, so that she was sure it was under control. +Then she let go. She was a burly, downright little body of sixty, one +rather expected her to box Hamlet on the ears. + +Only she liked being a queen when she sat on the throne. There she +perched with great satisfaction, her train splendidly displayed down the +steps. She was as proud as a child, and she looked like Queen Victoria +of the Jubilee period. + +The King, her noble consort, also had new honours thrust upon him, as +well as new garments. His body was real enough but it had nothing at all +to do with his clothes. They established a separate identity by +themselves. But wherever he went, they went with him, to the confusion +of everybody. + +He was a thin, rather frail-looking peasant, pathetic, and very gentle. +There was something pure and fine about him, he was so exceedingly +gentle and by natural breeding courteous. But he did not feel kingly, he +acted the part with beautiful, simple resignation. + +Enrico Persevalli had overshot himself in every direction, but worst of +all in his own. He had become a hulking fellow, crawling about with his +head ducked between his shoulders, pecking and poking, creeping about +after other people, sniffing at them, setting traps for them, absorbed +by his own self-important self-consciousness. His legs, in their black +knee-breeches, had a crawling, slinking look; he always carried the +black rag of a cloak, something for him to twist about as he twisted in +his own soul, overwhelmed by a sort of inverted perversity. + +I had always felt an aversion from Hamlet: a creeping, unclean thing he +seems, on the stage, whether he is Forbes Robertson or anybody else. His +nasty poking and sniffing at his mother, his setting traps for the King, +his conceited perversion with Ophelia make him always intolerable. The +character is repulsive in its conception, based on self-dislike and a +spirit of disintegration. + +There is, I think, this strain of cold dislike, or self-dislike, through +much of the Renaissance art, and through all the later Shakespeare. In +Shakespeare it is a kind of corruption in the flesh and a conscious +revolt from this. A sense of corruption in the flesh makes Hamlet +frenzied, for he will never admit that it is his own flesh. Leonardo da +Vinci is the same, but Leonardo loves the corruption maliciously. +Michelangelo rejects any feeling of corruption, he stands by the flesh, +the flesh only. It is the corresponding reaction, but in the opposite +direction. But that is all four hundred years ago. Enrico Persevalli has +just reached the position. He _is_ Hamlet, and evidently he has great +satisfaction in the part. He is the modern Italian, suspicious, +isolated, self-nauseated, labouring in a sense of physical corruption. +But he will not admit it is in himself. He creeps about in self-conceit, +transforming his own self-loathing. With what satisfaction did he reveal +corruption--corruption in his neighbours he gloated in--letting his +mother know he had discovered her incest, her uncleanness, gloated in +torturing the incestuous King. Of all the unclean ones, Hamlet was the +uncleanest. But he accused only the others. + +Except in the 'great' speeches, and there Enrico was betrayed, Hamlet +suffered the extremity of physical self-loathing, loathing of his own +flesh. The play is the statement of the most significant philosophic +position of the Renaissance. Hamlet is far more even than Orestes, his +prototype, a mental creature, anti-physical, anti-sensual. The whole +drama is the tragedy of the convulsed reaction of the mind from the +flesh, of the spirit from the self, the reaction from the great +aristocratic to the great democratic principle. + +An ordinary instinctive man, in Hamlet's position, would either have set +about murdering his uncle, by reflex action, or else would have gone +right away. There would have been no need for Hamlet to murder his +mother. It would have been sufficient blood-vengeance if he had killed +his uncle. But that is the statement according to the aristocratic +principle. + +Orestes was in the same position, but the same position two thousand +years earlier, with two thousand years of experience wanting. So that +the question was not so intricate in him as in Hamlet, he was not nearly +so conscious. The whole Greek life was based on the idea of the +supremacy of the self, and the self was always male. Orestes was his +father's child, he would be the same whatever mother he had. The mother +was but the vehicle, the soil in which the paternal seed was planted. +When Clytemnestra murdered Agamemnon, it was as if a common individual +murdered God, to the Greek. + +But Agamemnon, King and Lord, was not infallible. He was fallible. He +had sacrificed Iphigenia for the sake of glory in war, for the +fulfilment of the superb idea of self, but on the other hand he had made +cruel dissension for the sake of the concubines captured in war. The +paternal flesh was fallible, ungodlike. It lusted after meaner pursuits +than glory, war, and slaying, it was not faithful to the highest idea of +the self. Orestes was driven mad by the furies of his mother, because of +the justice that they represented. Nevertheless he was in the end +exculpated. The third play of the trilogy is almost foolish, with its +prating gods. But it means that, according to the Greek conviction, +Orestes was right and Clytemnestra entirely wrong. But for all that, the +infallible King, the infallible male Self, is dead in Orestes, killed by +the furies of Clytemnestra. He gains his peace of mind after the +revulsion from his own physical fallibility, but he will never be an +unquestioned lord, as Agamemnon was. Orestes is left at peace, +neutralized. He is the beginning of non-aristocratic Christianity. + +Hamlet's father, the King, is, like Agamemnon, a warrior-king. But, +unlike Agamemnon, he is blameless with regard to Gertrude. Yet Gertrude, +like Clytemnestra, is the potential murderer of her husband, as Lady +Macbeth is murderess, as the daughters of Lear. The women murder the +supreme male, the ideal Self, the King and Father. + +This is the tragic position Shakespeare must dwell upon. The woman +rejects, repudiates the ideal Self which the male represents to her. The +supreme representative, King and Father, is murdered by the Wife and the +Daughters. + +What is the reason? Hamlet goes mad in a revulsion of rage and nausea. +Yet the women-murderers only represent some ultimate judgement in his +own soul. At the bottom of his own soul Hamlet has decided that the Self +in its supremacy, Father and King, must die. It is a suicidal decision +for his involuntary soul to have arrived at. Yet it is inevitable. The +great religious, philosophic tide, which has been swelling all through +the Middle Ages, had brought him there. + +The question, to be or not to be, which Hamlet puts himself, does not +mean, to live or not to live. It is not the simple human being who puts +himself the question, it is the supreme I, King and Father. To be or not +to be King, Father, in the Self supreme? And the decision is, not to be. + +It is the inevitable philosophic conclusion of all the Renaissance. The +deepest impulse in man, the religious impulse, is the desire to be +immortal, or infinite, consummated. And this impulse is satisfied in +fulfilment of an idea, a steady progression. In this progression man is +satisfied, he seems to have reached his goal, this infinity, this +immortality, this eternal being, with every step nearer which he takes. + +And so, according to his idea of fulfilment, man establishes the whole +order of life. If my fulfilment is the fulfilment and establishment of +the unknown divine Self which I am, then I shall proceed in the +realizing of the greatest idea of the self, the highest conception of +the I, my order of life will be kingly, imperial, aristocratic. The body +politic also will culminate in this divinity of the flesh, this body +imbued with glory, invested with divine power and might, the King, the +Emperor. In the body politic also I shall desire a king, an emperor, a +tyrant, glorious, mighty, in whom I see myself consummated and +fulfilled. This is inevitable! + +But during the Middle Ages, struggling within this pagan, original +transport, the transport of the Ego, was a small dissatisfaction, a +small contrary desire. Amid the pomp of kings and popes was the Child +Jesus and the Madonna. Jesus the King gradually dwindled down. There was +Jesus the Child, helpless, at the mercy of all the world. And there was +Jesus crucified. + +The old transport, the old fulfilment of the Ego, the Davidian ecstasy, +the assuming of all power and glory unto the self, the becoming infinite +through the absorption of all into the Ego, this gradually became +unsatisfactory. This was not the infinite, this was not immortality. +This was eternal death, this was damnation. + +The monk rose up with his opposite ecstasy, the Christian ecstasy. There +was a death to die: the flesh, the self, must die, so that the spirit +should rise again immortal, eternal, infinite. I am dead unto myself, +but I live in the Infinite. The finite Me is no more, only the Infinite, +the Eternal, is. + +At the Renaissance this great half-truth overcame the other great +half-truth. The Christian Infinite, reached by a process of abnegation, +a process of being absorbed, dissolved, diffused into the great +Not-Self, supplanted the old pagan Infinite, wherein the self like a +root threw out branches and radicles which embraced the whole universe, +became the Whole. + +There is only one Infinite, the world now cried, there is the great +Christian Infinite of renunciation and consummation in the not-self. The +other, that old pride, is damnation. The sin of sins is Pride, it is the +way to total damnation. Whereas the pagans based their life on pride. + +And according to this new Infinite, reached through renunciation and +dissolving into the Others, the Neighbour, man must build up his actual +form of life. With Savonarola and Martin Luther the living Church +actually transformed itself, for the Roman Church was still pagan. Henry +VIII simply said: 'There is no Church, there is only the State.' But +with Shakespeare the transformation had reached the State also. The +King, the Father, the representative of the Consummate Self, the maximum +of all life, the symbol of the consummate being, the becoming Supreme, +Godlike, Infinite, he must perish and pass away. This Infinite was not +infinite, this consummation was not consummated, all this was fallible, +false. It was rotten, corrupt. It must go. But Shakespeare was also the +thing itself. Hence his horror, his frenzy, his self-loathing. + +The King, the Emperor is killed in the soul of man, the old order of +life is over, the old tree is dead at the root. So said Shakespeare. It +was finally enacted in Cromwell. Charles I took up the old position of +kingship by divine right. Like Hamlet's father, he was blameless +otherwise. But as representative of the old form of life, which mankind +now hated with frenzy, he must be cut down, removed. It was a +symbolic act. + +The world, our world of Europe, had now really turned, swung round to a +new goal, a new idea, the Infinite reached through the omission of Self. +God is all that which is Not-Me. I am consummate when my Self, the +resistant solid, is reduced and diffused into all that which is Not-Me: +my neighbour, my enemy, the great Otherness. Then I am perfect. + +And from this belief the world began gradually to form a new State, a +new body politic, in which the Self should be removed. There should be +no king, no lords, no aristocrats. The world continued in its religious +belief, beyond the French Revolution, beyond the great movement of +Shelley and Godwin. There should be no Self. That which was supreme was +that which was Not-Me, the other. The governing factor in the State was +the idea of the good of others; that is, the Common Good. And the +_vital_ governing idea in the State has been this idea since Cromwell. + +Before Cromwell the idea was 'For the King', because every man saw +himself consummated in the King. After Cromwell the idea was 'For the +good of my neighbour', or 'For the good of the people', or 'For the good +of the whole'. This has been our ruling idea, by which we have more or +less lived. + +Now this has failed. Now we say that the Christian Infinite is not +infinite. We are tempted, like Nietzsche, to return back to the old +pagan Infinite, to say that is supreme. Or we are inclined, like the +English and the Pragmatist, to say, 'There is no Infinite, there is no +Absolute. The only Absolute is expediency, the only reality is sensation +and momentariness.' But we may say this, even act on it, _a la Sanine_. +But we never believe it. + +What is really Absolute is the mystic Reason which connects both +Infinites, the Holy Ghost that relates both natures of God. If we now +wish to make a living State, we must build it up to the idea of the Holy +Spirit, the supreme Relationship. We must say, the pagan Infinite is +infinite, the Christian Infinite is infinite: these are our two +Consummations, in both of these we are consummated. But that which +relates them alone is absolute. + +This Absolute of the Holy Ghost we may call Truth or Justice or Right. +These are partial names, indefinite and unsatisfactory unless there be +kept the knowledge of the two Infinites, pagan and Christian, which they +go between. When both are there, they are like a superb bridge, on which +one can stand and know the whole world, my world, the two halves of +the universe. + +'_Essere, o non essere, e qui il punto._' + +To be or not to be was the question for Hamlet to settle. It is no +longer our question, at least, not in the same sense. When it is a +question of death, the fashionable young suicide declares that his +self-destruction is the final proof of his own incontrovertible being. +And as for not-being in our public life, we have achieved it as much as +ever we want to, as much as is necessary. Whilst in private life there +is a swing back to paltry selfishness as a creed. And in the war there +is the position of neutralization and nothingness. It is a question of +knowing how _to be_, and how _not to be_, for we must fulfil both. +Enrico Persevalli was detestable with his '_Essere, o non essere_'. He +whispered it in a hoarse whisper as if it were some melodramatic murder +he was about to commit. As a matter of fact, he knows quite well, and +has known all his life, that his pagan Infinite, his transport of the +flesh and the supremacy of the male in fatherhood, is all +unsatisfactory. All his life he has really cringed before the northern +Infinite of the Not-Self, although he has continued in the Italian habit +of Self. But it is mere habit, sham. + +How can he know anything about being and not-being when he is only a +maudlin compromise between them, and all he wants is to be a maudlin +compromise? He is neither one nor the other. He has neither being nor +riot-being. He is as equivocal as the monks. He was detestable, mouthing +Hamlet's sincere words. He has still to let go, to know what not-being +is, before he can _be_. Till he has gone through the Christian negation +of himself, and has known the Christian consummation, he is a mere +amorphous heap. + +For the soliloquies of Hamlet are as deep as the soul of man can go, in +one direction, and as sincere as the Holy Spirit itself in their +essence. But thank heaven, the bog into which Hamlet struggled is almost +surpassed. + +It is a strange thing, if a man covers his face, and speaks with his +eyes blinded, how significant and poignant he becomes. The ghost of this +Hamlet was very simple. He was wrapped down to the knees in a great +white cloth, and over his face was an open-work woollen shawl. But the +naive blind helplessness and verity of his voice was strangely +convincing. He seemed the most real thing in the play. From the knees +downward he was Laertes, because he had on Laertes' white trousers and +patent leather slippers. Yet he was strangely real, a voice out of +the dark. + +The Ghost is really one of the play's failures, it is so trivial and +unspiritual and vulgar. And it was spoilt for me from the first. When I +was a child I went to the twopenny travelling theatre to see _Hamlet_. +The Ghost had on a helmet and a breastplate. I sat in pale transport. + +''Amblet, 'Amblet, I _am_ thy father's ghost.' + +Then came a voice from the dark, silent audience, like a cynical knife +to my fond soul: + +'Why tha arena, I can tell thy voice.' + +The peasants loved Ophelia: she was in white with her hair down her +back. Poor thing, she was pathetic, demented. And no wonder, after +Hamlet's 'O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt!' What then of +her young breasts and her womb? Hamlet with her was a very disagreeable +sight. The peasants loved her. There was a hoarse roar, half of +indignation, half of roused passion, at the end of her scene. + +The graveyard scene, too, was a great success, but I could not bear +Hamlet. And the grave-digger in Italian was a mere buffoon. The whole +scene was farcical to me because of the Italian, '_Questo cranio, +Signore_--'And Enrico, dainty fellow, took the skull in a corner of his +black cloak. As an Italian, he would not willingly touch it. It was +unclean. But he looked a fool, hulking himself in his lugubriousness. He +was as self-important as D'Annunzio. + +The close fell flat. The peasants had applauded the whole graveyard +scene wildly. But at the end of all they got up and crowded to the +doors, as if to hurry away: this in spite of Enrico's final feat: he +fell backwards, smack down three steps of the throne platform, on to the +stage. But planks and braced muscle will bounce, and Signer Amleto +bounced quite high again. + +It was the end of _Amleto_, and I was glad. But I loved the theatre, I +loved to look down on the peasants, who were so absorbed. At the end of +the scenes the men pushed back their black hats, and rubbed their hair +across their brows with a pleased, excited movement. And the women +stirred in their seats. + +Just one man was with his wife and child, and he was of the same race as +my old woman at San Tommaso. He was fair, thin, and clear, abstract, of +the mountains. He seemed to have gathered his wife and child together +into another, finer atmosphere, like the air of the mountains, and to +guard them in it. This is the real Joseph, father of the child. He has a +fierce, abstract look, wild and untamed as a hawk, but like a hawk at +its own nest, fierce with love. He goes out and buys a tiny bottle of +lemonade for a penny, and the mother and child sip it in tiny sips, +whilst he bends over, like a hawk arching its wings. + +It is the fierce spirit of the Ego come out of the primal infinite, but +detached, isolated, an aristocrat. He is not an Italian, dark-blooded. +He is fair, keen as steel, with the blood of the mountaineer in him. He +is like my old spinning woman. It is curious how, with his wife and +child, he makes a little separate world down there in the theatre, like +a hawk's nest, high and arid under the gleaming sky. + +The Bersaglieri sit close together in groups, so that there is a +strange, corporal connexion between them. They have close-cropped, dark, +slightly bestial heads, and thick shoulders, and thick brown hands on +each other's shoulders. When an act is over they pick up their cherished +hats and fling on their cloaks and go into the hall. They are rather +rich, the Bersaglieri. + +They are like young, half-wild oxen, such strong, sturdy, dark lads, +thickly built and with strange hard heads, like young male caryatides. +They keep close together, as if there were some physical instinct +connecting them. And they are quite womanless. There is a curious +inter-absorption among themselves, a sort of physical trance that holds +them all, and puts their minds to sleep. There is a strange, hypnotic +unanimity among them as they put on their plumed hats and go out +together, always very close, as if their bodies must touch. Then they +feel safe and content in this heavy, physical trance. They are in love +with one another, the young men love the young men. They shrink from the +world beyond, from the outsiders, from all who are not Bersaglieri of +their barracks. + +One man is a sort of leader. He is very straight and solid, solid like a +wall, with a dark, unblemished will. His cock-feathers slither in a +profuse, heavy stream from his black oil-cloth hat, almost to his +shoulder. He swings round. His feathers slip into a cascade. Then he +goes out to the hall, his feather tossing and falling richly. He must be +well off. The Bersaglieri buy their own black cock's-plumes, and some +pay twenty or thirty francs for the bunch, so the maestra said. The poor +ones have only poor, scraggy plumes. + +There is something very primitive about these men. They remind me really +of Agamemnon's soldiers clustered oil the seashore, men, all men, a +living, vigorous, physical host of men. But there is a pressure on these +Italian soldiers, as if they were men caryatides, with a great weight on +their heads, making their brain hard, asleep, stunned. They all look is +if their real brain were stunned, as if there were another centre of +physical consciousness from which they lived. + +Separate from them all is Pietro, the young man who lounges on the wharf +to carry things from the steamer. He starts up from sleep like a +wild-cat as somebody claps him on the shoulder. It is the start of a man +who has many enemies. He is almost an outlaw. Will he ever find himself +in prison? He is the _gamin_ of the village, well detested. + +He is twenty-four years old, thin, dark, handsome, with a cat-like +lightness and grace, and a certain repulsive, _gamin_ evil in his face. +Where everybody is so clean and tidy, he is almost ragged. His week's +beard shows very black in his slightly hollow cheeks. He hates the man +who has waked him by clapping him on the shoulder. + +Pietro is already married, yet he behaves as if he were not. He has been +carrying on with a loose woman, the wife of the citron-coloured barber, +the Siciliano. Then he seats himself on the women's side of the theatre, +behind a young person from Bogliaco, who also has no reputation, and +makes her talk to him. He leans forward, resting his arms on the seat +before him, stretching his slender, cat-like, flexible loins. The +padrona of the hotel hates him--'_ein frecher Kerl_,' she says with +contempt, and she looks away. Her eyes hate to see him. + +In the village there is the clerical party, which is the majority; +there is the anti-clerical party, and there are the ne'er-do-wells. The +clerical people are dark and pious and cold; there is a curious +stone-cold, ponderous darkness over them, moral and gloomy. Then the +anti-clerical party, with the Syndaco at the head, is bourgeois and +respectable as far as the middle-aged people are concerned, banal, +respectable, shut off as by a wall from the clerical people. The young +anti-clericals are the young bloods of the place, the men who gather +every night in the more expensive and less-respectable cafe. These young +men are all free-thinkers, great dancers, singers, players of the +guitar. They are immoral and slightly cynical. Their leader is the young +shopkeeper, who has lived in Vienna, who is a bit of a bounder, with a +veneer of sneering irony on an original good nature. He is well-to-do, +and gives dances to which only the looser women go, with these reckless +young men. He also gets up parties of pleasure, and is chiefly +responsible for the coming of the players to the theatre this carnival. +These young men are disliked, but they belong to the important class, +they are well-to-do, and they have the life of the village in their +hands. The clerical peasants are priest-ridden and good, because they +are poor and afraid and superstitious. There is, lastly, a sprinkling of +loose women, one who keeps the inn where the soldiers drink. These women +are a definite set. They know what they are, they pretend nothing else. +They are not prostitutes, but just loose women. They keep to their own +clique, among men and women, never wanting to compromise anybody else. + +And beyond all these there are the Franciscan friars in their brown +robes, so shy, so silent, so obliterated, as they stand back in the +shop, waiting to buy the bread for the monastery, waiting obscure and +neutral, till no one shall be in the shop wanting to be served. The +village women speak to them in a curious neutral, official, slightly +contemptuous voice. They answer neutral and humble, though distinctly. + +At the theatre, now the play is over, the peasants in their black hats +and cloaks crowd the hall. Only Pietro, the wharf-lounger, has no cloak, +and a bit of a cap on the side of his head instead of a black felt hat. +His clothes are thin and loose on his thin, vigorous, cat-like body, and +he is cold, but he takes no notice. His hands are always in his pockets, +his shoulders slightly raised. + +The few women slip away home. In the little theatre bar the well-to-do +young atheists are having another drink. Not that they spend much. A +tumbler of wine or a glass of vermouth costs a penny. And the wine is +horrible new stuff. Yet the little baker, Agostino, sits on a bench with +his pale baby on his knee, putting the wine to its lips. And the baby +drinks, like a blind fledgeling. + +Upstairs, the quality has paid its visits and shaken hands: the Syndaco +and the well-to-do half-Austrian owners of the woodyard, the Bertolini, +have ostentatiously shown their mutual friendship; our padrone, the +Signer Pietro Di Paoli, has visited his relatives the Graziani in the +box next the stage and has spent two intervals with us in our box; +meanwhile, his two peasants standing down below, pathetic, thin +contadini of the old school, like worn stones, have looked up at us as +if we are the angels in heaven, with a reverential, devotional eye, they +themselves far away below, standing in the bay at the back, below all. + +The chemist and the grocer and the schoolmistress pay calls. They have +all sat self-consciously posed in the front of their boxes, like framed +photographs of themselves. The second grocer and the baker visit each +other. The barber looks in on the carpenter, then drops downstairs among +the crowd. Class distinctions are cut very fine. As we pass with the +padrona of the hotel, who is a Bavarian, we stop to speak to our own +padroni, the Di Paoli. They have a warm handshake and effusive polite +conversation for us; for Maria Samuelli, a distant bow. We realize +our mistake. + +The barber--not the Siciliano, but flashy little Luigi with the big +tie-ring and the curls--knows all about the theatre. He says that Enrico +Persevalli has for his mistress Carina, the servant in _Ghosts_: that +the thin, gentle, old-looking king in _Hamlet_ is the husband of +Adelaida, and Carina is their daughter: that the old, sharp, fat little +body of a queen is Adelaida's mother: that they all like Enrico +Persevalli, because he is a very clever man: but that the 'Comic', Il +Brillante, Francesco, is unsatisfied. + +In three performances in Epiphany week, the company took two hundred and +sixty-five francs, which was phenomenal. The manager, Enrico Persevalli, +and Adelaida pay twenty-four francs for every performance, or every +evening on which a performance is given, as rent for the theatre, +including light. The company is completely satisfied with its reception +on the Lago di Garda. + +So it is all over. The Bersaglieri go running all the way home, because +it is already past half past ten. The night is very dark. About four +miles up the lake the searchlights of the Austrian border are swinging, +looking for smugglers. Otherwise the darkness is complete. + + + +_4_ + +SAN GAUDENZIO + + +In the autumn the little rosy cyclamens blossom in the shade of this +west side of the lake. They are very cold and fragrant, and their scent +seems to belong to Greece, to the Bacchae. They are real flowers of the +past. They seem to be blossoming in the landscape of Phaedra and Helen. +They bend down, they brood like little chill fires. They are little +living myths that I cannot understand. + +After the cyclamens the Christmas roses are in bud. It is at this season +that the cacchi are ripe on the trees in the garden, whole naked trees +full of lustrous, orange-yellow, paradisal fruit, gleaming against the +wintry blue sky. The monthly roses still blossom frail and pink, there +are still crimson and yellow roses. But the vines are bare and the +lemon-houses shut. And then, mid-winter, the lowest buds of the +Christmas roses appear under the hedges and rocks and by the streams. +They are very lovely, these first large, cold, pure buds, like violets, +like magnolias, but cold, lit up with the light from the snow. + +The days go by, through the brief silence of winter, when the sunshine +is so still and pure, like iced wine, and the dead leaves gleam brown, +and water sounds hoarse in the ravines. It is so still and transcendent, +the cypress trees poise like flames of forgotten darkness, that should +have been blown out at the end of the summer. For as we have candles to +light the darkness of night, so the cypresses are candles to keep the +darkness aflame in the full sunshine. + +Meanwhile, the Christmas roses become many. They rise from their budded, +intact humbleness near the ground, they rise up, they throw up their +crystal, they become handsome, they are heaps of confident, mysterious +whiteness in the shadow of a rocky stream. It is almost uncanny to see +them. They are the flowers of darkness, white and wonderful +beyond belief. + +Then their radiance becomes soiled and brown, they thaw, break, and +scatter and vanish away. Already the primroses are coming out, and the +almond is in bud. The winter is passing away. On the mountains the +fierce snow gleams apricot gold as evening approaches, golden, apricot, +but so bright that it is almost frightening. What can be so fiercely +gleaming when all is shadowy? It is something inhuman and unmitigated +between heaven and earth. + +The heavens are strange and proud all the winter, their progress goes on +without reference to the dim earth. The dawns come white and +translucent, the lake is a moonstone in the dark hills, then across the +lake there stretches a vein of fire, then a whole, orange, flashing +track over the whiteness. There is the exquisite silent passage of the +day, and then at evening the afterglow, a huge incandescence of rose, +hanging above and gleaming, as if it were the presence of a host of +angels in rapture. It gleams like a rapturous chorus, then passes away, +and the stars appear, large and flashing. + +Meanwhile, the primroses are dawning on the ground, their light is +growing stronger, spreading over the banks and under the bushes. Between +the olive roots the violets are out, large, white, grave violets, and +less serious blue ones. And looking down the bill, among the grey smoke +of olive leaves, pink puffs of smoke are rising up. It is the almond and +the apricot trees, it is the Spring. + +Soon the primroses are strong on the ground. There is a bank of small, +frail crocuses shooting the lavender into this spring. And then the +tussocks and tussocks of primroses are fully out, there is full morning +everywhere on the banks and roadsides and stream-sides, and around the +olive roots, a morning of primroses underfoot, with an invisible +threading of many violets, and then the lovely blue clusters of +hepatica, really like pieces of blue sky showing through a clarity of +primrose. The few birds are piping thinly and shyly, the streams sing +again, there is a strange flowering shrub full of incense, overturned +flowers of crimson and gold, like Bohemian glass. Between the olive +roots new grass is coming, day is leaping all clear and coloured from +the earth, it is full Spring, full first rapture. + +Does it pass away, or does it only lose its pristine quality? It deepens +and intensifies, like experience. The days seem to be darker and richer, +there is a sense of power in the strong air. On the banks by the lake +the orchids are out, many, many pale bee-orchids standing clear from the +short grass over the lake. And in the hollows are the grape hyacinths, +purple as noon, with the heavy, sensual fragrance of noon. They are +many-breasted, and full of milk, and ripe, and sun-darkened, like +many-breasted Diana. + +We could not bear to live down in the village any more, now that the +days opened large and spacious and the evenings drew out in sunshine. We +could not bear the indoors, when above us the mountains shone in clear +air. It was time to go up, to climb with the sun. + +So after Easter we went to San Gaudenzio. It was three miles away, up +the winding mule-track that climbed higher and higher along the lake. +Leaving the last house of the village, the path wound on the steep, +cliff-like side of the lake, curving into the hollow where the landslip +had tumbled the rocks in chaos, then out again on to the bluff of a +headland that hung over the lake. + +Thus we came to the tall barred gate of San Gaudenzio, on which was the +usual little fire-insurance tablet, and then the advertisements for +beer, 'Birra, Verona', which is becoming a more and more popular drink. + +Through the gate, inside the high wall, is the little Garden of Eden, a +property of three or four acres fairly level upon a headland over the +lake. The high wall girds it on the land side, and makes it perfectly +secluded. On the lake-side it is bounded by the sudden drops of the +land, in sharp banks and terraces, overgrown with ilex and with laurel +bushes, down to the brink of the cliff, so that the thicket of the first +declivities seems to safeguard the property. + +The pink farm-house stands almost in the centre of the little territory, +among the olive trees. It is a solid, six-roomed place, about fifty +years old, having been rebuilt by Paolo's uncle. Here we came to live +for a time with the Fiori, Maria and Paolo, and their three children, +Giovanni and Marco and Felicina. + +Paolo had inherited, or partly inherited, San Gaudenzio, which had been +in his family for generations. He was a peasant of fifty-three, very +grey and wrinkled and worn-looking, but at the same time robust, with +full strong limbs and a powerful chest. His face was old, but his body +was solid and powerful. His eyes were blue like upper ice, beautiful. He +had been a fair-haired man, now he was almost white. + +He, was strangely like the pictures of peasants in the northern Italian +pictures, with the same curious nobility, the same aristocratic, eternal +look of motionlessness, something statuesque. His head was hard and +fine, the bone finely constructed, though the skin of his face was loose +and furrowed with work. His temples had that fine, hard clarity which is +seen in Mantegna, an almost jewel-like quality. + +We all loved Paolo, he was so finished in his being, detached, with an +almost classic simplicity and gentleness, an eternal kind of sureness. +There was also something concluded and unalterable about him, something +inaccessible. + +Maria Fiori was different. She was from the plain, like Enrico +Persevalli and the Bersaglier from the Venetian district. She reminded +me again of oxen, broad-boned and massive in physique, dark-skinned, +slow in her soul. But, like the oxen of the plain, she knew her work, +she knew the other people engaged in the work. Her intelligence was +attentive and purposive. She had been a housekeeper, a servant, in +Venice and Verona, before her marriage. She had got the hang of this +world of commerce and activity, she wanted to master it. But she was +weighted down by her heavy animal blood. + +Paolo and she were the opposite sides of the universe, the light and the +dark. Yet they lived together now without friction, detached, each +subordinated in their common relationship. With regard to Maria, Paolo +omitted himself; Maria omitted herself with regard to Paolo. Their souls +were silent and detached, completely apart, and silent, quite silent. +They shared the physical relationship of marriage as if it were +something beyond them, a third thing. + +They had suffered very much in the earlier stages of their connexion. +Now the storm had gone by, leaving them, as it were, spent. They were +both by nature passionate, vehement. But the lines of their passion were +opposite. Hers was the primitive, crude, violent flux of the blood, +emotional and undiscriminating, but wanting to mix and mingle. His was +the hard, clear, invulnerable passion of the bones, finely tempered and +unchangeable. She was the flint and he the steel. But in continual +striking together they only destroyed each other. The fire was a third +thing, belonging to neither of them. + +She was still heavy and full of desire. She was much younger than he. + +'How long did you know your Signora before you were married?' she asked +me. + +'Six weeks,' I said. + +'_Il Paolo e me, venti giorni, tre settimane_,' she cried vehemently. +Three weeks they had known each other when they married. She still +triumphed in the fact. So did Paolo. But it was past, strangely and +rather terribly past. + +What did they want when they came together, Paolo and she? He was a man +over thirty, she was a woman of twenty-three. They were both violent in +desire and of strong will. They came together at once, like two +wrestlers almost matched in strength. Their meetings must have been +splendid. Giovanni, the eldest child, was a tall lad of sixteen, with +soft brown hair and grey eyes, and a clarity of brow, and the same calm +simplicity of bearing which made Paolo so complete; but the son had at +the same time a certain brownness of skin, a heaviness of blood, which +he had from his mother. Paolo was so clear and translucent. + +In Giovanni the fusion of the parents was perfect, he was a perfect +spark from the flint and steel. There was in Paolo a subtle intelligence +in feeling, a delicate appreciation of the other person. But the mind +was unintelligent, he could not grasp a new order. Maria Fiori was much +sharper and more adaptable to the ways of the world. Paolo had an almost +glass-like quality, fine and clear and perfectly tempered; but he was +also finished and brittle. Maria was much coarser, more vulgar, but also +she was more human, more fertile, with crude potentiality. His passion +was too fixed in its motion, hers too loose and overwhelming. + +But Giovanni was beautiful, gentle, and courtly like Paolo, but warm, +like Maria, ready to flush like a girl with anger or confusion. He stood +straight and tall, and seemed to look into the far distance with his +clear grey eyes. Yet also he could look at one and touch one with his +look, he could meet one. Paolo's blue eyes were like the eyes of the old +spinning-woman, clear and blue and belonging to the mountains, their +vision seemed to end in space, abstract. They reminded me of the eyes of +the eagle, which looks into the sun, and which teaches its young to do +the same, although they are unwilling. + +Marco, the second son, was thirteen years old. He was his mother's +favourite, Giovanni loved his father best. But Marco was his mother's +son, with the same brown-gold and red complexion, like a pomegranate, +and coarse black hair, and brown eyes like pebble, like agate, like an +animal's eyes. He had the same broad, bovine figure, though he was only +a boy. But there was some discrepancy in him. He was not unified, he had +no identity. + +He was strong and full of animal life, but always aimless, as though his +wits scarcely controlled him. But he loved his mother with a +fundamental, generous, undistinguishing love. Only he always forgot what +he was going to do. He was much more sensitive than Maria, more shy and +reluctant. But his shyness, his sensitiveness only made him more aimless +and awkward, a tiresome clown, slack and uncontrolled, witless. All day +long his mother shouted and shrilled and scolded at him, or hit him +angrily. He did not mind, he came up like a cork, warm and roguish and +curiously appealing. She loved him with a fierce protective love, +grounded on pain. There was such a split, a contrariety in his soul, one +part reacting against the other, which landed him always into trouble. + +It was when Marco was a baby that Paolo had gone to America. They were +poor on San Gaudenzio. There were the few olive trees, the grapes, and +the fruit; there was the one cow. But these scarcely made a living. +Neither was Maria content with the real peasants' lot any more, polenta +at midday and vegetable soup in the evening, and no way out, nothing to +look forward to, no future, only this eternal present. She had been in +service, and had eaten bread and drunk coffee, and known the flux and +variable chance of life. She had departed from the old static +conception. She knew what one might be, given a certain chance. The +fixture was the thing she militated against. So Paolo went to America, +to California, into the gold mines. + +Maria wanted the future, the endless possibility of life on earth. She +wanted her sons to be freer, to achieve a new plane of living. The +peasant's life was a slave's life, she said, railing against the poverty +and the drudgery. And it was quite true, Paolo and Giovanni worked +twelve and fourteen hours a day at heavy laborious work that would have +broken an Englishman. And there was nothing at the end of it. Yet Paolo +was even happy so. This was the truth to him. + +It was the mother who wanted things different. It was she who railed and +railed against the miserable life of the peasants. When we were going to +throw to the fowls a dry broken penny roll of white bread, Maria said, +with anger and shame and resentment in her voice: 'Give it to Marco, he +will eat it. It isn't too dry for him.' + +White bread was a treat for them even now, when everybody eats bread. +And Maria Fiori hated it, that bread should be a treat to her children, +when it was the meanest food of all the rest of the world. She was in +opposition to this order. She did not want her sons to be peasants, +fixed and static as posts driven in the earth. She wanted them to be in +the great flux of life in the midst of all possibilities. So she at +length sent Paolo to America to the gold-mines. Meanwhile, she covered +the wall of her parlour with picture postcards, to bring the outer world +of cities and industries into her house. + +Paolo was entirely remote from Maria's world. He had not yet even +grasped the fact of money, not thoroughly. He reckoned in land and olive +trees. So he had the old fatalistic attitude to his circumstances, even +to his food. The earth was the Lord's and the fulness thereof; also the +leanness thereof. Paolo could only do his part and leave the rest. If he +ate in plenty, having oil and wine and sausage in the house, and plenty +of maize-meal, he was glad with the Lord. If he ate meagrely, of poor +polenta, that was fate, it was the skies that ruled these things, and no +man ruled the skies. He took his fate as it fell from the skies. + +Maria was exorbitant about money. She would charge us all she could for +what we had and for what was done for us. + +Yet she was not mean in her soul. In her soul she was in a state of +anger because of her own closeness. It was a violation to her strong +animal nature. Yet her mind had wakened to the value of money. She knew +she could alter her position, the position of her children, by virtue of +money. She knew it was only money that made the difference between +master and servant. And this was all the difference she would +acknowledge. So she ruled her life according to money. Her supreme +passion was to be mistress rather than servant, her supreme aspiration +for her children was that in the end they might be masters and +not servants. + +Paolo was untouched by all this. For him there was some divinity about a +master which even America had not destroyed. If we came in for supper +whilst the family was still at table he would have the children at once +take their plates to the wall, he would have Maria at once set the table +for us, though their own meal were never finished. And this was not +servility, it was the dignity of a religious conception. Paolo regarded +us as belonging to the Signoria, those who are elect, near to God. And +this was part of his religious service. His life was a ritual. It was +very beautiful, but it made me unhappy, the purity of his spirit was so +sacred and the actual facts seemed such a sacrilege to it. Maria was +nearer to the actual truth when she said that money was the only +distinction. But Paolo had hold of an eternal truth, where hers was +temporal. Only Paolo misapplied this eternal truth. He should not have +given Giovanni the inferior status and a fat, mean Italian tradesman the +superior. That was false, a real falsity. Maria knew it and hated it. +But Paolo could not distinguish between the accident of riches and the +aristocracy of the spirit. So Maria rejected him altogether, and went to +the other extreme. We were all human beings like herself; naked, there +was no distinction between us, no higher nor lower. But we were +possessed of more money than she. And she had to steer her course +between these two conceptions. The money alone made the real +distinction, the separation; the being, the life made the common level. + +Paolo had the curious peasant's avarice also, but it was not meanness. +It was a sort of religious conservation of his own power, his own self. +Fortunately he could leave all business transactions on our account to +Maria, so that his relation with us was purely ritualistic. He would +have given me anything, trusting implicitly that I would fulfil my own +nature as Signore, one of those more godlike, nearer the light of +perfection than himself, a peasant. It was pure bliss to him to bring us +the first-fruit of the garden, it was like laying it on an altar. + +And his fulfilment was in a fine, subtle, exquisite relationship, not of +manners, but subtle interappreciation. He worshipped a finer +understanding and a subtler tact. A further fineness and dignity and +freedom in bearing was to him an approach towards the divine, so he +loved men best of all, they fulfilled his soul. A woman was always a +woman, and sex was a low level whereon he did not esteem himself. But a +man, a doer, the instrument of God, he was really godlike. + +Paolo was a Conservative. For him the world was established and divine +in its establishment. His vision grasped a small circle. A finer nature, +a higher understanding, took in a greater circle, comprehended the +whole. So that when Paolo was in relation to a man of further vision, he +himself was extended towards the whole. Thus he was fulfilled. And his +initial assumption was that every signore, every gentleman, was a man of +further, purer vision than himself. This assumption was false. But +Maria's assumption, that no one had a further vision, no one was more +elect than herself, that we are all one flesh and blood and being, was +even more false. Paolo was mistaken in actual life, but Maria was +ultimately mistaken. + +Paolo, conservative as he was, believing that a priest must be a priest +of God, yet very rarely went to church. And he used the religious oaths +that Maria hated, even _Porca-Maria_. He always used oaths, either +Bacchus or God or Mary or the Sacrament. Maria was always offended. Yet +it was she who, in her soul, jeered at the Church and at religion. She +wanted the human society as the absolute, without religious +abstractions. So Paolo's oaths enraged her, because of their profanity, +she said. But it was really because of their subscribing to another +superhuman order. She jeered at the clerical people. She made a loud +clamour of derision when the parish priest of the village above went +down to the big village on the lake, and across the piazza, the quay, +with two pigs in a sack on his shoulder. This was a real picture of the +sacred minister to her. + +One day, when a storm had blown down an olive tree in front of the +house, and Paolo and Giovanni were beginning to cut it up, this same +priest of Mugiano came to San Gaudenzio. He was an iron-grey, thin, +disreputable-looking priest, very talkative and loud and queer. He +seemed like an old ne'er-do-well in priests' black, and he talked +loudly, almost to himself, as drunken people do. At once _he_ must show +the Fiori how to cut up the tree, he must have the axe from Paolo. He +shouted to Maria for a glass of wine. She brought it out to him with a +sort of insolent deference, insolent contempt of the man and traditional +deference to the cloth. The priest drained the tumblerful of wine at one +drink, his thin throat with its Adam's apple working. And he did not pay +the penny. + +Then he stripped off his cassock and put away his hat, and, a ludicrous +figure in ill-fitting black knee-breeches and a not very clean shirt, a +red handkerchief round his neck, he proceeded to give great extravagant +blows at the tree. He was like a caricature. In the doorway Maria was +encouraging him rather jeeringly, whilst she winked at me. Marco was +stifling his hysterical amusement in his mother's apron, and prancing +with glee. Paolo and Giovanni stood by the fallen tree, very grave and +unmoved, inscrutable, abstract. Then the youth came away to the doorway, +with a flush mounting on his face and a grimace distorting its +youngness. Only Paolo, unmoved and detached, stood by the tree with +unchanging, abstract face, very strange, his eyes fixed in the ageless +stare which is so characteristic. + +Meanwhile the priest swung drunken blows at the tree, his thin buttocks +bending in the green-black broadcloth, supported on thin shanks, and +thin throat growing dull purple in the red-knotted kerchief. +Nevertheless he was doing the job. His face was wet with sweat. He +wanted another glass of wine. + +He took no notice of us. He was strangely a local, even a mountebank +figure, but entirely local, an appurtenance of the district. + +It was Maria who jeeringly told us the story of the priest, who shrugged +her shoulders to imply that he was a contemptible figure. Paolo sat with +the abstract look on his face, as of one who hears and does not hear, is +not really concerned. He never opposed or contradicted her, but stayed +apart. It was she who was violent and brutal in her ways. But sometimes +Paolo went into a rage, and then Maria, everybody, was afraid. It was a +white heavy rage, when his blue eyes shone unearthly, and his mouth +opened with a curious drawn blindness of the old Furies. There was +something of the cruelty of a falling mass of snow, heavy, horrible. +Maria drew away, there was a silence. Then the avalanche was finished. + +They must have had some cruel fights before they learned to withdraw +from each other so completely. They must have begotten Marco in hatred, +terrible disintegrated opposition and otherness. And it was after this, +after the child of their opposition was born, that Paolo went away to +California, leaving his San Gaudenzio, travelling with several +companions, like blind beasts, to Havre, and thence to New York, then to +California. He stayed five years in the gold-mines, in a wild valley, +living with a gang of Italians in a town of corrugated iron. + +All the while he had never really left San Gaudenzio. I asked him, 'Used +you to think of it, the lake, the Monte Baldo, the laurel trees down the +slope?' He tried to see what I wanted to know. Yes, he said--but +uncertainly. I could see that he had never been really homesick. It had +been very wretched on the ship going from Havre to New York. That he +told me about. And he told me about the gold-mines, the galleries, the +valley, the huts in the valley. But he had never really fretted for San +Gaudenzio whilst he was in California. + +In real truth he was at San Gaudenzio all the time, his fate was riveted +there. His going away was an excursion from reality, a kind of +sleep-walking. He left his own reality there in the soil above the lake +of Garda. That his body was in California, what did it matter? It was +merely for a time, and for the sake of his own earth, his land. He would +pay off the mortgage. But the gate at home was his gate all the time, +his hand was on the latch. + +As for Maria, he had felt his duty towards her. She was part of his +little territory, the rooted centre of the world. He sent her home the +money. But it did not occur to him, in his soul, to miss her. He wanted +her to be safe with the children, that was all. In his flesh perhaps he +missed the woman. But his spirit was even more completely isolated since +marriage. Instead of having united with each other, they had made each +other more terribly distinct and separate. He could live alone +eternally. It was his condition. His sex was functional, like eating and +drinking. To take a woman, a prostitute at the camp, or not to take her, +was no more vitally important than to get drunk or not to get drunk of a +Sunday. And fairly often on Sunday Paolo got drunk. His world remained +unaltered. + +But Maria suffered more bitterly. She was a young, powerful, passionate +woman, and she was unsatisfied body and soul. Her soul's satisfaction +became a bodily unsatisfaction. Her blood was heavy, violent, anarchic, +insisting on the equality of the blood in all, and therefore on her own +absolute right to satisfaction. + +She took a wine licence for San Gaudenzio, and she sold wine. There were +many scandals about her. Somehow it did not matter very much, outwardly. +The authorities were too divided among themselves to enforce public +opinion. Between the clerical party and the radicals and the socialists, +what canons were left that were absolute? Besides, these wild villages +had always been ungoverned. + +Yet Maria suffered. Even she, according to her conviction belonged to +Paolo. And she felt betrayed, betrayed and deserted. The iron had gone +deep into her soul. Paolo had deserted her, she had been betrayed to +other men for five years. There was something cruel and implacable in +life. She sat sullen and heavy, for all her quick activity. Her soul was +sullen and heavy. + +I could never believe Felicina was Paolo's child. She was an +unprepossessing little girl, affected, cold, selfish, foolish. Maria and +Paolo, with real Italian greatness, were warm and natural towards the +child in her. But they did not love her in their very souls, she was the +fruit of ash to them. And this must have been the reason that she was so +self-conscious and foolish and affected, small child that she was. + +Paolo had come back from America a year before she was born--a year +before she was born, Maria insisted. The husband and wife lived together +in a relationship of complete negation. In his soul he was sad for her, +and in her soul she felt annulled. He sat at evening in the +chimney-seat, smoking, always pleasant and cheerful, not for a moment +thinking he was unhappy. It had all taken place in his subconsciousness. +But his eyebrows and eyelids were lifted in a kind of vacancy, his blue +eyes were round and somehow finished, though he was so gentle and +vigorous in body. But the very quick of him was killed. He was like a +ghost in the house, with his loose throat and powerful limbs, his open, +blue extinct eyes, and his musical, slightly husky voice, that seemed to +sound out of the past. + +And Maria, stout and strong and handsome like a peasant woman, went +about as if there were a weight on her, and her voice was high and +strident. She, too, was finished in her life. But she remained unbroken, +her will was like a hammer that destroys the old form. + +Giovanni was patiently labouring to learn a little English. Paolo knew +only four or five words, the chief of which were 'a'right', 'boss', +'bread', and 'day'. The youth had these by heart, and was studying a +little more. He was very graceful and lovable, but he found it difficult +to learn. A confused light, like hot tears, would come into his eyes +when he had again forgotten the phrase. But he carried the paper about +with him, and he made steady progress. + +He would go to America, he also. Not for anything would he stay in San +Gaudenzio. His dream was to be gone. He would come back. The world was +not San Gaudenzio to Giovanni. + +The old order, the order of Paolo and of Pietro di Paoli, the +aristocratic order of the supreme God, God the Father, the Lord, was +passing away from the beautiful little territory. The household no +longer receives its food, oil and wine and maize, from out of the earth +in the motion of fate. The earth is annulled, and money takes its place. +The landowner, who is the lieutenant of God and of Fate, like Abraham, +he, too, is annulled. There is now the order of the rich, which +supersedes the order of the Signoria. + +It is passing away from Italy as it has passed from England. The peasant +is passing away, the workman is taking his place. The stability is gone. +Paolo is a ghost, Maria is the living body. And the new order means +sorrow for the Italian more even than it has meant for us. But he will +have the new order. + +San Gaudenzio is already becoming a thing of the past. Below the house, +where the land drops in sharp slips to the sheer cliff's edge, over +which it is Maria's constant fear that Felicina will tumble, there are +the deserted lemon gardens of the little territory, snug down below. +They are invisible till one descends by tiny paths, sheer down into +them. And there they stand, the pillars and walls erect, but a dead +emptiness prevailing, lemon trees all dead, gone, a few vines in their +place. It is only twenty years since the lemon trees finally perished of +a disease and were not renewed. But the deserted terrace, shut between +great walls, descending in their openness full to the south, to the lake +and the mountain opposite, seem more terrible than Pompeii in their +silence and utter seclusion. The grape hyacinths flower in the cracks, +the lizards run, this strange place hangs suspended and forgotten, +forgotten for ever, its erect pillars utterly meaningless. + +I used to sit and write in the great loft of the lemon-house, high up, +far, far from the ground, the open front giving across the lake and the +mountain snow opposite, flush with twilight. The old matting and boards, +the old disused implements of lemon culture made shadows in the deserted +place. Then there would come the call from the back, away above: +'_Venga, venga mangiare_.' + +We ate in the kitchen, where the olive and laurel wood burned in the +open fireplace. It was always soup in the evening. Then we played games +or cards, all playing; or there was singing, with the accordion, and +sometimes a rough mountain peasant with a guitar. + +But it is all passing away. Giovanni is in America, unless he has come +back to the War. He will not want to live in San Gaudenzio when he is a +man, he says. He and Marco will not spend their lives wringing a little +oil and wine out of the rocky soil, even if they are not killed in the +fighting which is going on at the end of the lake. In my loft by the +lemon-houses now I should hear the guns. And Giovanni kissed me with a +kind of supplication when I went on to the steamer, as if he were +beseeching for a soul. His eyes were bright and clear and lit up with +courage. He will make a good fight for the new soul he wants--that is, +if they do not kill him in this War. + + + +_5_ + +THE DANCE + + +Maria had no real licence for San Gaudenzio, yet the peasants always +called for wine. It is easy to arrange in Italy. The penny is paid +another time. + +The wild old road that skirts the lake-side, scrambling always higher as +the precipice becomes steeper, climbing and winding to the villages +perched high up, passes under the high boundary-wall of San Gaudenzio, +between that and the ruined church. But the road went just as much +between the vines and past the house as outside, under the wall; for the +high gates were always open, and men or women and mules come into the +property to call at the door of the homestead. There was a loud shout, +'Ah--a--a--ah--Mari--a. O--O--Oh Pa'o!' from outside, another wild, +inarticulate cry from within, and one of the Fiori appeared in the +doorway to hail the newcomer. + +It was usually a man, sometimes a peasant from Mugiano, high up, +sometimes a peasant from the wilds of the mountain, a wood-cutter, or a +charcoal-burner. He came in and sat in the house-place, his glass of +wine in his hand between his knees, or on the floor between his feet, +and he talked in a few wild phrases, very shy, like a hawk indoors, and +unintelligible in his dialect. + +Sometimes we had a dance. Then, for the wine to drink, three men came +with mandolines and guitars, and sat in a corner playing their rapid +tunes, while all danced on the dusty brick floor of the little parlour. +No strange women were invited, only men; the young bloods from the big +village on the lake, the wild men from above. They danced the slow, +trailing, lilting polka-waltz round and round the small room, the +guitars and mandolines twanging rapidly, the dust rising from the soft +bricks. There were only the two English women: so men danced with men, +as the Italians love to do. They love even better to dance with men, +with a dear blood-friend, than with women. + +'It's better like this, two men?' Giovanni says to me, his blue eyes +hot, his face curiously tender. + +The wood-cutters and peasants take off their coats, their throats are +bare. They dance with strange intentness, particularly if they have for +partner an English Signora. Their feet in thick boots are curiously +swift and significant. And it is strange to see the Englishwomen, as +they dance with the peasants transfigured with a kind of brilliant +surprise. All the while the peasants are very courteous, but quiet. They +see the women dilate and flash, they think they have found a footing, +they are certain. So the male dancers are quiet, but even grandiloquent, +their feet nimble, their bodies wild and confident. + +They are at a loss when the two English Signoras move together and laugh +excitedly at the end of the dance. + +'Isn't it fine?' + +'Fine! Their arms are like iron, carrying you round.' + +'Yes! Yes! And the muscles on their shoulders! I never knew there were +such muscles! I'm almost frightened.' + +'But it's fine, isn't it? I'm getting into the dance.' + +'Yes--yes--you've only to let them take you.' + +Then the glasses are put down, the guitars give their strange, vibrant, +almost painful summons, and the dance begins again. + +It is a strange dance, strange and lilting, and changing as the music +changed. But it had always a kind of leisurely dignity, a trailing kind +of polka-waltz, intimate, passionate, yet never hurried, never violent +in its passion, always becoming more intense. The women's faces changed +to a kind of transported wonder, they were in the very rhythm of +delight. From the soft bricks of the floor the red ochre rose in a thin +cloud of dust, making hazy the shadowy dancers; the three musicians, in +their black hats and their cloaks, sat obscurely in the corner, making a +music that came quicker and quicker, making a dance that grew swifter +and more intense, more subtle, the men seeming to fly and to implicate +other strange inter-rhythmic dance into the women, the women drifting +and palpitating as if their souls shook and resounded to a breeze that +was subtly rushing upon them, through them; the men worked their feet, +their thighs swifter, more vividly, the music came to an almost +intolerable climax, there was a moment when the dance passed into a +possession, the men caught up the women and swung them from the earth, +leapt with them for a second, and then the next phase of the dance had +begun, slower again, more subtly interwoven, taking perfect, oh, +exquisite delight in every interrelated movement, a rhythm within a +rhythm, a subtle approaching and drawing nearer to a climax, nearer, +till, oh, there was the surpassing lift and swing of the women, when the +woman's body seemed like a boat lifted over the powerful, exquisite wave +of the man's body, perfect, for a moment, and then once more the slow, +intense, nearer movement of the dance began, always nearer, nearer, +always to a more perfect climax. + +And the women waited as if in transport for the climax, when they would +be flung into a movement surpassing all movement. They were flung, borne +away, lifted like a boat on a supreme wave, into the zenith and nave of +the heavens, consummate. + +Then suddenly the dance crashed to an end, and the dancers stood +stranded, lost, bewildered, on a strange shore. The air was full of red +dust, half-lit by the lamp on the wall; the players in the corner were +putting down their instruments to take up their glasses. + +And the dancers sat round the wall, crowding in the little room, faint +with the transport of repeated ecstasy. There was a subtle smile on the +face of the men, subtle, knowing, so finely sensual that the conscious +eyes could scarcely look at it. And the women were dazed, like creatures +dazzled by too much light. The light was still on their faces, like a +blindness, a reeling, like a transfiguration. The men were bringing +wine, on a little tin tray, leaning with their proud, vivid loins, their +faces flickering with the same subtle smile. Meanwhile, Maria Fiori was +splashing water, much water, on the red floor. There was the smell of +water among the glowing, transfigured men and women who sat gleaming in +another world, round the walls. + +The peasants have chosen their women. For the dark, handsome +Englishwoman, who looks like a slightly malignant Madonna, comes Il +Duro; for the '_bella bionda_', the wood-cutter. But the peasants have +always to take their turn after the young well-to-do men from the +village below. + +Nevertheless, they are confident. They cannot understand the +middle-class diffidence of the young men who wear collars and ties and +finger-rings. + +The wood-cutter from the mountain is of medium height, dark, thin, and +hard as a hatchet, with eyes that are black like the very flaming thrust +of night. He is quite a savage. There is something strange about his +dancing, the violent way he works one shoulder. He has a wooden leg, +from the knee-joint. Yet he dances well, and is inordinately proud. He +is fierce as a bird, and hard with energy as a thunderbolt. He will +dance with the blonde signora. But he never speaks. He is like some +violent natural phenomenon rather than a person. The woman begins to +wilt a little in his possession. + +'_E bello--il ballo?_' he asked at length, one direct, flashing +question. + +'_Si--molto bello_,' cries the woman, glad to have speech again. + +The eyes of the wood-cutter flash like actual possession. He seems now +to have come into his own. With all his senses, he is dominant, sure. + +He is inconceivably vigorous in body, and his dancing is almost perfect, +with a little catch in it, owing to his lameness, which brings almost a +pure intoxication. Every muscle in his body is supple as steel, supple, +as strong as thunder, and yet so quick, so delicately swift, it is +almost unbearable. As he draws near to the swing, the climax, the +ecstasy, he seems to lie in wait, there is a sense of a great strength +crouching ready. Then it rushes forth, liquid, perfect, transcendent, +the woman swoons over in the dance, and it goes on, enjoyment, infinite, +incalculable enjoyment. He is like a god, a strange natural phenomenon, +most intimate and compelling, wonderful. + +But he is not a human being. The woman, somewhere shocked in her +independent soul, begins to fall away from him. She has another being, +which he has not touched, and which she will fall back upon. The dance +is over, she will fall back on herself. It is perfect, too perfect. + +During the next dance, while she is in the power of the educated Ettore, +a perfect and calculated voluptuary, who knows how much he can get out +of this Northern woman, and only how much, the wood-cutter stands on the +edge of the darkness, in the open doorway, and watches. He is fixed upon +her, established, perfect. And all the while she is aware of the +insistent hawk-like poising of the face of the wood-cutter, poised on +the edge of the darkness, in the doorway, in possession, +unrelinquishing. + +And she is angry. There is something stupid, absurd, in the hard, +talon-like eyes watching so fiercely and so confidently in the doorway, +sure, unmitigated. Has the creature no sense? + +The woman reacts from him. For some time she will take no notice of him. +But he waits, fixed. Then she comes near to him, and his will seems to +take hold of her. He looks at her with a strange, proud, inhuman +confidence, as if his influence with her was already accomplished. + +'_Venga--venga un po'_,' he says, jerking his head strangely to the +darkness. + +'What?' she replies, and passes shaken and dilated and brilliant, +consciously ignoring him, passes away among the others, among those +who are safe. + +There is food in the kitchen, great hunks of bread, sliced sausage that +Maria has made, wine, and a little coffee. But only the quality come to +eat. The peasants may not come in. There is eating and drinking in the +little house, the guitars are silent. It is eleven o'clock. + +Then there is singing, the strange bestial singing of these hills. +Sometimes the guitars can play an accompaniment, but usually not. Then +the men lift up their heads and send out the high, half-howling music, +astounding. The words are in dialect. They argue among themselves for a +moment: will the Signoria understand? They sing. The Signoria does not +understand in the least. So with a strange, slightly malignant triumph, +the men sing all the verses of their song, sitting round the walls of +the little parlour. Their throats move, their faces have a slight +mocking smile. The boy capers in the doorway like a faun, with glee, his +straight black hair falling over his forehead. The elder brother sits +straight and flushed, but even his eyes glitter with a kind of yellow +light of laughter. Paolo also sits quiet, with the invisible smile on +his face.' Only Maria, large and active, prospering now, keeps +collected, ready to order a shrill silence in the same way as she orders +the peasants, violently, to keep their places. + +The boy comes to me and says: + +'Do you know, Signore, what they are singing?' + +'No,' I say. + +So he capers with furious glee. The men with the watchful eyes, all +roused, sit round the wall and sing more distinctly: + + _Si verra la primavera + Fiorann' le mandoline, + Vienn' di basso le Trentine + Coi 'taliani far' l'amor._ + +But the next verses are so improper that I pretend not to understand. +The women, with wakened, dilated faces, are listening, listening hard, +their two faces beautiful in their attention, as if listening to +something magical, a long way off. And the men sitting round the wall +sing more plainly, coming nearer to the correct Italian. The song comes +loud and vibrating and maliciously from their reedy throats, it +penetrates everybody. The foreign women can understand the sound, they +can feel the malicious, suggestive mockery. But they cannot catch the +words. The smile becomes more dangerous on the faces of the men. + +Then Maria Fiori sees that I have understood, and she cries, in her +loud, overriding voice: + +'_Basta--basta._ + +The men get up, straighten their bodies with a curious, offering +movement. The guitars and mandolines strike the vibrating strings. But +the vague Northern reserve has come over the Englishwomen. They dance +again, but without the fusion in the dance. They have had enough. + +The musicians are thanked, they rise and go into the night. The men pass +off in pairs. But the wood-cutter, whose name and whose nickname I could +never hear, still hovered on the edge of the darkness. + +Then Maria sent him also away, complaining that he was too wild, +_proprio selvatico_, and only the 'quality' remained, the well-to-do +youths from below. There was a little more coffee, and a talking, a +story of a man who had fallen over a declivity in a lonely part going +home drunk in the evening, and had lain unfound for eighteen hours. Then +a story of a donkey who had kicked a youth in the chest and killed him. + +But the women were tired, they would go to bed. Still the two young men +would not go away. We all went out to look at the night. + +The stars were very bright overhead, the mountain opposite and the +mountains behind us faintly outlined themselves on the sky. Below, the +lake was a black gulf. A little wind blew cold from the Adige. + +In the morning the visitors had gone. They had insisted on staying the +night. They had eaten eight eggs each and much bread at one o'clock in +the morning. Then they had gone to sleep, lying on the floor in the +sitting-room. + +In the early sunshine they had drunk coffee and gone down to the village +on the lake. Maria was very pleased. She would have made a good deal of +money. The young men were rich. Her cupidity seemed like her +very blossom. + + + +_6_ + +IL DURO + + +The first time I saw Il Duro was on a sunny day when there came up a +party of pleasure-makers to San Gaudenzio. They were three women and +three men. The women were in cotton frocks, one a large, dark, florid +woman in pink, the other two rather insignificant. The men I scarcely +noticed at first, except that two were young and one elderly. + +They were a queer party, even on a feast day, coming up purely for +pleasure, in the morning, strange, and slightly uncertain, advancing +between the vines. They greeted Maria and Paolo in loud, coarse voices. +There was something blowsy and uncertain and hesitating about the women +in particular, which made one at once notice them. + +Then a picnic was arranged for them out of doors, on the grass. They sat +just in front of the house, under the olive tree, beyond the well. It +should have been pretty, the women in their cotton frocks, and their +friends, sitting with wine and food in the spring sunshine. But somehow +it was not: it was hard and slightly ugly. + +But since they were picnicking out of doors, we must do so too. We were +at once envious. But Maria was a little unwilling, and then she set a +table for us. + +The strange party did not speak to us, they seemed slightly uneasy and +angry at our presence. I asked Maria who they were. She lifted her +shoulders, and, after a second's cold pause, said they were people from +down below, and then, in her rather strident, shrill, slightly bitter, +slightly derogatory voice, she added: + +'They are not people for you, signore. You don't know them.' + +She spoke slightly angrily and contemptuously of them, rather +protectively of me. So that vaguely I gathered that they were not quite +'respectable'. + +Only one man came into the house. He was very handsome, beautiful +rather, a man of thirty-two or-three, with a clear golden skin, and +perfectly turned face, something godlike. But the expression was +strange. His hair was jet black and fine and smooth, glossy as a bird's +wing, his brows were beautifully drawn, calm above his grey eyes, that +had long dark lashes. + +His eyes, however, had a sinister light in them, a pale, slightly +repelling gleam, very much like a god's pale-gleaming eyes, with the +same vivid pallor. And all his face had the slightly malignant, +suffering look of a satyr. Yet he was very beautiful. + +He walked quickly and surely, with his head rather down, passing from +his desire to his object, absorbed, yet curiously indifferent, as if the +transit were in a strange world, as if none of what he was doing were +worth the while. Yet he did it for his own pleasure, and the light on +his face, a pale, strange gleam through his clear skin, remained like a +translucent smile, unchanging as time. + +He seemed familiar with the household, he came and fetched wine at his +will. Maria was angry with him. She railed loudly and violently. He was +unchanged. He went out with the wine to the party on the grass. Maria +regarded them all with some hostility. + +They drank a good deal out there in the sunshine. The women and the +older man talked floridly. Il Duro crouched at the feast in his curious +fashion--he had strangely flexible loins, upon which he seemed to crouch +forward. But he was separate, like an animal that remains quite single, +no matter where it is. + +The party remained until about two o'clock. Then, slightly flushed, it +moved on in a ragged group up to the village beyond. I do not know if +they went to one of the inns of the stony village, or to the large +strange house which belonged to the rich young grocer of the village +below, a house kept only for feasts and riots, uninhabited for the most +part. Maria would tell me nothing about them. Only the young well-to-do +grocer, who had lived in Vienna, the Bertolotti, came later in the +afternoon inquiring for the party. + +And towards sunset I saw the elderly man of the group stumbling home +very drunk down the path, after the two women, who had gone on in front. +Then Paolo sent Giovanni to see the drunken one safely past the +landslip, which was dangerous. Altogether it was an unsatisfactory +business, very much like any other such party in any other country. + +Then in the evening Il Duro came in. His name is Faustino, but everybody +in the village has a nickname, which is almost invariably used. He came +in and asked for supper. We had all eaten. So he ate a little food alone +at the table, whilst we sat round the fire. + +Afterwards we played 'Up, Jenkins'. That was the one game we played with +the peasants, except that exciting one of theirs, which consists in +shouting in rapid succession your guesses at the number of fingers +rapidly spread out and shut into the hands again upon the table. + +Il Duro joined in the game. And that was because he had been in America, +and now was rich. He felt he could come near to the strange signori. But +he was always inscrutable. + +It was queer to look at the hands spread on the table: the Englishwomen, +having rings on their soft fingers; the large fresh hands of the elder +boy, the brown paws of the younger; Paolo's distorted great hard hands +of a peasant; and the big, dark brown, animal, shapely hands +of Faustino. + +He had been in America first for two years and then for five +years--seven years altogether--but he only spoke a very little English. +He was always with Italians. He had served chiefly in a flag factory, +and had had very little to do save to push a trolley with flags from the +dyeing-room to the drying-room I believe it was this. + +Then he had come home from America with a fair amount of money, he had +taken his uncle's garden, had inherited his uncle's little house, and he +lived quite alone. + +He was rich, Maria said, shouting in her strident voice. He at once +disclaimed it, peasant-wise. But before the signori he was glad also to +appear rich. He was mean, that was more, Maria cried, half-teasing, half +getting at him. + +He attended to his garden, grew vegetables all the year round, lived in +his little house, and in spring made good money as a vine-grafter: he +was an expert vine-grafter. + +After the boys had gone to bed he sat and talked to me. He was curiously +attractive and curiously beautiful, but somehow like stone in his clear +colouring and his clear-cut face. His temples, with the black hair, were +distinct and fine as a work of art. + +But always his eyes had this strange, half-diabolic, half-tortured pale +gleam, like a goat's, and his mouth was shut almost uglily, his cheeks +stern. His moustache was brown, his teeth strong and spaced. The women +said it was a pity his moustache was brown. + +'_Peccato!--sa, per bellezza, i baffi neri--ah-h!_' + +Then a long-drawn exclamation of voluptuous appreciation. + +'You live quite alone?' I said to him. + +He did. And even when he had been ill he was alone. He had been ill two +years before. His cheeks seemed to harden like marble and to become pale +at the thought. He was afraid, like marble with fear. + +'But why,' I said, 'why do you live alone? You are sad--_e triste_.' + +He looked at me with his queer, pale eyes. I felt a great static misery +in him, something very strange. + +'_Triste!_' he repeated, stiffening up, hostile. I could not understand. + +'_Vuol' dire che hai l'aria dolorosa_,' cried Maria, like a chorus +interpreting. And there was always a sort of loud ring of challenge +somewhere in her voice. + +'Sad,' I said in English. + +'Sad I' he repeated, also in English. And he did not smile or change, +only his face seemed to become more stone-like. And he only looked at +me, into my eyes, with the long, pale, steady, inscrutable look of a +goat, I can only repeat, something stone-like. + +'Why,' I said, 'don't you marry? Man doesn't live alone.' + +'I don't marry,' he said to me, in his emphatic, deliberate, cold +fashion, 'because I've seen too much. _Ho visto troppo._' + +'I don't understand,' I said. + +Yet I could feel that Paolo, sitting silent, like a monolith also, in +the chimney opening, he understood: Maria also understood. + +Il Duro looked again steadily into my eyes. + +'_Ho visto troppo_,' he repeated, and the words seemed engraved on +stone. 'I've seen too much.' + +'But you can marry,' I said, 'however much you have seen, if you have +seen all the world.' + +He watched me steadily, like a strange creature looking at me. + +'What woman?' he said to me. + +'You can find a woman--there are plenty of women,' I said. + +'Not for me,' he said. 'I have known too many. I've known too much, I +can marry nobody.' + +'Do you dislike women?' I said. + +'No--quite otherwise. I don't think ill of them.' + +'Then why can't you marry? Why must you live alone?' + +'Why live with a woman?' he said to me, and he looked mockingly. 'Which +woman is it to be?' + +'You can find her,' I said. 'There are many women.' + +Again he shook his head in the stony, final fashion. + +'Not for me. I have known too much.' + +'But does that prevent you from marrying?' + +He looked at me steadily, finally. And I could see it was impossible for +us to understand each other, or for me to understand him. I could not +understand the strange white gleam of his eyes, where it came from. + +Also I knew he liked me very much, almost loved me, which again was +strange and puzzling. It was as if he were a fairy, a faun, and had no +soul. But he gave me a feeling of vivid sadness, a sadness that gleamed +like phosphorescence. He himself was not sad. There was a completeness +about him, about the pallid otherworld he inhabited, which excluded +sadness. It was too complete, too final, too defined. There was no +yearning, no vague merging off into mistiness.... He was clear and fine +as semi-transparent rock, as a substance in moonlight. He seemed like a +crystal that has achieved its final shape and has nothing more +to achieve. + +That night he slept on the floor of the sitting-room. In the morning he +was gone. But a week after he came again, to graft the vines. + +All the morning and the afternoon he was among the vines, crouching +before them, cutting them back with his sharp, bright knife, amazingly +swift and sure, like a god. It filled me with a sort of panic to see him +crouched flexibly, like some strange animal god, doubled on his +haunches, before the young vines, and swiftly, vividly, without thought, +cut, cut, cut at the young budding shoots, which fell unheeded on to the +earth. Then again he strode with his curious half-goatlike movement +across the garden, to prepare the lime. + +He mixed the messy stuff, cow-dung and lime and water and earth, +carefully with his hands, as if he understood that too. He was not a +worker. He was a creature in intimate communion with the sensible world, +knowing purely by touch the limey mess he mixed amongst, knowing as if +by relation between that soft matter and the matter of himself. + +Then again he strode over the earth, a gleaming piece of earth himself, +moving to the young vines. Quickly, with a few clean cuts of the knife, +he prepared the new shoot, which he had picked out of a handful which +lay beside him on the ground; he went finely to the quick of the plant, +inserted the graft, then bound it up, fast, hard. + +It was like God grafting the life of man upon the body of the earth, +intimately conjuring with his own flesh. + +All the while Paolo stood by, somehow excluded from the mystery, talking +to me, to Faustino. And Il Duro answered easily, as if his mind were +disengaged. It was his senses that were absorbed in the sensible life of +the plant, and the lime and the cow-dung he handled. + +Watching him, watching his absorbed, bestial, and yet godlike crouching +before the plant, as if he were the god of lower life, I somehow +understood his isolation, why he did not marry. Pan and the ministers of +Pan do not marry, the sylvan gods. They are single and isolated in +their being. + +It is in the spirit that marriage takes place. In the flesh there is +connexion, but only in the spirit is there a new thing created out of +two different antithetic things. In the body I am conjoined with the +woman. But in the spirit my conjunction with her creates a third thing, +an absolute, a Word, which is neither me nor her, nor of me nor of her, +but which is absolute. + +And Faustino had none of this spirit. In him sensation itself was +absolute--not spiritual consummation, but physical sensation. So he +could not marry, it was not for him. He belonged to the god Pan, to the +absolute of the senses. + +All the while his beauty, so perfect and so defined, fascinated me, a +strange static perfection about him. But his movements, whilst they +fascinated, also repelled. I can always see him crouched before the +vines on his haunches, his haunches doubled together in a complete +animal unconsciousness, his face seeming in its strange golden pallor +and its hardness of line, with the gleaming black of the fine hair on +the brow and temples, like something reflective, like the reflecting +surface of a stone that gleams out of the depths of night. It was like +darkness revealed in its steady, unchanging pallor. + +Again he stayed through the evening, having quarrelled once more with +the Maria about money. He quarrelled violently, yet coldly. There was +something terrifying in it. And as soon as the matter of dispute was +settled, all trace of interest or feeling vanished from him. + +Yet he liked, above all things, to be near the English signori. They +seemed to exercise a sort of magnetic attraction over him. It was +something of the purely physical world, as a magnetized needle swings +towards soft iron. He was quite helpless in the relation. Only by +mechanical attraction he gravitated into line with us. + +But there was nothing between us except our complete difference. It was +like night and day flowing together. + + + +_7_ + +JOHN + + +Besides Il Duro, we found another Italian who could speak English, this +time quite well. We had walked about four or five miles up the lake, +getting higher and higher. Then quite suddenly, on the shoulder of a +bluff far up, we came on a village, icy cold, and as if forgotten. + +We went into the inn to drink something hot. The fire of olive sticks +was burning in the open chimney, one or two men were talking at a table, +a young woman with a baby stood by the fire watching something boil in a +large pot. Another woman was seen in the house-place beyond. + +In the chimney-seats sat a young mule-driver, who had left his two mules +at the door of the inn, and opposite him an elderly stout man. They got +down and offered us the seats of honour, which we accepted with +due courtesy. + +The chimneys are like the wide, open chimney-places of old English +cottages, but the hearth is raised about a foot and a half or two feet +from the floor, so that the fire is almost level with the hands; and +those who sit in the chimney-seats are raised above the audience in the +room, something like two gods flanking the fire, looking out of the cave +of ruddy darkness into the open, lower world of the room. + +We asked for coffee with milk and rum. The stout landlord took a seat +near us below. The comely young woman with the baby took the tin +coffee-pot that stood among the grey ashes, put in fresh coffee among +the old bottoms, filled it with water, then pushed it more into +the fire. + +The landlord turned to us with the usual naive, curious deference, and +the usual question: + +'You are Germans?' + +'English.' + +'Ah--_Inglesi_.' + +Then there is a new note of cordiality--or so I always imagine--and the +rather rough, cattle-like men who are sitting with their wine round the +table look up more amicably. They do not like being intruded upon. Only +the landlord is always affable. + +'I have a son who speaks English,' he says: he is a handsome, courtly +old man, of the Falstaff sort. + +'Oh!' + +'He has been in America.' + +'And where is he now?' + +'He is at home. O--Nicoletta, where is the Giovann'?' + +The comely young woman with the baby came in. + +'He is with the band,' she said. + +The old landlord looked at her with pride. + +'This is my daughter-in-law,' he said. + +She smiled readily to the Signora. + +'And the baby?' we asked. + +'_Mio figlio_,' cried the young woman, in the strong, penetrating voice +of these women. And she came forward to show the child to the Signora. + +It was a bonny baby: the whole company was united in adoration and +service of the bambino. There was a moment of suspension, when religious +submission seemed to come over the inn-room. + +Then the Signora began to talk, and it broke upon the Italian +child-reverence. + +'What is he called?' + +'Oscare,' came the ringing note of pride. And the mother talked to the +baby in dialect. All, men and women alike, felt themselves glorified by +the presence of the child. + +At last the coffee in the tin coffee-pot was boiling and frothing out of +spout and lid. The milk in the little copper pan was also hot, among the +ashes. So we had our drink at last. + +The landlord was anxious for us to see Giovanni, his son. There was a +village band performing up the street, in front of the house of a +colonel who had come home wounded from Tripoli. Everybody in the village +was wildly proud about the colonel and about the brass band, the music +of which was execrable. + +We just looked into the street. The band of uncouth fellows was playing +the same tune over and over again before a desolate, newish house. A +crowd of desolate, forgotten villagers stood round in the cold upper +air. It seemed altogether that the place was forgotten by God and man. + +But the landlord, burly, courteous, handsome, pointed out with a +flourish the Giovanni, standing in the band playing a cornet. The band +itself consisted only of five men, rather like beggars in the street. +But Giovanni was the strangest! He was tall and thin and somewhat +German-looking, wearing shabby American clothes and a very high double +collar and a small American crush hat. He looked entirely like a +ne'er-do-well who plays a violin in the street, dressed in the most +down-at-heel, sordid respectability. + +'That is he--you see, Signore--the young one under the balcony.' + +The father spoke with love and pride, and the father was a gentleman, +like Falstaff, a pure gentleman. The daughter-in-law also peered out to +look at Il Giovann', who was evidently a figure of repute, in his +sordid, degenerate American respectability. Meanwhile, this figure of +repute blew himself red in the face, producing staccato strains on his +cornet. And the crowd stood desolate and forsaken in the cold, upper +afternoon. + +Then there was a sudden rugged '_Evviva, Evviva_!' from the people, the +band stopped playing, somebody valiantly broke into a line of the song: + + _Tripoli, sara italiana, + Sara italiana al rombo del cannon'._ + +The colonel had appeared on the balcony, a smallish man, very yellow in +the face, with grizzled black hair and very shabby legs. They all seemed +so sordidly, hopelessly shabby. + +He suddenly began to speak, leaning forward, hot and feverish and +yellow, upon the iron rail of the balcony. There was something hot and +marshy and sick about him, slightly repulsive, less than human. He told +his fellow-villagers how he loved them, how, when he lay uncovered on +the sands of Tripoli, week after week, he had known they were watching +him from the Alpine height of the village, he could feel that where he +was they were all looking. When the Arabs came rushing like things gone +mad, and he had received his wound, he had known that in his own +village, among his own dear ones, there was recovery. Love would heal +the wounds, the home country was a lover who would heal all her sons' +wounds with love. + +Among the grey desolate crowd were sharp, rending 'Bravos!'--the people +were in tears--the landlord at my side was repeating softly, +abstractedly: '_Caro--caro--Ettore, caro colonello_--' and when it was +finished, and the little colonel with shabby, humiliated legs was gone +in, he turned to me and said, with challenge that almost frightened me: + +'_Un brav' uomo_.' + +'_Bravissimo_,' I said. + +Then we, too, went indoors. + +It was all, somehow, grey and hopeless and acrid, unendurable. + +The colonel, poor devil--we knew him afterwards--is now dead. It is +strange that he is dead. There is something repulsive to me in the +thought of his lying dead: such a humiliating, somehow degraded corpse. +Death has no beauty in Italy, unless it be violent. The death of man or +woman through sickness is an occasion of horror, repulsive. They belong +entirely to life, they are so limited to life, these people. + +Soon the Giovanni came home, and took his cornet upstairs. Then he came +to see us. He was an ingenuous youth, sordidly shabby and dirty. His +fair hair was long and uneven, his very high starched collar made one +aware that his neck and his ears were not clean, his American crimson +tie was ugly, his clothes looked as if they had been kicking about on +the floor for a year. + +Yet his blue eyes were warm and his manner and speech very gentle. + +'You will speak English with us,' I said. + +'Oh,' he said, smiling and shaking his head, 'I could speak English very +well. But it is two years that I don't speak it now, over two years now, +so I don't speak it.' + +'But you speak it very well.' + +'No. It is two years that I have not spoke, not a word--so, you see, I +have--' + +'You have forgotten it? No, you haven't. It will quickly come back.' + +'If I hear it--when I go to America--then I shall--I shall--' + +'You will soon pick it up.' + +'Yes--I shall pick it up.' + +The landlord, who had been watching with pride, now went away. The wife +also went away, and we were left with the shy, gentle, dirty, and +frowsily-dressed Giovanni. + +He laughed in his sensitive, quick fashion. + +'The women in America, when they came into the store, they said, "Where +is John, where is John?" Yes, they liked me.' + +And he laughed again, glancing with vague, warm blue eyes, very shy, +very coiled upon himself with sensitiveness. + +He had managed a store in America, in a smallish town. I glanced at his +reddish, smooth, rather knuckly hands, and thin wrists in the frayed +cuff. They were real shopman's hands. + +The landlord brought some special feast-day cake, so overjoyed he was to +have his Giovanni speaking English with the Signoria. + +When we went away, we asked 'John' to come down to our villa to see us. +We scarcely expected him to turn up. + +Yet one morning he appeared, at about half past nine, just as we were +finishing breakfast. It was sunny and warm and beautiful, so we asked +him please to come with us picnicking. + +He was a queer shoot, again, in his unkempt longish hair and slovenly +clothes, a sort of very vulgar down-at-heel American in appearance. And +he was transported with shyness. Yet ours was the world he had chosen as +his own, so he took his place bravely and simply, a hanger-on. + +We climbed up the water-course in the mountain-side, up to a smooth +little lawn under the olive trees, where daisies were flowering and +gladioli were in bud. It was a tiny little lawn of grass in a level +crevice, and sitting there we had the world below us--the lake, the +distant island, the far-off low Verona shore. + +Then 'John' began to talk, and he talked continuously, like a foreigner, +not saying the things he would have said in Italian, but following the +suggestion and scope of his limited English. + +In the first place, he loved his father--it was 'my father, my father' +always. His father had a little shop as well as the inn in the village +above. So John had had some education. He had been sent to Brescia and +then to Verona to school, and there had taken his examinations to become +a civil engineer. He was clever, and could pass his examinations. But he +never finished his course. His mother died, and his father, +disconsolate, had wanted him at home. Then he had gone back, when he was +sixteen or seventeen, to the village beyond the lake, to be with his +father and to look after the shop. + +'But didn't you mind giving up all your work?' I said. + +He did not quite understand. + +'My father wanted me to come back,' he said. + +It was evident that Giovanni had had no definite conception of what he +was doing or what he wanted to do. His father, wishing to make a +gentleman of him, had sent him to school in Verona. By accident he had +been moved on into the engineering course. When it all fizzled to an +end, and he returned half-baked to the remote, desolate village of the +mountain-side, he was not disappointed or chagrined. He had never +conceived of a coherent purposive life. Either one stayed in the +village, like a lodged stone, or one made random excursions into the +world, across the world. It was all aimless and purposeless. + +So he had stayed a while with his father, then he had gone, just as +aimlessly, with a party of men who were emigrating to America. He had +taken some money, had drifted about, living in the most comfortless, +wretched fashion, then he had found a place somewhere in Pennsylvania, +in a dry goods store. This was when he was seventeen or eighteen +years old. + +All this seemed to have happened to him without his being very much +affected, at least consciously. His nature was simple and self-complete. +Yet not so self-complete as that of Il Duro or Paolo. They had passed +through the foreign world and been quite untouched. Their souls were +static, it was the world that had flowed unstable by. + +But John was more sensitive, he had come more into contact with his new +surroundings. He had attended night classes almost every evening, and +had been taught English like a child. He had loved the American free +school, the teachers, the work. + +But he had suffered very much in America. With his curious, +over-sensitive, wincing laugh, he told us how the boys had followed him +and jeered at him, calling after him, 'You damn Dago, you damn Dago.' +They had stopped him and his friend in the street and taken away their +hats, and spat into them. So that at last he had gone mad. They were +youths and men who always tortured him, using bad language which +startled us very much as he repeated it, there on the little lawn under +the olive trees, above the perfect lake: English obscenities and abuse +so coarse and startling that we bit our lips, shocked almost into +laughter, whilst John, simple and natural, and somehow, for all his long +hair and dirty appearance, flower-like in soul, repeated to us these +things which may never be repeated in decent company. + +'Oh,' he said, 'at last, I get mad. When they come one day, shouting, +"You damn Dago, dirty dog," and will take my hat again, oh, I get mad, +and I would kill them, I would kill them, I am so mad. I run to them, +and throw one to the floor, and I tread on him while I go upon another, +the biggest. Though they hit me and kick me all over, I feel nothing, I +am mad. I throw the biggest to the floor, a man; he is older than I am, +and I hit him so hard I would kill him. When the others see it they are +afraid, they throw stones and hit me on the face. But I don't feel it--I +don't know nothing. I hit the man on the floor, I almost kill him. I +forget everything except I will kill him--' + +'But you didn't?' + +'No--I don't know--' and he laughed his queer, shaken laugh. 'The other +man that was with me, my friend, he came to me and we went away. Oh, I +was mad. I was completely mad. I would have killed them.' + +He was trembling slightly, and his eyes were dilated with a strange +greyish-blue fire that was very painful and elemental. He looked beside +himself. But he was by no means mad. + +We were shaken by the vivid, lambent excitement of the youth, we wished +him to forget. We were shocked, too, in our souls to see the pure +elemental flame shaken out of his gentle, sensitive nature. By his +slight, crinkled laugh we could see how much he had suffered. He had +gone out and faced the world, and he had kept his place, stranger and +Dago though he was. + +'They never came after me no more, not all the while I was there.' + +Then he said he became the foreman in the store--at first he was only +assistant. It was the best store in the town, and many English ladies +came, and some Germans. He liked the English ladies very much: they +always wanted him to be in the store. He wore white clothes there, and +they would say: + +'You look very nice in the white coat, John'; or else: + +'Let John come, he can find it'; or else they said: + +'John speaks like a born American.' + +This pleased him very much. + +In the end, he said, he earned a hundred dollars a month. He lived with +the extraordinary frugality of the Italians, and had quite a lot +of money. + +He was not like Il Duro. Faustino had lived in a state of miserliness +almost in America, but then he had had his debauches of shows and wine +and carousals. John went chiefly to the schools, in one of which he was +even asked to teach Italian. His knowledge of his own language was +remarkable and most unusual! + +'But what,' I asked, 'brought you back?' + +'It was my father. You see, if I did not come to have my military +service, I must stay till I am forty. So I think perhaps my father will +be dead, I shall never see him. So I came.' + +He had come home when he was twenty to fulfil his military duties. At +home he had married. He was very fond of his wife, but he had no +conception of love in the old sense. His wife was like the past, to +which he was wedded. Out of her he begot his child, as out of the past. +But the future was all beyond her, apart from her. He was going away +again, now, to America. He had been some nine months at home after his +military service was over. He had no more to do. Now he was leaving his +wife and child and his father to go to America. + +'But why,' I said, 'why? You are not poor, you can manage the shop in +your village.' + +'Yes,' he said. 'But I will go to America. Perhaps I shall go into the +store again, the same.' + +'But is it not just the same as managing the shop at home?' + +'No--no--it is quite different.' + +Then he told us how he bought goods in Brescia and in Said for the shop +at home, how he had rigged up a funicular with the assistance of the +village, an overhead wire by which you could haul the goods up the face +of the cliffs right high up, to within a mile of the village. He was +very proud of this. And sometimes he himself went down the funicular to +the water's edge, to the boat, when he was in a hurry. This also +pleased him. + +But he was going to Brescia this day to see about going again to +America. Perhaps in another month he would be gone. + +It was a great puzzle to me why he would go. He could not say himself. +He would stay four or five years, then he would come home again to see +his father--and his wife and child. + +There was a strange, almost frightening destiny upon him, which seemed +to take him away, always away from home, from the past, to that great, +raw America. He seemed scarcely like a person with individual choice, +more like a creature under the influence of fate which was +disintegrating the old life and precipitating him, a fragment +inconclusive, into the new chaos. + +He submitted to it all with a perfect unquestioning simplicity, never +even knowing that he suffered, that he must suffer disintegration from +the old life. He was moved entirely from within, he never questioned his +inevitable impulse. + +'They say to me, "Don't go--don't go"--' he shook his head. 'But I say I +will go.' + +And at that it was finished. + +So we saw him off at the little quay, going down the lake. He would +return at evening, and be pulled up in his funicular basket. And in a +month's time he would be standing on the same lake steamer going +to America. + +Nothing was more painful than to see him standing there in his degraded, +sordid American clothes, on the deck of the steamer, waving us good-bye, +belonging in his final desire to our world, the world of consciousness +and deliberate action. With his candid, open, unquestioning face, he +seemed like a prisoner being conveyed from one form of life to another, +or like a soul in trajectory, that has not yet found a resting-place. + +What were wife and child to him?--they were the last steps of the past. +His father was the continent behind him; his wife and child the +foreshore of the past; but his face was set outwards, away from it +all--whither, neither he nor anybody knew, but he called it America. + + + + +_Italians in Exile_ + + +When I was in Constance the weather was misty and enervating and +depressing, it was no pleasure to travel on the big flat desolate lake. + +When I went from Constance, it was on a small steamer down the Rhine to +Schaffhausen. That was beautiful. Still, the mist hung over the waters, +over the wide shallows of the river, and the sun, coming through the +morning, made lovely yellow lights beneath the bluish haze, so that it +seemed like the beginning of the world. And there was a hawk in the +upper air fighting with two crows, or two rooks. Ever they rose higher +and higher, the crow flickering above the attacking hawk, the fight +going on like some strange symbol in the sky, the Germans on deck +watching with pleasure. + +Then we passed out of sight between wooded banks and under bridges where +quaint villages of old romance piled their red and coloured pointed +roofs beside the water, very still, remote, lost in the vagueness of the +past. It could not be that they were real. Even when the boat put in to +shore, and the customs officials came to look, the village remained +remote in the romantic past of High Germany, the Germany of fairy tales +and minstrels and craftsmen. The poignancy of the past was almost +unbearable, floating there in colour upon the haze of the river. + +We went by some swimmers, whose white shadowy bodies trembled near the +side of the steamer under water. One man with a round, fair head lifted +his face and one arm from the water and shouted a greeting to us, as if +he were a Niebelung, saluting with bright arm lifted from the water, his +face laughing, the fair moustache hanging over his mouth. Then his white +body swirled in the water, and he was gone, swimming with the +side stroke. + +Schaffhausen the town, half old and bygone, half modern, with breweries +and industries, that is not very real. Schaffhausen Falls, with their +factory in the midst and their hotel at the bottom, and the general +cinematograph effect, they are ugly. + +It was afternoon when I set out to walk from the Falls to Italy, across +Switzerland. I remember the big, fat, rather gloomy fields of this part +of Baden, damp and unliving. I remember I found some apples under a tree +in a field near a railway embankment, then some mushrooms, and I ate +both. Then I came on to a long, desolate high-road, with dreary, +withered trees on either side, and flanked by great fields where groups +of men and women were working. They looked at me as I went by down the +long, long road, alone and exposed and out of the world. + +I remember nobody came at the border village to examine my pack, I +passed through unchallenged. All was quiet and lifeless and hopeless, +with big stretches of heavy land. + +Till sunset came, very red and purple, and suddenly, from the heavy +spacious open land I dropped sharply into the Rhine valley again, +suddenly, as if into another glamorous world. + +There was the river rushing along between its high, mysterious, romantic +banks, which were high as hills, and covered with vine. And there was +the village of tall, quaint houses flickering its lights on to the +deep-flowing river, and quite silent, save for the rushing of water. + +There was a fine covered bridge, very dark. I went to the middle and +looked through the opening at the dark water below, at the facade of +square lights, the tall village-front towering remote and silent above +the river. The hill rose on either side the flood; down here was a +small, forgotten, wonderful world that belonged to the date of isolated +village communities and wandering minstrels. + +So I went back to the inn of The Golden Stag, and, climbing some steps, +I made a loud noise. A woman came, and I asked for food. She led me +through a room where were enormous barrels, ten feet in diameter, lying +fatly on their sides; then through a large stone-clean kitchen, with +bright pans, ancient as the Meistersinger; then up some steps and into +the long guest-room, where a few tables were laid for supper. + +A few people were eating. I asked for Abendessen, and sat by the window +looking at the darkness of the river below, the covered bridge, the dark +hill opposite, crested with its few lights. + +Then I ate a very large quantity of knoedel soup and bread, and drank +beer, and was very sleepy. Only one or two village men came in, and +these soon went again; the place was dead still. Only at a long table on +the opposite side of the room were seated seven or eight men, ragged, +disreputable, some impudent--another came in late; the landlady gave +them all thick soup with dumplings and bread and meat, serving them in a +sort of brief disapprobation. They sat at the long table, eight or nine +tramps and beggars and wanderers out of work and they ate with a sort of +cheerful callousness and brutality for the most part, and as if +ravenously, looking round and grinning sometimes, subdued, cowed, like +prisoners, and yet impudent. At the end one shouted to know where he was +to sleep. The landlady called to the young serving-woman, and in a +classic German severity of disapprobation they were led up the stone +stairs to their room. They tramped off in threes and twos, making a bad, +mean, humiliated exit. It was not yet eight o'clock. The landlady sat +talking to one bearded man, staid and severe, whilst, with her work on +the table, she sewed steadily. + +As the beggars and wanderers went slinking out of the room, some called +impudently, cheerfully: + +'_Nacht, Frau Wirtin--G'Nacht, Wirtin--'te Nacht, Frau_,' to all of +which the hostess answered a stereotyped '_Gute Nacht_,' never turning +her head from her sewing, or indicating by the faintest movement that +she was addressing the men who were filing raggedly to the doorway. + +So the room was empty, save for the landlady and her sewing, the staid, +elderly villager to whom she was talking in the unbeautiful dialect, and +the young serving-woman who was clearing away the plates and basins of +the tramps and beggars. + +Then the villager also went. + +'_Gute Nacht, Frau Seidl_,' to the landlady; '_Gute Nacht_,' at random, +to me. + +So I looked at the newspaper. Then I asked the landlady for a cigarette, +not knowing how else to begin. So she came to my table, and we talked. + +It pleased me to take upon myself a sort of romantic, wandering +character; she said my German was '_schoen_'; a little goes a long way. + +So I asked her who were the men who had sat at the long table. She +became rather stiff and curt. + +'They are the men looking for work,' she said, as if the subject were +disagreeable. + +'But why do they come here, so many?' I asked. + +Then she told me that they were going out of the country: this was +almost the last village of the border: that the relieving officer in +each village was empowered to give to every vagrant a ticket entitling +the holder to an evening meal, bed, and bread in the morning, at a +certain inn. This was the inn for the vagrants coming to this village. +The landlady received fourpence per head, I believe it was, for each of +these wanderers. + +'Little enough,' I said. + +'Nothing,' she replied. + +She did not like the subject at all. Only her respect for me made her +answer. + +'_Bettler, Lumpen, und Taugenichtse!_' I said cheerfully. + +'And men who are out of work, and are going back to their own parish,' +she said stiffly. + +So we talked a little, and I too went to bed. + +'_Gute Nacht, Frau Wirtin._' + +'_Gute Nacht, mein Herr._' + +So I went up more and more stone stairs, attended by the young woman. It +was a great, lofty, old deserted house, with many drab doors. + +At last, in the distant topmost floor, I had my bedroom, with two beds +and bare floor and scant furniture. I looked down at the river far +below, at the covered bridge, at the far lights on the hill above, +opposite. Strange to be here in this lost, forgotten place, sleeping +under the roof with tramps and beggars. I debated whether they would +steal my boots if I put them out. But I risked it. The door-latch made a +loud noise on the deserted landing, everywhere felt abandoned, +forgotten. I wondered where the eight tramps and beggars were asleep. +There was no way of securing the door. But somehow I felt that, if I +were destined to be robbed or murdered, it would not be by tramps and +beggars. So I blew out the candle and lay under the big feather bed, +listening to the running and whispering of the medieval Rhine. + +And when I waked up again it was sunny, it was morning on the hill +opposite, though the river deep below ran in shadow. + +The tramps and beggars were all gone: they must be cleared out by seven +o'clock in the morning. So I had the inn to myself, I, and the landlady, +and the serving-woman. Everywhere was very clean, full of the German +morning energy and brightness, which is so different from the Latin +morning. The Italians are dead and torpid first thing, the Germans are +energetic and cheerful. + +It was cheerful in the sunny morning, looking down on the swift river, +the covered, picturesque bridge, the bank and the hill opposite. Then +down the curving road of the facing hill the Swiss cavalry came riding, +men in blue uniforms. I went out to watch them. They came thundering +romantically through the dark cavern of the roofed-in bridge, and they +dismounted at the entrance to the village. There was a fresh +morning-cheerful newness everywhere, in the arrival of the troops, in +the welcome of the villagers. + +The Swiss do not look very military, neither in accoutrement nor +bearing. This little squad of cavalry seemed more like a party of common +men riding out in some business of their own than like an army. They +were very republican and very free. The officer who commanded them was +one of themselves, his authority was by consent. + +It was all very pleasant and genuine; there was a sense of ease and +peacefulness, quite different from the mechanical, slightly sullen +manoeuvring of the Germans. + +The village baker and his assistant came hot and floury from the +bakehouse, bearing between them a great basket of fresh bread. The +cavalry were all dismounted by the bridge-head, eating and drinking like +business men. Villagers came to greet their friends: one soldier kissed +his father, who came wearing a leathern apron. The school bell +tang-tang-tanged from above, school children merged timidly through the +grouped horses, up the narrow street, passing unwillingly with their +books. The river ran swiftly, the soldiers, very haphazard and slack in +uniform, real shack-bags, chewed their bread in large mouthfuls; the +young lieutenant, who seemed to be an officer only by consent of the +men, stood apart by the bridge-head, gravely. They were all serious and +self-contented, very unglamorous. It was like a business excursion on +horseback, harmless and uninspiring. The uniforms were almost ludicrous, +so ill-fitting and casual. + +So I shouldered my own pack and set off, through the bridge over the +Rhine, and up the hill opposite. + +There is something very dead about this country. I remember I picked +apples from the grass by the roadside, and some were very sweet. But for +the rest, there was mile after mile of dead, uninspired +country--uninspired, so neutral and ordinary that it was almost +destructive. + +One gets this feeling always in Switzerland, except high up: this +feeling of average, of utter soulless ordinariness, something +intolerable. Mile after mile, to Zurich, it was just the same. It was +just the same in the tram-car going into Zurich; it was just the same in +the town, in the shops, in the restaurant. All was the utmost level of +ordinariness and well-being, but so ordinary that it was like a blight. +All the picturesqueness of the town is nothing, it is like a most +ordinary, average, usual person in an old costume. The place was +soul-killing. + +So after two hours' rest, eating in a restaurant, wandering by the quay +and through the market, and sitting on a seat by the lake, I found a +steamer that would take me away. That is how I always feel in +Switzerland: the only possible living sensation is the sensation of +relief in going away, always going away. The horrible average +ordinariness of it all, something utterly without flower or soul or +transcendence, the horrible vigorous ordinariness, is too much. + +So I went on a steamer down the long lake, surrounded by low grey hills. +It was Saturday afternoon. A thin rain came on. I thought I would rather +be in fiery Hell than in this dead level of average life. + +I landed somewhere on the right bank, about three-quarters of the way +down the lake. It was almost dark. Yet I must walk away. I climbed a +long hill from the lake, came to the crest, looked down the darkness of +the valley, and descended into the deep gloom, down into a +soulless village. + +But it was eight o'clock, and I had had enough. One might as well sleep. +I found the Gasthaus zur Post. + +It was a small, very rough inn, having only one common room, with bare +tables, and a short, stout, grim, rather surly landlady, and a landlord +whose hair stood up on end, and who was trembling on the edge of +delirium tremens. + +They could only give me boiled ham: so I ate boiled ham and drank beer, +and tried to digest the utter cold materialism of Switzerland. + +As I sat with my back to the wall, staring blankly at the trembling +landlord, who was ready at any moment to foam at the mouth, and at the +dour landlady, who was quite capable of keeping him in order, there came +in one of those dark, showy Italian girls with a man. She wore a blouse +and skirt, and no hat. Her hair was perfectly dressed. It was really +Italy. The man was soft, dark, he would get stout later, _trapu_, he +would have somewhat the figure of Caruso. But as yet he was soft, +sensuous, young, handsome. + +They sat at the long side-table with their beer, and created another +country at once within the room. Another Italian came, fair and fat and +slow, one from the Venetian province; then another, a little thin young +man, who might have been a Swiss save for his vivid movement. + +This last was the first to speak to the Germans. The others had just +said '_Bier._' But the little newcomer entered into a conversation with +the landlady. + +At last there were six Italians sitting talking loudly and warmly at the +side-table. The slow, cold German-Swiss at the other tables looked at +them occasionally. The landlord, with his crazed, stretched eyes, glared +at them with hatred. But they fetched their beer from the bar with easy +familiarity, and sat at their table, creating a bonfire of life in the +callousness of the inn. + +At last they finished their beer and trooped off down the passage. The +room was painfully empty. I did not know what to do. + +Then I heard the landlord yelling and screeching and snarling from the +kitchen at the back, for all the world like a mad dog. But the Swiss +Saturday evening customers at the other tables smoked on and talked in +their ugly dialect, without trouble. Then the landlady came in, and soon +after the landlord, he collarless, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, +showing his loose throat, and accentuating his round pot-belly. His +limbs were thin and feverish, the skin of his face hung loose, his eyes +glaring, his hands trembled. Then he sat down to talk to a crony. His +terrible appearance was a fiasco; nobody heeded him at all, only the +landlady was surly. + +From the back came loud noises of pleasure and excitement and banging +about. When the room door was opened I could see down the dark passage +opposite another lighted door. Then the fat, fair Italian came in for +more beer. + +'What is all the noise?' I asked the landlady at last. + +'It is the Italians,' she said. + +'What are they doing?' + +'They are doing a play.' + +'Where?' + +She jerked her head: 'In the room at the back.' + +'Can I go and look at them?' + +'I should think so.' + +The landlord glaringly watched me go out. I went down the stone passage +and found a great, half-lighted room that might be used to hold +meetings, with forms piled at the side. At one end was raised platform +or stage. And on this stage was a table and a lamp, and the Italians +grouped round the light, gesticulating and laughing. Their beer mugs +were on the table and on the floor of the stage; the little sharp youth +was intently looking over some papers, the others were bending over the +table with him. + +They looked up as I entered from the distance, looked at me in the +distant twilight of the dusky room, as if I were an intruder, as if I +should go away when I had seen them. But I said in German: + +'May I look?' + +They were still unwilling to see or to hear me. + +'What do you say?' the small one asked in reply. + +The others stood and watched, slightly at bay, like suspicious animals. + +'If I might come and look,' I said in German; then, feeling very +uncomfortable, in Italian: 'You are doing a drama, the landlady +told me.' + +The big empty room was behind me, dark, the little company of Italians +stood above me in the light of the lamp which was on the table. They all +watched with unseeing, unwilling looks: I was merely an intrusion. + +'We are only learning it,' said the small youth. + +They wanted me to go away. But I wanted to stay. + +'May I listen?' I said. 'I don't want to stay in there.' And I +indicated, with a movement of the head, the inn-room beyond. + +'Yes,' said the young intelligent man. 'But we are only reading our +parts.' + +They had all become more friendly to me, they accepted me. + +'You are a German?' asked one youth. + +'No--English.' + +'English? But do you live in Switzerland?' + +'No--I am walking to Italy.' + +'On foot?' + +They looked with wakened eyes. + +'Yes.' + +So I told them about my journey. They were puzzled. They did not quite +understand why I wanted to walk. But they were delighted with the idea +of going to Lugano and Como and then to Milan. + +'Where do you come from?' I asked them. + +They were all from the villages between Verona and Venice. They had seen +the Garda. I told them of my living there. + +'Those peasants of the mountains,' they said at once, 'they are people +of little education. Rather wild folk.' + +And they spoke with good-humoured contempt. + +I thought of Paolo, and Il Duro, and the Signor Pietro, our padrone, and +I resented these factory-hands for criticizing them. + +So I sat on the edge of the stage whilst they rehearsed their parts. The +little thin intelligent fellow, Giuseppino, was the leader. The others +read their parts in the laborious, disjointed fashion of the peasant, +who can only see one word at a time, and has then to put the words +together, afterwards, to make sense. The play was an amateur melodrama, +printed in little penny booklets, for carnival production. This was only +the second reading they had given it, and the handsome, dark fellow, who +was roused and displaying himself before the girl, a hard, erect piece +of callousness, laughed and flushed and stumbled, and understood nothing +till it was transferred into him direct through Giuseppino. The fat, +fair, slow man was more conscientious. He laboured through his part. The +other two men were in the background more or less. + +The most confidential was the fat, fair, slow man, who was called +Alberto. His part was not very important, so he could sit by me and +talk to me. + +He said they were all workers in the factory--silk, I think it was--in +the village. They were a whole colony of Italians, thirty or more +families. They had all come at different times. + +Giuseppino had been longest in the village. He had come when he was +eleven, with his parents, and had attended the Swiss school. So he spoke +perfect German. He was a clever man, was married, and had two children. + +He himself, Alberto, had been seven years in the valley; the girl, la +Maddelena, had been here ten years; the dark man, Alfredo, who was +flushed with excitement of her, had been in the village about nine +years--he alone of all men was not married. + +The others had all married Italian wives, and they lived in the great +dwelling whose windows shone yellow by the rattling factory. They lived +entirely among themselves; none of them could speak German, more than a +few words, except the Giuseppino, who was like a native here. + +It was very strange being among these Italians exiled in Switzerland. +Alfredo, the dark one, the unmarried, was in the old tradition. Yet even +he was curiously subject to a new purpose, as if there were some greater +new will that included him, sensuous, mindless as he was. He seemed to +give his consent to something beyond himself. In this he was different +from Il Duro, in that he had put himself under the control of the +outside conception. + +It was strange to watch them on the stage, the Italians all lambent, +soft, warm, sensuous, yet moving subject round Giuseppino, who was +always quiet, always ready, always impersonal. There was a look of +purpose, almost of devotion on his face, that singled him out and made +him seem the one stable, eternal being among them. They quarrelled, and +he let them quarrel up to a certain point; then he called them back. He +let them do as they liked so long as they adhered more or less to the +central purpose, so long as they got on in some measure with the play. + +All the while they were drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. The +Alberto was barman: he went out continually with the glasses. The +Maddelena had a small glass. In the lamplight of the stage the little +party read and smoked and practised, exposed to the empty darkness of +the big room. Queer and isolated it seemed, a tiny, pathetic magicland +far away from the barrenness of Switzerland. I could believe in the old +fairy-tales where, when the rock was opened, a magic underworld +was revealed. + +The Alfredo, flushed, roused, handsome, but very soft and enveloping in +his heat, laughed and threw himself into his pose, laughed foolishly, +and then gave himself up to his part. The Alberto, slow and laborious, +yet with a spark of vividness and natural intensity flashing through, +replied and gesticulated; the Maddelena laid her head on the bosom of +Alfredo, the other men started into action, and the play proceeded +intently for half an hour. + +Quick, vivid, and sharp, the little Giuseppino was always central. But +he seemed almost invisible. When I think back, I can scarcely see him, I +can only see the others, the lamplight on their faces and on their full +gesticulating limbs. I can see--the Maddelena, rather coarse and hard +and repellent, declaiming her words in a loud, half-cynical voice, +falling on the breast of the Alfredo, who was soft and sensuous, more +like a female, flushing, with his mouth getting wet, his eyes moist, as +he was roused. I can see the Alberto, slow, laboured, yet with a kind of +pristine simplicity in all his movements, that touched his fat +commonplaceness with beauty. Then there were the two other men, shy, +inflammable, unintelligent, with their sudden Italian rushes of hot +feeling. All their faces are distinct in the lamplight, all their bodies +ate palpable and dramatic. + +But the face of the Giuseppino is like a pale luminousness, a sort of +gleam among all the ruddy glow, his body is evanescent, like a shadow. +And his being seemed to cast its influence over all the others, except +perhaps the woman, who was hard and resistant. The other men seemed all +overcast, mitigated, in part transfigured by the will of the little +leader. But they were very soft stuff, if inflammable. + +The young woman of the inn, niece of the landlady, came down and called +out across the room. + +'We will go away from here now,' said the Giuseppino to me. 'They close +at eleven. But we have another inn in the next parish that is open all +night. Come with us and drink some wine.' + +'But,' I said, 'you would rather be alone.' + +No; they pressed me to go, they wanted me to go with them, they were +eager, they wanted to entertain me. Alfredo, flushed, wet-mouthed, warm, +protested I must drink wine, the real Italian red wine, from their own +village at home. They would have no nay. + +So I told the landlady. She said I must be back by twelve o'clock. + +The night was very dark. Below the road the stream was rushing; there +was a great factory on the other side of the water, making faint +quivering lights of reflection, and one could see the working of +machinery shadowy through the lighted windows. Near by was the tall +tenement where the Italians lived. + +We went on through the straggling, raw village, deep beside the stream, +then over the small bridge, and up the steep hill down which I had come +earlier in the evening. + +So we arrived at the cafe. It was so different inside from the German +inn, yet it was not like an Italian cafe either. It was brilliantly +lighted, clean, new, and there were red-and-white cloths on the tables. +The host was in the room, and his daughter, a beautiful red-haired girl. + +Greetings were exchanged with the quick, intimate directness of Italy. +But there was another note also, a faint echo of reserve, as though they +reserved themselves from the outer world, making a special inner +community. + +Alfredo was hot: he took off his coat. We all sat freely at a long +table, whilst the red-haired girl brought a quart of red wine. At other +tables men were playing cards, with the odd Neapolitan cards. They too +were talking Italian. It was a warm, ruddy bit of Italy within the cold +darkness of Switzerland. + +'When you come to Italy,' they said to me, 'salute it from us, salute +the sun, and the earth, _l'Italia_.' + +So we drank in salute of Italy. They sent their greeting by me. + +'You know in Italy there is the sun, the sun,' said Alfredo to me, +profoundly moved, wet-mouthed, tipsy. + +I was reminded of Enrico Persevalli and his terrifying cry at the end of +_Ghosts_: + +'_Il sole, il sole!_' + +So we talked for a while of Italy. They had a pained tenderness for it, +sad, reserved. + +'Don't you want to go back?' I said, pressing them to tell me +definitely. 'Won't you go back some time?' + +'Yes,' they said, 'we will go back.' + +But they spoke reservedly, without freedom. We talked about Italy, about +songs, and Carnival; about the food, polenta, and salt. They laughed at +my pretending to cut the slabs of polenta with a string: that rejoiced +them all: it took them back to the Italian mezzo-giorno, the bells +jangling in the campanile, the eating after the heavy work on the land. + +But they laughed with the slight pain and contempt and fondness which +every man feels towards his past, when he has struggled away from that +past, from the conditions which made it. + +They loved Italy passionately; but they would not go back. All their +blood, all their senses were Italian, needed the Italian sky, the +speech, the sensuous life. They could hardly live except through the +senses. Their minds were not developed, mentally they were children, +lovable, naive, almost fragile children. But sensually they were men: +sensually they were accomplished. + +Yet a new tiny flower was struggling to open in them, the flower of a +new spirit. The substratum of Italy has always been pagan, sensuous, the +most potent symbol the sexual symbol. The child is really a +non-Christian symbol: it is the symbol of mans's triumph of eternal life +in procreation. The worship of the Cross never really held good in +Italy. The Christianity of Northern Europe has never had any +place there. + +And now, when Northern Europe is turning back on its own Christianity, +denying it all, the Italians are struggling with might and main against +the sensuous spirit which still dominates them. When Northern Europe, +whether it hates Nietzsche or not, is crying out for the Dionysic +ecstasy, practising on itself the Dionysic ecstasy, Southern Europe is +breaking free from Dionysus, from the triumphal affirmation of life over +death, immortality through procreation. + +I could see these sons of Italy would never go back. Men like Paolo and +Il Duro broke away only to return. The dominance of the old form was too +strong for them. Call it love of country or love of the village, +campanilismo, or what not, it was the dominance of the old pagan form, +the old affirmation of immortality through procreation, as opposed to +the Christian affirmation of immortality through self-death and +social love. + +But 'John' and these Italians in Switzerland were a generation younger, +and they would not go back, at least not to the old Italy. Suffer as +they might, and they did suffer, wincing in every nerve and fibre from +the cold material insentience of the northern countries and of America, +still they would endure this for the sake of something else they wanted. +They would suffer a death in the flesh, as 'John' had suffered in +fighting the street crowd, as these men suffered year after year cramped +in their black gloomy cold Swiss valley, working in the factory. But +there would come a new spirit out of it. + +Even Alfredo was submitted to the new process; though he belonged +entirely by nature to the sort of Il Duro, he was purely sensuous and +mindless. But under the influence of Giuseppino he was thrown down, as +fallow to the new spirit that would come. + +And then, when the others were all partially tipsy, the Giuseppino began +to talk to me. In him was a steady flame burning, burning, burning, a +flame of the mind, of the spirit, something new and clear, something +that held even the soft, sensuous Alfredo in submission, besides all the +others, who had some little development of mind. + +'_Sa signore_,' said the Giuseppino to me, quiet, almost invisible or +inaudible, as it seemed, like a spirit addressing me, '_l'uomo non ha +patria_--a man has no country. What has the Italian Government to do +with us. What does a Government mean? It makes us work, it takes part of +our wages away from us, it makes us soldiers--and what for? What is +government for?' + +'Have you been a soldier?' I interrupted him. + +He had not, none of them had: that was why they could not really go back +to Italy. Now this was out; this explained partly their curious +reservation in speaking about their beloved country. They had forfeited +parents as well as homeland. + +'What does the Government do? It takes taxes; it has an army and police, +and it makes roads. But we could do without an army, and we could be our +own police, and we could make our own roads. What is this Government? +Who wants it? Only those who are unjust, and want to have advantage over +somebody else. It is an instrument of injustice and of wrong. + +'Why should we have a Government? Here, in this village, there are +thirty families of Italians. There is no government for them, no Italian +Government. And we live together better than in Italy. We are richer and +freer, we have no policemen, no poor laws. We help each other, and there +are no poor. + +'Why are these Governments always doing what we don't want them to do? +We should not be fighting in the Cirenaica if we were all Italians. It +is the Government that does it. They talk and talk and do things with +us: but we don't want them.' + +The others, tipsy, sat round the table with the terrified gravity of +children who are somehow responsible for things they do not understand. +They stirred in their seats, turning aside, with gestures almost of +pain, of imprisonment. Only Alfredo, laying his hand on mine, was +laughing, loosely, floridly. He would upset all the Government with a +jerk of his well-built shoulder, and then he would have a spree--such a +spree. He laughed wetly to me. + +The Giuseppino waited patiently during this tipsy confidence, but his +pale clarity and beauty was something constant star-like in comparison +with the flushed, soft handsomeness of the other. He waited patiently, +looking at me. + +But I did not want him to go on: I did not want to answer. I could feel +a new spirit in him, something strange and pure and slightly +frightening. He wanted something which was beyond me. And my soul was +somewhere in tears, crying helplessly like an infant in the night. I +could not respond: I could not answer. He seemed to look at me, me, an +Englishman, an educated man, for corroboration. But I could not +corroborate him. I knew the purity and new struggling towards birth of a +true star-like spirit. But I could not confirm him in his utterance: my +soul could not respond. I did not believe in the perfectibility of man. +I did not believe in infinite harmony among men. And this was his star, +this belief. + +It was nearly midnight. A Swiss came in and asked for beer. The Italians +gathered round them a curious darkness of reserve. And then I must go. + +They shook hands with me warmly, truthfully, putting a sort of implicit +belief in me, as representative of some further knowledge. But there was +a fixed, calm resolve over the face of the Giuseppino, a sort of steady +faith, even in disappointment. He gave me a copy of a little Anarchist +paper published in Geneva. _L'Anarchista_, I believe it was called. I +glanced at it. It was in Italian, naive, simple, rather rhetorical. So +they were all Anarchists, these Italians. + +I ran down the hill in the thick Swiss darkness to the little bridge, +and along the uneven cobbled street. I did not want to think, I did not +want to know. I wanted to arrest my activity, to keep it confined to the +moment, to the adventure. + +When I came to the flight of stone steps which led up to the door of the +inn, at the side I saw in the darkness two figures. They said a low good +night and parted; the girl began to knock at the door, the man +disappeared. It was the niece of the landlady parting from her lover. + +We waited outside the locked door, at the top of the stone steps, in the +darkness of midnight. The stream rustled below. Then came a shouting and +an insane snarling within the passage; the bolts were not withdrawn. + +'It is the gentleman, it is the strange gentleman,' called the girl. + +Then came again the furious shouting snarls, and the landlord's mad +voice: + +'Stop out, stop out there. The door won't be opened again.' + +'The strange gentleman is here,' repeated the girl. + +Then more movement was heard, and the door was suddenly opened, and the +landlord rushed out upon us, wielding a broom. It was a strange sight, +in the half-lighted passage. I stared blankly in the doorway. The +landlord dropped the broom he was waving and collapsed as if by magic, +looking at me, though he continued to mutter madly, unintelligibly. The +girl slipped past me, and the landlord snarled. Then he picked up the +brush, at the same time crying: + +'You are late, the door was shut, it will not be opened. We shall have +the police in the house. We said twelve o'clock; at twelve o'clock the +door must be shut, and must not be opened again. If you are late you +stay out--' + +So he went snarling, his voice rising higher and higher, away into the +kitchen. + +'You are coming to your room?' the landlady said to me coldly. And she +led me upstairs. + +The room was over the road, clean, but rather ugly, with a large tin, +that had once contained lard or Swiss-milk, to wash in. But the bed was +good enough, which was all that mattered. + +I heard the landlord yelling, and there was a long and systematic +thumping somewhere, thump, thump, thump, and banging. I wondered where +it was. I could not locate it at all, because my room lay beyond another +large room: I had to go through a large room, by the foot of two beds, +to get to my door; so I could not quite tell where anything was. + +But I went to sleep whilst I was wondering. + +I woke in the morning and washed in the tin. I could see a few people in +the street, walking in the Sunday morning leisure. It felt like Sunday +in England, and I shrank from it. I could see none of the Italians. The +factory stood there, raw and large and sombre, by the stream, and the +drab-coloured stone tenements were close by. Otherwise the village was a +straggling Swiss street, almost untouched. + +The landlord was quiet and reasonable, even friendly, in the morning. He +wanted to talk to me: where had I bought my boots, was his first +question. I told him in Munich. And how much had they cost? I told him +twenty-eight marks. He was much impressed by them: such good boots, of +such soft, strong, beautiful leather; he had not seen such boots for a +long time. + +Then I knew it was he who had cleaned my boots. I could see him +fingering them and wondering over them. I rather liked him. I could see +he had had imagination once, and a certain fineness of nature. Now he +was corrupted with drink, too far gone to be even a human being. I hated +the village. + +They set bread and butter and a piece of cheese weighing about five +pounds, and large, fresh, sweet cakes for breakfast. I ate and was +thankful: the food was good. + +A couple of village youths came in, in their Sunday clothes. They had +the Sunday stiffness. It reminded me of the stiffness and curious +self-consciousness that comes over life in England on a Sunday. But the +Landlord sat with his waistcoat hanging open over his shirt, +pot-bellied, his ruined face leaning forward, talking, always talking, +wanting to know. + +So in a few minutes I was out on the road again, thanking God for the +blessing of a road that belongs to no man, and travels away from +all men. + +I did not want to see the Italians. Something had got tied up in me, and +I could not bear to see them again. I liked them so much; but, for some +reason or other, my mind stopped like clockwork if I wanted to think of +them and of what their lives would be, their future. It was as if some +curious negative magnetism arrested my mind, prevented it from working, +the moment I turned it towards these Italians. + +I do not know why it was. But I could never write to them, or think of +them, or even read the paper they gave me though it lay in my drawer for +months, in Italy, and I often glanced over six lines of it. And often, +often my mind went back to the group, the play they were rehearsing, the +wine in the pleasant cafe, and the night. But the moment my memory +touched them, my whole soul stopped and was null; I could not go on. +Even now I cannot really consider them in thought. + +I shrink involuntarily away. I do not know why this is. + + + + +_The Return Journey_ + + +When one walks, one must travel west or south. If one turns northward or +eastward it is like walking down a cul-de-sac, to the blind end. + +So it has been since the Crusaders came home satiated, and the +Renaissance saw the western sky as an archway into the future. So it is +still. We must go westwards and southwards. + +It is a sad and gloomy thing to travel even from Italy into France. But +it is a joyful thing to walk south to Italy, south and west. It is so. +And there is a certain exaltation in the thought of going west, even to +Cornwall, to Ireland. It is as if the magnetic poles were south-west and +north-east, for our spirits, with the south-west, under the sunset, as +the positive pole. So whilst I walk through Switzerland, though it is a +valley of gloom and depression, a light seems to flash out under every +footstep, with the joy of progression. + +It was Sunday morning when I left the valley where the Italians lived. I +went quickly over the stream, heading for Lucerne. It was a good thing +to be out of doors, with one's pack on one's back, climbing uphill. But +the trees were thick by the roadside; I was not yet free. It was Sunday +morning, very still. + +In two hours I was at the top of the hill, looking out over the +intervening valley at the long lake of Zurich, spread there beyond with +its girdle of low hills, like a relief-map. I could not bear to look at +it, it was so small and unreal. I had a feeling as if it were false, a +large relief-map that I was looking down upon, and which I wanted to +smash. It seemed to intervene between me and some reality. I could not +believe that that was the real world. It was a figment, a fabrication, +like a dull landscape painted on a wall, to hide the real landscape. + +So I went on, over to the other side of the hill, and I looked out +again. Again there were the smoky-looking hills and the lake like a +piece of looking-glass. But the hills were higher: that big one was the +Rigi. I set off down the hill. + +There was fat agricultural land and several villages. And church was +over. The churchgoers were all coming home: men in black broadcloth and +old chimney-pot silk hats, carrying their umbrellas; women in ugly +dresses, carrying books and umbrellas. The streets were dotted with +these black-clothed men and stiff women, all reduced to a Sunday +nullity. I hated it. It reminded me of that which I knew in my boyhood, +that stiff, null 'propriety' which used to come over us, like a sort of +deliberate and self-inflicted cramp, on Sundays. I hated these elders in +black broadcloth, with their neutral faces, going home piously to their +Sunday dinners. I hated the feeling of these villages, comfortable, +well-to-do, clean, and proper. + +And my boot was chafing two of my toes. That always happens. I had come +down to a wide, shallow valley-bed, marshy. So about a mile out of the +village I sat down by a stone bridge, by a stream, and tore up my +handkerchief, and bound up the toes. And as I sat binding my toes, two +of the elders in black, with umbrellas under their arms, approached from +the direction of the village. + +They made me so furious, I had to hasten to fasten my boot, to hurry on +again, before they should come near me. I could not bear the way they +walked and talked, so crambling and material and mealy-mouthed. + +Then it did actually begin to rain. I was just going down a short hill. +So I sat under a bush and watched the trees drip. I was so glad to be +there, homeless, without place or belonging, crouching under the leaves +in the copse by the road, that I felt I had, like the meek, inherited +the earth. Some men went by, with their coat-collars turned up, and the +rain making still blacker their black broadcloth shoulders. They did not +see me. I was as safe and separate as a ghost. So I ate the remains of +my food that I had bought in Zurich, and waited for the rain. + +Later, in the wet Sunday afternoon, I went on to the little lake, past +many inert, neutral, material people, down an ugly road where trams ran. +The blight of Sunday was almost intolerable near the town. + +So on I went, by the side of the steamy, reedy lake, walking the length +of it. Then suddenly I went in to a little villa by the water for tea. +In Switzerland every house is a villa. + +But this villa, was kept by two old ladies and a delicate dog, who must +not get his feet wet. I was very happy there. I had good jam and strange +honey-cakes for tea, that I liked, and the little old ladies pattered +round in a great stir, always whirling like two dry leaves after the +restless dog. + +'Why must he not go out?' I said. + +'Because it is wet,' they answered, 'and he coughs and sneezes.' + +'Without a handkerchief, that is not _angenehm_' I said. + +So we became bosom friends. + +'You are Austrian?' they said to me. + +I said I was from Graz; that my father was a doctor in Graz, and that I +was walking for my pleasure through the countries of Europe. + +I said this because I knew a doctor from Graz who was always wandering +about, and because I did not want to be myself, an Englishman, to these +two old ladies. I wanted to be something else. So we exchanged +confidences. + +They told me, in their queer, old, toothless fashion, about their +visitors, a man who used to fish all day, every day for three weeks, +fish every hour of the day, though many a day he caught nothing--nothing +at all--still he fished from the boat; and so on, such trivialities. +Then they told me of a third sister who had died, a third little old +lady. One could feel the gap in the house. They cried; and I, being an +Austrian from Graz, to my astonishment felt my tears slip over on to the +table. I also _was_ sorry, and I would have kissed the little old ladies +to comfort them. + +'Only in heaven it is warm, and it doesn't rain, and no one dies,' I +said, looking at the wet leaves. + +Then I went away. I would have stayed the night at this house: I wanted +to. But I had developed my Austrian character too far. + +So I went on to a detestable brutal inn in the town. And the next day I +climbed over the back of the detestable Rigi, with its vile hotel, to +come to Lucerne. There, on the Rigi, I met a lost young Frenchman who +could speak no German, and who said he could not find people to speak +French. So we sat on a stone and became close friends, and I promised +faithfully to go and visit him in his barracks in Algiers: I was to sail +from Naples to Algiers. He wrote me the address on his card, and told me +he had friends in the regiment, to whom I should be introduced, and we +could have a good time, if I would stay a week or two, down there +in Algiers. + +How much more real Algiers was than the rock on the Rigi where we sat, +or the lake beneath, or the mountains beyond. Algiers is very real, +though I have never seen it, and my friend is my friend for ever, though +I have lost his card and forgotten his name. He was a Government clerk +from Lyons, making this his first foreign tour before he began his +military service. He showed me his 'circular excursion ticket'. Then at +last we parted, for he must get to the top of the Rigi, and I must get +to the bottom. + +Lucerne and its lake were as irritating as ever--like the wrapper round +milk chocolate. I could not sleep even one night there: I took the +steamer down the lake, to the very last station. There I found a good +German inn, and was happy. + +There was a tall thin young man, whose face was red and inflamed from +the sun. I thought he was a German tourist. He had just come in; and he +was eating bread and milk. He and I were alone in the eating-room. He +was looking at an illustrated paper. + +'Does the steamer stop here all night?' I asked him in German, hearing +the boat bustling and blowing her steam on the water outside, and +glancing round at her lights, red and white, in the pitch darkness. + +He only shook his head over his bread and milk, and did not lift his +face. + +'Are you English, then?' I said. + +No one but an Englishman would have hidden his face in a bowl of milk, +and have shaken his red ears in such painful confusion. + +'Yes,' he said, 'I am.' + +And I started almost out of my skin at the unexpected London accent. It +was as if one suddenly found oneself in the Tube. + +'So am I,' I said. 'Where have you come from?' + +Then he began, like a general explaining his plans, to tell me. He had +walked round over the Furka Pass, had been on foot four or five days. He +had walked tremendously. Knowing no German, and nothing of the +mountains, he had set off alone on this tour: he had a fortnight's +holiday. So he had come over the Rhone Glacier across the Furka and down +from Andermatt to the Lake. On this last day he had walked about thirty +mountain miles. + +'But weren't you tired?' I said, aghast. + +He was. Under the inflamed redness of his sun- and wind- and snow-burned +face he was sick with fatigue. He had done over a hundred miles in the +last four days. + +'Did you enjoy it?' I asked. + +'Oh yes. I wanted to do it all.' He wanted to do it, and he _had_ done +it. But God knows what he wanted to do it for. He had now one day at +Lucerne, one day at Interlaken and Berne, then London. + +I was sorry for him in my soul, he was so cruelly tired, so perishingly +victorious. + +'Why did you do so much?' I said. 'Why did you come on foot all down the +valley when you could have taken the train? Was it worth it?' + +'I think so,' he said. + +Yet he was sick with fatigue and over-exhaustion. His eyes were quite +dark, sightless: he seemed to have lost the power of seeing, to be +virtually blind. He hung his head forward when he had to write a post +card, as if he felt his way. But he turned his post card so that I +should not see to whom it was addressed; not that I was interested; only +I noticed his little, cautious, English movement of privacy. + +'What time will you be going on?' I asked. + +'When is the first steamer?' he said, and he turned out a guide-book +with a time-table. He would leave at about seven. + +'But why so early?' I said to him. + +He must be in Lucerne at a certain hour, and at Interlaken in the +evening. + +'I suppose you will rest when you get to London?' I said. + +He looked at me quickly, reservedly. + +I was drinking beer: I asked him wouldn't he have something. He thought +a moment, then said he would have another glass of hot milk. The +landlord came--'And bread?' he asked. + +The Englishman refused. He could not eat, really. Also he was poor; he +had to husband his money. The landlord brought the milk and asked me, +when would the gentleman want to go away. So I made arrangements between +the landlord and the stranger. But the Englishman was slightly +uncomfortable at my intervention. He did not like me to know what he +would have for breakfast. + +I could feel so well the machine that had him in its grip. He slaved for +a year, mechanically, in London, riding in the Tube, working in the +office. Then for a fortnight he was let free. So he rushed to +Switzerland, with a tour planned out, and with just enough money to see +him through, and to buy presents at Interlaken: bits of the edelweiss +pottery: I could see him going home with them. + +So he arrived, and with amazing, pathetic courage set forth on foot in a +strange land, to face strange landlords, with no language but English at +his command, and his purse definitely limited. Yet he wanted to go among +the mountains, to cross a glacier. So he had walked on and on, like one +possessed, ever forward. His name might have been Excelsior, indeed. + +But then, when he reached his Furka, only to walk along the ridge and to +descend on the same side! My God, it was killing to the soul. And here +he was, down again from the mountains, beginning his journey home again: +steamer and train and steamer and train and Tube, till he was back in +the machine. + +It hadn't let him go, and he knew it. Hence his cruel self-torture of +fatigue, his cruel exercise of courage. He who hung his head in his milk +in torment when I asked him a question in German, what courage had he +not needed to take this his very first trip out of England, alone, +on foot! + +His eyes were dark and deep with unfathomable courage. Yet he was going +back in the morning. He was going back. All he had courage for was to go +back. He would go back, though he died by inches. Why not? It was +killing him, it was like living loaded with irons. But he had the +courage to submit, to die that way, since it was the way allotted +to him. + +The way he sank on the table in exhaustion, drinking his milk, his will, +nevertheless, so perfect and unblemished, triumphant, though his body +was broken and in anguish, was almost too much to bear. My heart was +wrung for my countryman, wrung till it bled. + +I could not bear to understand my countryman, a man who worked for his +living, as I had worked, as nearly all my countrymen work. He would not +give in. On his holiday he would walk, to fulfil his purpose, walk on; +no matter how cruel the effort were, he would not rest, he would not +relinquish his purpose nor abate his will, not by one jot or tittle. His +body must pay whatever his will demanded, though it were torture. + +It all seemed to me so foolish. I was almost in tears. He went to bed. I +walked by the dark lake, and talked to the girl in the inn. She was a +pleasant girl: it was a pleasant inn, a homely place. One could be +happy there. + +In the morning it was sunny, the lake was blue. By night I should be +nearly at the crest of my journey. I was glad. + +The Englishman had gone. I looked for his name in the book. It was +written in a fair, clerkly hand. He lived at Streatham. Suddenly I hated +him. The dogged fool, to keep his nose on the grindstone like that. What +was all his courage but the very tip-top of cowardice? What a vile +nature--almost Sadish, proud, like the infamous Red Indians, of being +able to stand torture. + +The landlord came to talk to me. He was fat and comfortable and too +respectful. But I had to tell him all the Englishman had done, in the +way of a holiday, just to shame his own fat, ponderous, inn-keeper's +luxuriousness that was too gross. Then all I got out of his enormous +comfortableness was: + +'Yes, that's a _very_ long step to take.' + +So I set off myself, up the valley between the close, snow-topped +mountains, whose white gleamed above me as I crawled, small as an +insect, along the dark, cold valley below. + +There had been a cattle fair earlier in the morning, so troops of cattle +were roving down the road, some with bells tang-tanging, all with soft +faces and startled eyes and a sudden swerving of horns. The grass was +very green by the roads and by the streams; the shadows of the mountain +slopes were very dark on either hand overhead, and the sky with snowy +flanks and tips was high up. + +Here, away from the world, the villages were quiet and obscure--left +behind. They had the same fascinating atmosphere of being forgotten, +left out of the world, that old English villages have. And buying apples +and cheese and bread in a little shop that sold everything and smelled +of everything, I felt at home again. + +But climbing gradually higher, mile after mile, always between the +shadows of the high mountains, I was glad I did not live in the Alps. +The villages on the slopes, the people there, seemed, as if they _must_ +gradually, bit by bit, slide down and tumble to the water-course, and be +rolled on away, away to the sea. Straggling, haphazard little villages +ledged on the slope, high up, beside their wet, green, hanging meadows, +with pine trees behind and the valley bottom far below, and rocks right +above, on both sides, seemed like little temporary squattings of outcast +people. It seemed impossible that they should persist there, with great +shadows wielded over them, like a menace, and gleams of brief sunshine, +like a window. There was a sense of momentariness and expectation. It +seemed as though some dramatic upheaval must take place, the mountains +fall down into their own shadows. The valley beds were like deep graves, +the sides of the mountains like the collapsing walls of a grave. The +very mountain-tops above, bright with transcendent snow, seemed like +death, eternal death. + +There, it seemed, in the glamorous snow, was the source of death, which +fell down in great waves of shadow and rock, rushing to the level earth. +And all the people of the mountains, on the slopes, in the valleys, +seemed to live upon this great, rushing wave of death, of breaking-down, +of destruction. + +The very pure source of breaking-down, decomposition, the very quick of +cold death, is the snowy mountain-peak above. There, eternally, goes on +the white foregathering of the crystals, out of the deathly cold of the +heavens; this is the static nucleus where death meets life in its +elementality. And thence, from their white, radiant nucleus of death in +life, flows the great flux downwards, towards life and warmth. And we +below, we cannot think of the flux upwards, that flows from the +needle-point of snow to the unutterable cold and death. + +The people under the mountains, they seem to live in the flux of death, +the last, strange, overshadowed units of life. Big shadows wave over +them, there is the eternal noise of water falling icily downwards from +the source of death overhead. + +And the people under the shadows, dwelling in the tang of snow and the +noise of icy water, seem dark, almost sordid, brutal. There is no +flowering or coming to flower, only this persistence, in the ice-touched +air, of reproductive life. + +But it is difficult to get a sense of a native population. Everywhere +are the hotels and the foreigners, the parasitism. Yet there is, unseen, +this overshadowed, overhung, sordid mountain population, ledged on the +slopes and in the crevices. In the wider valleys there is still a sense +of cowering among the people. But they catch a new tone from their +contact with the foreigners. And in the towns are nothing but +tradespeople. + +So I climbed slowly up, for a whole day, first along the highroad, +sometimes above and sometimes below the twisting, serpentine railway, +then afterwards along a path on the side of the hill--a path that went +through the crew-yards of isolated farms and even through the garden of +a village priest. The priest was decorating an archway. He stood on a +chair in the sunshine, reaching up with a garland, whilst the +serving-woman stood below, talking loudly. + +The valley here seemed wider, the great flanks of the mountains gave +place, the peaks above were further back. So one was happier. I was +pleased as I sat by the thin track of single flat stones that dropped +swiftly downhill. + +At the bottom was a little town with a factory or quarry, or a foundry, +some place with long, smoking chimneys; which made me feel quite at home +among the mountains. + +It is the hideous rawness of the world of men, the horrible, desolating +harshness of the advance of the industrial world upon the world of +nature, that is so painful. It looks as though the industrial spread of +mankind were a sort of dry disintegration advancing and advancing, a +process of dry disintegration. If only we could learn to take thought +for the whole world instead of for merely tiny bits of it. + +I went through the little, hideous, crude factory-settlement in the high +valley, where the eternal snows gleamed, past the enormous +advertisements for chocolate and hotels, up the last steep slope of the +pass to where the tunnel begins. Goeschenen, the village at the mouth of +the tunnel, is all railway sidings and haphazard villas for tourists, +post cards, and touts and weedy carriages; disorder and sterile chaos, +high up. How should any one stay there! + +I went on up the pass itself. There were various parties of visitors on +the roads and tracks, people from towns incongruously walking and +driving. It was drawing on to evening. I climbed slowly, between the +great cleft in the rock where are the big iron gates, through which the +road winds, winds half-way down the narrow gulley of solid, living rock, +the very throat of the path, where hangs a tablet in memory of many +Russians killed. + +Emerging through the dark rocky throat of the pass I came to the upper +world, the level upper world. It was evening, livid, cold. On either +side spread the sort of moorland of the wide pass-head. I drew near +along the high-road, to Andermatt. + +Everywhere were soldiers moving about the livid, desolate waste of this +upper world. I passed the barracks and the first villas for visitors. +Darkness was coming on; the straggling, inconclusive street of Andermatt +looked as if it were some accident--houses, hotels, barracks, +lodging-places tumbled at random as the caravan of civilization crossed +this high, cold, arid bridge of the European world. + +I bought two post cards and wrote them out of doors in the cold, livid +twilight. Then I asked a soldier where was the post-office. He directed +me. It was something like sending post cards from Skegness or Bognor, +there in the post-office. + +I was trying to make myself agree to stay in Andermatt for the night. +But I could not. The whole place was so terribly raw and flat and +accidental, as if great pieces of furniture had tumbled out of a +pantechnicon and lay discarded by the road. I hovered in the street, in +the twilight, trying to make myself stay. I looked at the announcements +of lodgings and boarding for visitors. It was no good. I could not go +into one of these houses. + +So I passed on, through the old, low, broad-eaved houses that cringe +down to the very street, out into the open again. The air was fierce and +savage. On one side was a moorland, level; on the other a sweep of naked +hill, curved concave, and sprinkled with snow. I could see how wonderful +it would all be, under five or six feet of winter snow, skiing and +tobogganing at Christmas. But it needed the snow. In the summer there is +to be seen nothing but the winter's broken detritus. + +The twilight deepened, though there was still the strange, glassy +translucency of the snow-lit air. A fragment of moon was in the sky. A +carriage-load of French tourists passed me. There was the loud noise of +water, as ever, something eternal and maddening in its sound, like the +sound of Time itself, rustling and rushing and wavering, but never for a +second ceasing. The rushing of Time that continues throughout eternity, +this is the sound of the icy streams of Switzerland, something that +mocks and destroys our warm being. + +So I came, in the early darkness, to the little village with the broken +castle that stands for ever frozen at the point where the track parts, +one way continuing along the ridge, to the Furka Pass, the other +swerving over the hill to the left, over the Gotthardt. + +In this village I must stay. I saw a woman looking hastily, furtively +from a doorway. I knew she was looking for visitors. I went on up the +hilly street. There were only a few wooden houses and a gaily lighted +wooden inn, where men were laughing, and strangers, men, standing +talking loudly in the doorway. + +It was very difficult to go to a house this night. I did not want to +approach any of them. I turned back to the house of the peering woman. +She had looked hen-like and anxious. She would be glad of a visitor to +help her pay her rent. + +It was a clean, pleasant wooden house, made to keep out the cold. That +seemed its one function: to defend the inmates from the cold. It was +furnished like a hut, just tables and chairs and bare wooden walls. One +felt very close and secure in the room, as in a hut, shut away from the +outer world. + +The hen-like woman came. + +'Can I have a bed,' I said, 'for the night?' + +'_Abendessen, ja!_' she replied. 'Will you have soup and boiled beef and +vegetables?' + +I said I would, so I sat down to wait, in the utter silence. I could +scarcely hear the ice-stream, the silence seemed frozen, the house +empty. The woman seemed to be flitting aimlessly, scurriedly, in reflex +against the silence. One could almost touch the stillness as one could +touch the walls, or the stove, or the table with white American +oil-cloth. + +Suddenly she appeared again. + +'What will you drink?' + +She watched my face anxiously, and her voice was pathetic, slightly +pleading in its quickness. + +'Wine or beer?' she said. + +I would not trust the coldness of beer. + +'A half of red wine,' I said. + +I knew she was going to keep me an indefinite time. + +She appeared with the wine and bread. + +'Would you like omelette after the beef?' she asked. 'Omelette with +cognac--I can make it _very_ good.' + +I knew I should be spending too much, but I said yes. After all, why +should I not eat, after the long walk? + +So she left me again, whilst I sat in the utter isolation and stillness, +eating bread and drinking the wine, which was good. And I listened for +any sound: only the faint noise of the stream. And I wondered, Why am I +here, on this ridge of the Alps, in the lamp-lit, wooden, close-shut +room, alone? Why am I here? + +Yet somehow I was glad, I was happy even: such splendid silence and +coldness and clean isolation. It was something eternal, unbroachable: I +was free, in this heavy, ice-cold air, this upper world, alone. London, +far away below, beyond, England, Germany, France--they were all so +unreal in the night. It was a sort of grief that this continent all +beneath was so unreal, false, non-existent in its activity. Out of the +silence one looked down on it, and it seemed to have lost all +importance, all significance. It was so big, yet it had no significance. +The kingdom of the world had no significance: what could one do but +wander about? + +The woman came with my soup. I asked her, did not many people come in +the summer. But she was scared away, she did not answer, she went like a +leaf in the wind. However, the soup was good and plentiful. + +She was a long time before she came with the next course. Then she put +the tray on the table, and looking at me, then looking away, +shrinking, she said: + +'You must excuse me if I don't answer you--I don't hear well--I am +rather deaf.' + +I looked at her, and I winced also. She shrank in such simple pain from +the fact of her defect. I wondered if she were bullied because of it, or +only afraid lest visitors would dislike it. + +She put the dishes in order, set me my plate, quickly, nervously, and +was gone again, like a scared chicken. Being tired, I wanted to weep +over her, the nervous, timid hen, so frightened by her own deafness. The +house was silent of her, empty. It was perhaps her deafness which +created this empty soundlessness. + +When she came with the omelette, I said to her loudly: + +'That was very good, the soup and meat.' So she quivered nervously, and +said, 'Thank you,' and I managed to talk to her. She was like most deaf +people, in that her terror of not hearing made her six times worse than +she actually was. + +She spoke with a soft, strange accent, so I thought she was perhaps a +foreigner. But when I asked her she misunderstood, and I had not the +heart to correct her. I can only remember she said her house was always +full in the winter, about Christmas-time. People came for the winter +sport. There were two young English ladies who always came to her. + +She spoke of them warmly. Then, suddenly afraid, she drifted off again. +I ate the omelette with cognac, which was very good, then I looked in +the street. It was very dark, with bright stars, and smelled of snow. +Two village men went by. I was tired, I did not want to go to the inn. + +So I went to bed, in the silent, wooden house. I had a small bedroom, +clean and wooden and very cold. Outside, the stream was rushing. I +covered myself with a great depth of featherbed, and looked at the +stars, and the shadowy upper world, and went to sleep. + +In the morning I washed in the ice-cold water, and was glad to set out. +An icy mist was over the noisy stream, there were a few meagre, shredded +pine-trees. I had breakfast and paid my bill: it was seven francs--more +than I could afford; but that did not matter, once I was out in the air. + +The sky was blue and perfect, it was a ringing morning, the village was +very still. I went up the hill till I came to the signpost. I looked +down the direction of the Furka, and thought of my tired Englishman from +Streatham, who would be on his way home. Thank God I need not go home: +never, perhaps. I turned up the track to the left, to the Gothard. + +Standing looking round at the mountain-tops, at the village and the +broken castle below me, at the scattered debris of Andermatt on the moor +in the distance, I was jumping in my soul with delight. Should one ever +go down to the lower world? + +Then I saw another figure striding along, a youth with knee-breeches and +Alpine hat and braces over his shirt, walking manfully, his coat slung +in his rucksack behind. I laughed, and waited. He came my way. + +'Are you going over the Gothard?' I said. + +'Yes,' he replied. 'Are you also?' + +'Yes' I said. 'We will go together.' + +So we set off, climbing a track up the heathy rocks. + +He was a pale, freckled town youth from Basel, seventeen years old. He +was a clerk in a baggage-transport firm--Gondrand Freres, I believe. He +had a week's holiday, in which time he was going to make a big circular +walk, something like the Englishman's. But he was accustomed to this +mountain walking: he belonged to a Sportverein. Manfully he marched in +his thick hob-nailed boots, earnestly he scrambled up the rocks. + +We were in the crest of the pass. Broad snow-patched slopes came down +from the pure sky; the defile was full of stones, all bare stones, +enormous ones as big as a house, and small ones, pebbles. Through these +the road wound in silence, through this upper, transcendent desolation, +wherein was only the sound of the stream. Sky and snow-patched slopes, +then the stony, rocky bed of the defile, full of morning sunshine: this +was all. We were crossing in silence from the northern world to +the southern. + +But he, Emil, was going to take the train back, through the tunnel, in +the evening, to resume his circular walk at Goeschenen. + +I, however, was going on, over the ridge of the world, from the north +into the south. So I was glad. + +We climbed up the gradual incline for a long time. The slopes above +became lower, they began to recede. The sky was very near, we were +walking under the sky. + +Then the defile widened out, there was an open place before us, the very +top of the pass. Also there were low barracks, and soldiers. We heard +firing. Standing still, we saw on the slopes of snow, under the radiant +blue heaven, tiny puffs of smoke, then some small black figures crossing +the snow patch, then another rattle of rifle-fire, rattling dry and +unnatural in the upper, skyey air, between the rocks. + +'_Das ist schoen_,' said my companion, in his simple admiration. + +'_Huebsch_,' I said. + +'But that would be splendid, to be firing up there, manoeuvring up in +the snow.' + +And he began to tell me how hard a soldier's life was, how hard the +soldier was drilled. + +'You don't look forward to it?' I said. + +'Oh yes, I do. I want to be a soldier, I want to serve my time.' + +'Why?'I said. + +'For the exercise, the life, the drilling. One becomes strong.' + +'Do all the Swiss want to serve their time in the army?' I asked. + +'Yes--they all want to. It is good for every man, and it keeps us all +together. Besides, it is only for a year. For a year it is very good. +The Germans have three years--that is too long, that is bad.' + +I told him how the soldiers in Bavaria hated the military service. + +'Yes,' he said, 'that is true of Germans. The system is different. Ours +is much better; in Switzerland a man enjoys his time as a soldier. I +want to go.' + +So we watched the black dots of soldiers crawling over the high snow, +listened to the unnatural dry rattle of guns, up there. + +Then we were aware of somebody whistling, of soldiers yelling down the +road. We were to come on, along the level, over the bridge. So we +marched quickly forward, away from the slopes, towards the hotel, once a +monastery, that stood in the distance. The light was blue and clear on +the reedy lakes of this upper place; it was a strange desolation of +water and bog and rocks and road, hedged by the snowy slopes round the +rim, under the very sky. + +The soldier was yelling again. I could not tell what he said. + +'He says if we don't run we can't come at all,' said Emil. + +'I won't run,' I said. + +So we hurried forwards, over the bridge, where the soldier on guard was +standing. + +'Do you want to be shot?' he said angrily, as we came up. + +'No, thanks,' I said. + +Emil was very serious. + +'How long should we have had to wait if we hadn't got through now?' he +asked the soldier, when we were safely out of danger. + +'Till one o'clock,' was the reply. + +'Two hours!' said Emil, strangely elated. 'We should have had to wait +two hours before we could come on. He was riled that we didn't run,' and +he laughed with glee. + +So we marched over the level to the hotel. We called in for a glass of +hot milk. I asked in German. But the maid, a pert hussy, elegant and +superior, was French. She served us with great contempt, as two +worthless creatures, poverty-stricken. It abashed poor Emil, but we +managed to laugh at her. This made her very angry. In the smoking-room +she raised up her voice in French: + +'_Du lait chaud pour les chameaux._' + +'Some hot milk for the camels, she says,' I translated for Emil. He was +covered with confusion and youthful anger. + +But I called to her, tapped the table and called: + +'_Mademoiselle!_' + +She appeared flouncingly in the doorway. + +'_Encore du lait pour les chameaux_,' I said. + +And she whisked our glasses off the table, and flounced out without a +word. + +But she would not come in again with the milk. A German girl brought it. +We laughed, and she smiled primly. + +When we set forth again, Emil rolled up his sleeves and turned back his +shirt from his neck and breast, to do the thing thoroughly. Besides, it +was midday, and the sun was hot; and, with his bulky pack on his back, +he suggested the camel of the French maid more than ever. + +We were on the downward slope. Only a short way from the hotel, and +there was the drop, the great cleft in the mountains running down from +this shallow pot among the peaks. + +The descent on the south side is much more precipitous and wonderful +than the ascent from the north. On the south, the rocks are craggy and +stupendous; the little river falls headlong down; it is not a stream, it +is one broken, panting cascade far away in the gulley below, in +the darkness. + +But on the slopes the sun pours in, the road winds down with its tail in +its mouth, always in endless loops returning on itself. The mules that +travel upward seem to be treading in a mill. + +Emil took the narrow tracks, and, like the water, we cascaded down, +leaping from level to level, leaping, running, leaping, descending +headlong, only resting now and again when we came down on to another +level of the high-road. + +Having begun, we could not help ourselves, we were like two stones +bouncing down. Emil was highly elated. He waved his thin, bare, white +arms as he leapt, his chest grew pink with the exercise. Now he felt he +was doing something that became a member of his Sportverein. Down we +went, jumping, running, britching. + +It was wonderful on this south side, so sunny, with feathery trees and +deep black shadows. It reminded me of Goethe, of the romantic period: + + _Kennst du das Land, wo die Citronen bluehen?_ + +So we went tumbling down into the south, very swiftly, along with the +tumbling stream. But it was very tiring. We went at a great pace down +the gully, between the sheer rocks. Trees grew in the ledges high over +our heads, trees grew down below. And ever we descended. + +Till gradually the gully opened, then opened into a wide valley-head, +and we saw Airolo away below us, the railway emerging from its hole, the +whole valley like a cornucopia full of sunshine. + +Poor Emil was tired, more tired than I was. And his big boots had hurt +his feet in the descent. So, having come to the open valley-head, we +went more gently. He had become rather quiet. + +The head of the valley had that half-tamed, ancient aspect that reminded +me of the Romans. I could only expect the Roman legions to be encamped +down there; and the white goats feeding on the bushes belonged to a +Roman camp. + +But no, we saw again the barracks of the Swiss soldiery, and again we +were in the midst of rifle-fire and manoeuvres. But we went evenly, +tired now, and hungry. We had nothing to eat. + +It is strange how different the sun-dried, ancient, southern slopes of +the world are, from the northern slopes. It is as if the god Pan really +had his home among these sun-bleached stones and tough, sun-dark trees. +And one knows it all in one's blood, it is pure, sun-dried memory. So I +was content, coming down into Airolo. + +We found the streets were Italian, the houses sunny outside and dark +within, like Italy, there were laurels in the road. Poor Emil was a +foreigner all at once. He rolled down his shirt sleeves and fastened his +shirt-neck, put on his coat and collar, and became a foreigner in his +soul, pale and strange. + +I saw a shop with vegetables and grapes, a real Italian shop, a dark +cave. + +'_Quanto costa l'uva?_' were my first words in the south. + +'_Sessanta al chilo_,' said the girl. + +And it was as pleasant as a drink of wine, the Italian. + +So Emil and I ate the sweet black grapes as we went to the station. + +He was very poor. We went into the third-class restaurant at the +station. He ordered beer and bread and sausage; I ordered soup and +boiled beef and vegetables. + +They brought me a great quantity, so, whilst the girl was serving +coffee-with-rum to the men at the bar, I took another spoon and knife +and fork and plates for Emil, and we had two dinners from my one. When +the girl--she was a woman of thirty-five--came back, she looked at us +sharply. I smiled at her coaxingly; so she gave a small, kindly smile +in reply. + +'_Ja, dies ist reizend_,' said Emil, _sotto voce_, exulting. He was very +shy. But we were curiously happy, in that railway restaurant. + +Then we sat very still, on the platform, and waited for the train. It +was like Italy, pleasant and social to wait in the railway station, all +the world easy and warm in its activity, with the sun shining. + +I decided to take a franc's worth of train-journey. So I chose my +station. It was one franc twenty, third class. Then my train came, and +Emil and I parted, he waving to me till I was out of sight. I was sorry +he had to go back, he did so want to venture forth. + +So I slid for a dozen miles or more, sleepily, down the Ticino valley, +sitting opposite two fat priests in their feminine black. + +When I got out at my station I felt for the first time ill at ease. Why +was I getting out at this wayside place, on to the great, raw high-road? +I did not know. But I set off walking. It was nearly tea-time. + +Nothing in the world is more ghastly than these Italian roads, new, +mechanical, belonging to a machine life. The old roads are wonderful, +skilfully aiming their way. But these new great roads are desolating, +more desolating than all the ruins in the world. + +I walked on and on, down the Ticino valley, towards Bellinzona. The +valley was perhaps beautiful: I don't know. I can only remember the +road. It was broad and new, and it ran very often beside the railway. It +ran also by quarries and by occasional factories, also through villages. +And the quality of its sordidness is something that does not bear +thinking of, a quality that has entered Italian life now, if it was not +there before. + +Here and there, where there were quarries or industries, great +lodging-houses stood naked by the road, great, grey, desolate places; +and squalid children were playing round the steps, and dirty men +slouched in. Everything seemed under a weight. + +Down the road of the Ticino valley I felt again my terror of this new +world which is coming into being on top of us. One always feels it in a +suburb, on the edge of a town, where the land is being broken under the +advance of houses. But this is nothing, in England, to the terror one +feels on the new Italian roads, where these great blind cubes of +dwellings rise stark from the destroyed earth, swarming with a sort of +verminous life, really verminous, purely destructive. + +It seems to happen when the peasant suddenly leaves his home and becomes +a workman. Then an entire change comes over everywhere. Life is now a +matter of selling oneself to slave-work, building roads or labouring in +quarries or mines or on the railways, purposeless, meaningless, really +slave-work, each integer doing his mere labour, and all for no purpose, +except to have money, and to get away from the old system. + +These Italian navvies work all day long, their whole life is engaged in +the mere brute labour. And they are the navvies of the world. And whilst +they are navvying, they are almost shockingly indifferent to their +circumstances, merely callous to the dirt and foulness. + +It is as if the whole social form were breaking down, and the human +element swarmed within the disintegration, like maggots in cheese. The +roads, the railways are built, the mines and quarries are excavated, but +the whole organism of life, the social organism, is slowly crumbling and +caving in, in a kind of process of dry rot, most terrifying to see. So +that it seems as though we should be left at last with a great system of +roads and railways and industries, and a world of utter chaos seething +upon these fabrications: as if we had created a steel framework, and the +whole body of society were crumbling and rotting in between. It is most +terrifying to realize; and I have always felt this terror upon a new +Italian high-road--more there than anywhere. + +The remembrance of the Ticino valley is a sort of nightmare to me. But +it was better when at last, in the darkness of night, I got into +Bellinzona. In the midst of the town one felt the old organism still +living. It is only at its extremities that it is falling to pieces, as +in dry rot. + +In the morning, leaving Bellinzona, again I went in terror of the new, +evil high-road, with its skirting of huge cubical houses and its +seething navvy population. Only the peasants driving in with fruit were +consoling. But I was afraid of them: the same spirit had set in in them. + +I was no longer happy in Switzerland, not even when I was eating great +blackberries and looking down at the Lago Maggiore, at Locarno, lying by +the lake; the terror of the callous, disintegrating process was too +strong in me. + +At a little inn a man was very good to me. He went into his garden and +fetched me the first grapes and apples and peaches, bringing them in +amongst leaves, and heaping them before me. He was Italian-Swiss; he had +been in a bank in Bern; now he had retired, had bought his paternal +home, and was a free man. He was about fifty years old; he spent all his +time in his garden; his daughter attended to the inn. + +He talked to me, as long as I stayed, about Italy and Switzerland and +work and life. He was retired, he was free. But he was only nominally +free. He had only achieved freedom from labour. He knew that the system +he had escaped at last, persisted, and would consume his sons and his +grandchildren. He himself had more or less escaped back to the old form; +but as he came with me on to the hillside, looking down the high-road at +Lugano in the distance, he knew that his old order was collapsing by a +slow process of disintegration. + +Why did he talk to me as if I had any hope, as if I represented any +positive truth as against this great negative truth that was advancing +up the hill-side. Again I was afraid. I hastened down the high-road, +past the houses, the grey, raw crystals of corruption. + +I saw a girl with handsome bare legs, ankles shining like brass in the +sun. She was working in a field, on the edge of a vineyard. I stopped to +look at her, suddenly fascinated by her handsome naked flesh that shone +like brass. + +Then she called out to me, in a jargon I could not understand, something +mocking and challenging. And her voice was raucous and challenging; I +went on, afraid. + +In Lugano I stayed at a German hotel. I remember sitting on a seat in +the darkness by the lake, watching the stream of promenaders patrolling +the edge of the water, under the trees and the lamps. I can still see +many of their faces: English, German, Italian, French. And it seemed +here, here in this holiday-place, was the quick of the disintegration, +the dry-rot, in this dry, friable flux of people backwards and forwards +on the edge of the lake, men and women from the big hotels, in evening +dress, curiously sinister, and ordinary visitors, and tourists, and +workmen, youths, men of the town, laughing, jeering. It was curiously +and painfully sinister, almost obscene. + +I sat a long time among them, thinking of the girl with her limbs of +glowing brass. Then at last I went up to the hotel, and sat in the +lounge looking at the papers. It was the same here as down below, though +not so intense, the feeling of horror. + +So I went to bed. The hotel was on the edge of a steep declivity. I +wondered why the whole hills did not slide down, in some great natural +catastrophe. + +In the morning I walked along the side of the Lake of Lugano, to where I +could take a steamer to ferry me down to the end. The lake is not +beautiful, only picturesque. I liked most to think of the Romans +coming to it. + +So I steamed down to the lower end of the water. When I landed and went +along by a sort of railway I saw a group of men. Suddenly they began to +whoop and shout. They were hanging on to an immense pale bullock, which +was slung up to be shod; and it was lunging and kicking with terrible +energy. It was strange to see that mass of pale, soft-looking flesh +working with such violent frenzy, convulsed with violent, active frenzy, +whilst men and women hung on to it with ropes, hung on and weighed it +down. But again it scattered some of them in its terrible convulsion. +Human beings scattered into the road, the whole place was covered with +hot dung. And when the bullock began to lunge again, the men set up a +howl, half of triumph, half of derision. + +I went on, not wanting to see. I went along a very dusty road. But it +was not so terrifying, this road. Perhaps it was older. + +In dreary little Chiasso I drank coffee, and watched the come and go +through the Customs. The Swiss and the Italian Customs officials had +their offices within a few yards of each other, and everybody must stop. +I went in and showed my rucksack to the Italian, then I mounted a tram, +and went to the Lake of Como. + +In the tram were dressed-up women, fashionable, but business-like. They +had come by train to Chiasso, or else had been shopping in the town. + +When we came to the terminus a young miss, dismounting before me, left +behind her parasol. I had been conscious of my dusty, grimy appearance +as I sat in the tram, I knew they thought me a workman on the roads. +However, I forgot that when it was time to dismount. + +'_Pardon, Mademoiselle_,' I said to the young miss. She turned and +withered me with a rather overdone contempt--'_bourgeoise_,' I said to +myself, as I looked at her--'_Vous avez laisse votre parasol_.' + +She turned, and with a rapacious movement darted upon her parasol. How +her soul was in her possessions! I stood and watched her. Then she went +into the road and under the trees, haughty, a demoiselle. She had on +white kid boots. + +I thought of the Lake of Como what I had thought of Lugano: it must have +been wonderful when the Romans came there. Now it is all villas. I think +only the sunrise is still wonderful, sometimes. + +I took the steamer down to Como, and slept in a vast old stone cavern of +an inn, a remarkable place, with rather nice people. In the morning I +went out. The peace and the bygone beauty of the cathedral created the +glow of the great past. And in the market-place they were selling +chestnuts wholesale, great heaps of bright, brown chestnuts, and sacks +of chestnuts, and peasants very eager selling and buying. I thought of +Como, it must have been wonderful even a hundred years ago. Now it is +cosmopolitan, the cathedral is like a relic, a museum object, everywhere +stinks of mechanical money-pleasure. I dared not risk walking to Milan: +I took a train. And there, in Milan, sitting in the Cathedral Square, on +Saturday afternoon, drinking Bitter Campari and watching the swarm of +Italian city-men drink and talk vivaciously, I saw that here the life +was still vivid, here the process of disintegration was vigorous, and +centred in a multiplicity of mechanical activities that engage the human +mind as well as the body. But always there was the same purpose stinking +in it all, the mechanizing, the perfect mechanizing of human life. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Twilight in Italy, by D. H. Lawrence + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT IN ITALY *** + +***** This file should be named 9497.txt or 9497.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/4/9/9497/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Twilight in Italy + +Author: D.H. Lawrence + +Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9497] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 6, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT IN ITALY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +TWILIGHT IN ITALY + + +By D. H. Lawrence + +1916 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE CRUCIFIX ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS + +ON THE LAGO DI GARDA + 1 _The Spinner and the Monks_ + 2 _The Lemon Gardens_ + 3 _The Theatre_ + 4 _San Gaudenzio_ + 5 _The Dance_ + 6 _Il Duro_ + 7 _John_ + +ITALIANS IN EXILE + +THE RETURN JOURNEY + + + + +_The Crucifix Across the Mountains_ + + +The imperial road to Italy goes from Munich across the Tyrol, through +Innsbruck and Bozen to Verona, over the mountains. Here the great +processions passed as the emperors went South, or came home again from +rosy Italy to their own Germany. + +And how much has that old imperial vanity clung to the German soul? Did +not the German kings inherit the empire of bygone Rome? It was not a +very real empire, perhaps, but the sound was high and splendid. + +Maybe a certain Groessenwahn is inherent in the German nature. If only +nations would realize that they have certain natural characteristics, if +only they could understand and agree to each other's particular nature, +how much simpler it would all be. + +The imperial procession no longer crosses the mountains, going South. +That is almost forgotten, the road has almost passed out of mind. But +still it is there, and its signs are standing. + +The crucifixes are there, not mere attributes of the road, yet still +having something to do with it. The imperial processions, blessed by the +Pope and accompanied by the great bishops, must have planted the holy +idol like a new plant among the mountains, there where it multiplied and +grew according to the soil, and the race that received it. + +As one goes among the Bavarian uplands and foothills, soon one realizes +here is another land, a strange religion. It is a strange country, +remote, out of contact. Perhaps it belongs to the forgotten, imperial +processions. + +Coming along the clear, open roads that lead to the mountains, one +scarcely notices the crucifixes and the shrines. Perhaps one's interest +is dead. The crucifix itself is nothing, a factory-made piece of +sentimentalism. The soul ignores it. + +But gradually, one after another looming shadowily under their hoods, +the crucifixes seem to create a new atmosphere over the whole of the +countryside, a darkness, a weight in the air that is so unnaturally +bright and rare with the reflection from the snows above, a darkness +hovering just over the earth. So rare and unearthly the light is, from +the mountains, full of strange radiance. Then every now and again recurs +the crucifix, at the turning of an open, grassy road, holding a shadow +and a mystery under its pointed hood. + +I was startled into consciousness one evening, going alone over a marshy +place at the foot of the mountains, when the sky was pale and unearthly, +invisible, and the hills were nearly black. At a meeting of the tracks +was a crucifix, and between the feet of the Christ a handful of withered +poppies. It was the poppies I saw, then the Christ. + +It was an old shrine, the wood-sculpture of a Bavarian peasant. The +Christ was a peasant of the foot of the Alps. He had broad cheekbones +and sturdy limbs. His plain, rudimentary face stared fixedly at the +hills, his neck was stiffened, as if in resistance to the fact of the +nails and the cross, which he could not escape. It was a man nailed down +in spirit, but set stubbornly against the bondage and the disgrace. He +was a man of middle age, plain, crude, with some of the meanness of the +peasant, but also with a kind of dogged nobility that does not yield its +soul to the circumstance. Plain, almost blank in his soul, the +middle-aged peasant of the crucifix resisted unmoving the misery of his +position. He did not yield. His soul was set, his will was fixed. He was +himself, let his circumstances be what they would, his life fixed down. + +Across the marsh was a tiny square of orange-coloured light, from the +farm-house with the low, spreading roof. I remembered how the man and +his wife and the children worked on till dark, silent and intent, +carrying the hay in their arms out of the streaming thunder-rain into +the shed, working silent in the soaking rain. + +The body bent forward towards the earth, closing round on itself; the +arms clasped full of hay, clasped round the hay that presses soft and +close to the breast and the body, that pricks heat into the arms and the +skin of the breast, and fills the lungs with the sleepy scent of dried +herbs: the rain that falls heavily and wets the shoulders, so that the +shirt clings to the hot, firm skin and the rain comes with heavy, +pleasant coldness on the active flesh, running in a trickle down towards +the loins, secretly; this is the peasant, this hot welter of physical +sensation. And it is all intoxicating. It is intoxicating almost like a +soporific, like a sensuous drug, to gather the burden to one's body in +the rain, to stumble across the living grass to the shed, to relieve +one's arms of the weight, to throw down the hay on to the heap, to feel +light and free in the dry shed, then to return again into the chill, +hard rain, to stoop again under the rain, and rise to return again with +the burden. + +It is this, this endless heat and rousedness of physical sensation which +keeps the body full and potent, and flushes the mind with a blood heat, +a blood sleep. And this sleep, this heat of physical experience, becomes +at length a bondage, at last a crucifixion. It is the life and the +fulfilment of the peasant, this flow of sensuous experience. But at last +it drives him almost mad, because he cannot escape. + +For overhead there is always the strange radiance of the mountains, +there is the mystery of the icy river rushing through its pink shoals +into the darkness of the pine-woods, there is always the faint tang of +ice on the air, and the rush of hoarse-sounding water. + +And the ice and the upper radiance of snow are brilliant with timeless +immunity from the flux and the warmth of life. Overhead they transcend +all life, all the soft, moist fire of the blood. So that a man must +needs live under the radiance of his own negation. + +There is a strange, clear beauty of form about the men of the Bavarian +highlands, about both men and women. They are large and clear and +handsome in form, with blue eyes very keen, the pupil small, tightened, +the iris keen, like sharp light shining on blue ice. Their large, +full-moulded limbs and erect bodies are distinct, separate, as if they +were perfectly chiselled out of the stuff of life, static, cut off. +Where they are everything is set back, as in a clear frosty air. + +Their beauty is almost this, this strange, clean-cut isolation, as if +each one of them would isolate himself still further and for ever from +the rest of his fellows. + +Yet they are convivial, they are almost the only race with the souls of +artists. Still they act the mystery plays with instinctive fullness of +interpretation, they sing strangely in the mountain fields, they love +make-belief and mummery, their processions and religious festivals are +profoundly impressive, solemn, and rapt. + +It is a race that moves on the poles of mystic sensual delight. Every +gesture is a gesture from the blood, every expression is a symbolic +utterance. + +For learning there is sensuous experience, for thought there is myth and +drama and dancing and singing. Everything is of the blood, of the +senses. There is no mind. The mind is a suffusion of physical heat, it +is not separated, it is kept submerged. + +At the same time, always, overhead, there is the eternal, negative +radiance of the snows. Beneath is life, the hot jet of the blood playing +elaborately. But above is the radiance of changeless not-being. And life +passes away into this changeless radiance. Summer and the prolific +blue-and-white flowering of the earth goes by, with the labour and the +ecstasy of man, disappears, and is gone into brilliance that hovers +overhead, the radiant cold which waits to receive back again all that +which has passed for the moment into being. + +The issue is too much revealed. It leaves the peasant no choice. The +fate gleams transcendent above him, the brightness of eternal, +unthinkable not-being. And this our life, this admixture of labour and +of warm experience in the flesh, all the time it is steaming up to the +changeless brilliance above, the light of the everlasting snows. This is +the eternal issue. + +Whether it is singing or dancing or play-acting or physical transport of +love, or vengeance or cruelty, or whether it is work or sorrow or +religion, the issue is always the same at last, into the radiant +negation of eternity. Hence the beauty and completeness, the finality of +the highland peasant. His figure, his limbs, his face, his motion, it is +all formed in beauty, and it is all completed. There is no flux nor hope +nor becoming, all is, once and for all. The issue is eternal, timeless, +and changeless. All being and all passing away is part of the issue, +which is eternal and changeless. Therefore there is no becoming and no +passing away. Everything is, now and for ever. Hence the strange beauty +and finality and isolation of the Bavarian peasant. + +It is plain in the crucifixes. Here is the essence rendered in sculpture +of wood. The face is blank and stiff, almost expressionless. One +realizes with a start how unchanging and conventionalized is the face of +the living man and woman of these parts, handsome, but motionless as +pure form. There is also an underlying meanness, secretive, cruel. It is +all part of the beauty, the pure, plastic beauty. The body also of the +Christus is stiff and conventionalized, yet curiously beautiful in +proportion, and in the static tension which makes it unified into one +clear thing. There is no movement, no possible movement. The being is +fixed, finally. The whole body is locked in one knowledge, beautiful, +complete. It is one with the nails. Not that it is languishing or dead. +It is stubborn, knowing its own undeniable being, sure of the absolute +reality of the sensuous experience. Though he is nailed down upon an +irrevocable fate, yet, within that fate he has the power and the delight +of all sensuous experience. So he accepts the fate and the mystic +delight of the senses with one will, he is complete and final. His +sensuous experience is supreme, a consummation of life and death +at once. + +It is the same at all times, whether it is moving with the scythe on the +hill-slopes, or hewing the timber, or steering the raft down the river +which is all effervescent with ice; whether it is drinking in the +Gasthaus, or making love, or playing some mummer's part, or hating +steadily and cruelly, or whether it is kneeling in spellbound subjection +in the incense-filled church, or walking in the strange, dark, +subject-procession to bless the fields, or cutting the young birch-trees +for the feast of Frohenleichnam, it is always the same, the dark, +powerful mystic, sensuous experience is the whole of him, he is mindless +and bound within the absoluteness of the issue, the unchangeability of +the great icy not-being which holds good for ever, and is supreme. + +Passing further away, towards Austria, travelling up the Isar, till the +stream becomes smaller and whiter and the air is colder, the full +glamour of the northern hills, which are so marvellously luminous and +gleaming with flowers, wanes and gives way to a darkness, a sense of +ominousness. Up there I saw another little Christ, who seemed the very +soul of the place. The road went beside the river, that was seething +with snowy ice-bubbles, under the rocks and the high, wolf-like +pine-trees, between the pinkish shoals. The air was cold and hard and +high, everything was cold and separate. And in a little glass case +beside the road sat a small, hewn Christ, the head resting on the hand; +and he meditates, half-wearily, doggedly, the eyebrows lifted in strange +abstraction, the elbow resting on the knee. Detached, he sits and dreams +and broods, wearing his little golden crown of thorns, and his little +cloak of red flannel that some peasant woman has stitched for him. + +No doubt he still sits there, the small, blank-faced Christ in the cloak +of red flannel, dreaming, brooding, enduring, persisting. There is a +wistfulness about him, as if he knew that the whole of things was too +much for him. There was no solution, either, in death. Death did not +give the answer to the soul's anxiety. That which is, is. It does not +cease to be when it is cut. Death cannot create nor destroy. What +is, is. + +The little brooding Christ knows this. What is he brooding, then? His +static patience and endurance is wistful. What is it that he secretly +yearns for, amid all the placidity of fate? 'To be, or not to be,' this +may be the question, but is it not a question for death to answer. It is +not a question of living or not-living. It is a question of being--to be +or not to be. To persist or not to persist, that is not the question; +neither is it to endure or not to endure. The issue, is it eternal +not-being? If not, what, then, is being? For overhead the eternal +radiance of the snow gleams unfailing, it receives the efflorescence of +all life and is unchanged, the issue is bright and immortal, the snowy +not-being. What, then, is being? + +As one draws nearer to the turning-point of the Alps, towards the +culmination and the southern slope, the influence of the educated world +is felt once more. Bavaria is remote in spirit, as yet unattached. Its +crucifixes are old and grey and abstract, small like the kernel of the +truth. Further into Austria they become new, they are painted white, +they are larger, more obtrusive. They are the expressions of a later, +newer phase, more introspective and self-conscious. But still they are +genuine expressions of the people's soul. + +Often one can distinguish the work of a particular artist here and there +in a district. In the Zemm valley, in the heart of the Tyrol, behind +Innsbruck, there are five or six crucifixes by one sculptor. He is no +longer a peasant working out an idea, conveying a dogma. He is an +artist, trained and conscious, probably working in Vienna. He is +consciously trying to convey a _feeling_, he is no longer striving +awkwardly to render a truth, a religious fact. + +The chief of his crucifixes stands deep in the Klamm, in the dank gorge +where it is always half-night. The road runs under the rock and the +trees, half-way up the one side of the pass. Below, the stream rushes +ceaselessly, embroiled among great stones, making an endless loud noise. +The rock face opposite rises high overhead, with the sky far up. So that +one is walking in a half-night, an underworld. And just below the path, +where the pack-horses go climbing to the remote, infolded villages, in +the cold gloom of the pass hangs the large, pale Christ. He is larger +than life-size. He has fallen forward, just dead, and the weight of the +full-grown, mature body hangs on the nails of the hands. So the dead, +heavy body drops forward, sags, as if it would tear away and fall under +its own weight. + +It is the end. The face is barren with a dead expression of weariness, +and brutalized with pain and bitterness. The rather ugly, passionate +mouth is set for ever in the disillusionment of death. Death is the +complete disillusionment, set like a seal over the whole body and being, +over the suffering and weariness and the bodily passion. + +The pass is gloomy and damp, the water roars unceasingly, till it is +almost like a constant pain. The driver of the pack-horses, as he comes +up the narrow path in the side of the gorge, cringes his sturdy +cheerfulness as if to obliterate himself, drawing near to the large, +pale Christ, and he takes his hat off as he passes, though he does not +look up, but keeps his face averted from the crucifix. He hurries by in +the gloom, climbing the steep path after his horses, and the large white +Christ hangs extended above. + +The driver of the pack-horses is afraid. The fear is always there in +him, in spite of his sturdy, healthy robustness. His soul is not sturdy. +It is blenched and whitened with fear. The mountains are dark overhead, +the water roars in the gloom below. His heart is ground between the +mill-stones of dread. When he passes the extended body of the dead +Christ he takes off his hat to the Lord of Death. Christ is the Deathly +One, He is Death incarnate. + +And the driver of the pack-horses acknowledges this deathly Christ as +supreme Lord. The mountain peasant seems grounded upon fear, the fear of +death, of physical death. Beyond this he knows nothing. His supreme +sensation is in physical pain, and in its culmination. His great climax, +his consummation, is death. Therefore he worships it, bows down before +it, and is fascinated by it all the while. It is his fulfilment, death, +and his approach to fulfilment is through physical pain. + +And so these monuments to physical death are found everywhere in the +valleys. By the same hand that carved the big Christ, a little further +on, at the end of a bridge, was another crucifix, a small one. This +Christ had a fair beard, and was thin, and his body was hanging almost +lightly, whereas the other Christ was large and dark and handsome. But +in this, as well as in the other, was the same neutral triumph of death, +complete, negative death, so complete as to be abstract, beyond cynicism +in its completeness of leaving off. + +Everywhere is the same obsession with the fact of physical pain, +accident, and sudden death. Wherever a misfortune has befallen a man, +there is nailed up a little memorial of the event, in propitiation of +the God of hurt and death. A man is standing up to his waist in water, +drowning in full stream, his arms in the air. The little painting in its +wooden frame is nailed to the tree, the spot is sacred to the accident. +Again, another little crude picture fastened to a rock: a tree, falling +on a man's leg, smashes it like a stalk, while the blood flies up. +Always there is the strange ejaculation of anguish and fear, perpetuated +in the little paintings nailed up in the place of the disaster. + +This is the worship, then, the worship of death and the approaches to +death, physical violence, and pain. There is something crude and +sinister about it, almost like depravity, a form of reverting, turning +back along the course of blood by which we have come. + +Turning the ridge on the great road to the south, the imperial road to +Rome, a decisive change takes place. The Christs have been taking on +various different characters, all of them more or less realistically +conveyed. One Christus is very elegant, combed and brushed and foppish +on his cross, as Gabriele D'Annunzio's son posing as a martyred saint. +The martyrdom of this Christ is according to the most polite convention. +The elegance is very important, and very Austrian. One might almost +imagine the young man had taken up this striking and original position +to create a delightful sensation among the ladies. It is quite in the +Viennese spirit. There is something brave and keen in it, too. The +individual pride of body triumphs over every difficulty in the +situation. The pride and satisfaction in the clean, elegant form, the +perfectly trimmed hair, the exquisite bearing, are more important than +the fact of death or pain. This may be foolish, it is at the same time +admirable. + +But the tendency of the crucifix, as it nears the ridge to the south, is +to become weak and sentimental. The carved Christs turn up their faces +and roll back their eyes very piteously, in the approved Guido Reni +fashion. They are overdoing the pathetic turn. They are looking to +heaven and thinking about themselves, in self-commiseration. Others +again are beautiful as elegies. It is dead Hyacinth lifted and extended +to view, in all his beautiful, dead youth. The young, male body droops +forward on the cross, like a dead flower. It looks as if its only true +nature were to be dead. How lovely is death, how poignant, real, +satisfying! It is the true elegiac spirit. + +Then there are the ordinary, factory-made Christs, which are not very +significant. They are as null as the Christs we see represented in +England, just vulgar nothingness. But these figures have gashes of red, +a red paint of blood, which is sensational. + +Beyond the Brenner, I have only seen vulgar or sensational crucifixes. +There are great gashes on the breast and the knees of the Christ-figure, +and the scarlet flows out and trickles down, till the crucified body has +become a ghastly striped thing of red and white, just a sickly thing of +striped red. + +They paint the rocks at the corners of the tracks, among the mountains; +a blue and white ring for the road to Ginzling, a red smear for the way +to St Jakob. So one follows the blue and white ring, or the three +stripes of blue and white, or the red smear, as the case may be. And the +red on the rocks, the dabs of red paint, are of just the same colour as +the red upon the crucifixes; so that the red upon the crucifixes is +paint, and the signs on the rocks are sensational, like blood. + +I remember the little brooding Christ of the Isar, in his little cloak +of red flannel and his crown of gilded thorns, and he remains real and +dear to me, among all this violence of representation. + +'_Couvre-toi de gloire, Tartarin--couvre-toi de flanelle._' Why should +it please me so that his cloak is of red flannel? + +In a valley near St Jakob, just over the ridge, a long way from the +railway, there is a very big, important shrine by the roadside. It is a +chapel built in the baroque manner, florid pink and cream outside, with +opulent small arches. And inside is the most startling sensational +Christus I have ever seen. He is a big, powerful man, seated after the +crucifixion, perhaps after the resurrection, sitting by the grave. He +sits sideways, as if the extremity were over, finished, the agitation +done with, only the result of the experience remaining. There is some +blood on his powerful, naked, defeated body, that sits rather hulked. +But it is the face which is so terrifying. It is slightly turned over +the hulked, crucified shoulder, to look. And the look of this face, of +which the body has been killed, is beyond all expectation horrible. The +eyes look at one, yet have no seeing in them, they seem to see only +their own blood. For they are bloodshot till the whites are scarlet, the +iris is purpled. These red, bloody eyes with their stained pupils, +glancing awfully at all who enter the shrine, looking as if to see +through the blood of the late brutal death, are terrible. The naked, +strong body has known death, and sits in utter dejection, finished, +hulked, a weight of shame. And what remains of life is in the face, +whose expression is sinister and gruesome, like that of an unrelenting +criminal violated by torture. The criminal look of misery and hatred on +the fixed, violated face and in the bloodshot eyes is almost impossible. +He is conquered, beaten, broken, his body is a mass of torture, an +unthinkable shame. Yet his will remains obstinate and ugly, integral +with utter hatred. + +It is a great shock to find this figure sitting in a handsome, baroque, +pink-washed shrine in one of those Alpine valleys which to our thinking +are all flowers and romance, like the picture in the Tate Gallery. +'Spring in the Austrian Tyrol' is to our minds a vision of pristine +loveliness. It contains also this Christ of the heavy body defiled by +torture and death, the strong, virile life overcome by physical +violence, the eyes still looking back bloodshot in consummate hate +and misery. + +The shrine was well kept and evidently much used. It was hung with +ex-voto limbs and with many gifts. It was a centre of worship, of a sort +of almost obscene worship. Afterwards the black pine-trees and the river +of that valley seemed unclean, as if an unclean spirit lived there. The +very flowers seemed unnatural, and the white gleam on the mountain-tops +was a glisten of supreme, cynical horror. + +After this, in the populous valleys, all the crucifixes were more or +less tainted and vulgar. Only high up, where the crucifix becomes +smaller and smaller, is there left any of the old beauty and religion. +Higher and higher, the monument becomes smaller and smaller, till in the +snows it stands out like a post, or a thick arrow stuck barb upwards. +The crucifix itself is a small thing under the pointed hood, the barb of +the arrow. The snow blows under the tiny shed, upon the little, exposed +Christ. All round is the solid whiteness of snow, the awful curves and +concaves of pure whiteness of the mountain top, the hollow whiteness +between the peaks, where the path crosses the high, extreme ridge of the +pass. And here stands the last crucifix, half buried, small and tufted +with snow. The guides tramp slowly, heavily past, not observing the +presence of the symbol, making no salute. Further down, every mountain +peasant lifted his hat. But the guide tramps by without concern. His is +a professional importance now. + +On a small mountain track on the Jaufen, not far from Meran, was a +fallen Christus. I was hurrying downhill to escape from an icy wind +which almost took away my consciousness, and I was looking up at the +gleaming, unchanging snow-peaks all round. They seemed like blades +immortal in the sky. So I almost ran into a very old Martertafel. It +leaned on the cold, stony hillside surrounded by the white peaks in the +upper air. + +The wooden hood was silver-grey with age, and covered, on the top, with +a thicket of lichen, which stuck up in hoary tufts. But on the rock at +the foot of the post was the fallen Christ, armless, who had tumbled +down and lay in an unnatural posture, the naked, ancient wooden +sculpture of the body on the naked, living rock. It was one of the old +uncouth Christs hewn out of bare wood, having the long, wedge-shaped +limbs and thin flat legs that are significant of the true spirit, the +desire to convey a religious truth, not a sensational experience. + +The arms of the fallen Christ had broken off at the shoulders, and they +hung on their nails, as ex-voto limbs hang in the shrines. But these +arms dangled from the palms, one at each end of the cross, the muscles, +carved sparely in the old wood, looking all wrong, upside down. And the +icy wind blew them backwards and forwards, so that they gave a painful +impression, there in the stark, sterile place of rock and cold. Yet I +dared not touch the fallen body of the Christ, that lay on its back in +so grotesque a posture at the foot of the post. I wondered who would +come and take the broken thing away, and for what purpose. + + + + +_On the Lago di Garda_ + + + +_1_ + +THE SPINNER AND THE MONKS + + +The Holy Spirit is a Dove, or an Eagle. In the Old Testament it was an +Eagle; in the New Testament it is a Dove. + +And there are, standing over the Christian world, the Churches of the +Dove and the Churches of the Eagle. There are, moreover, the Churches +which do not belong to the Holy Spirit at all, but which are built to +pure fancy and logic; such as the Wren Churches in London. + +The Churches of the Dove are shy and hidden: they nestle among trees, +and their bells sound in the mellowness of Sunday; or they are gathered +into a silence of their own in the very midst of the town, so that one +passes them by without observing them; they are as if invisible, +offering no resistance to the storming of the traffic. + +But the Churches of the Eagle stand high, with their heads to the skies, +as if they challenged the world below. They are the Churches of the +Spirit of David, and their bells ring passionately, imperiously, falling +on the subservient world below. + +The Church of San Francesco was a Church of the Dove. I passed it +several times in the dark, silent little square, without knowing it was +a church. Its pink walls were blind, windowless, unnoticeable, it gave +no sign, unless one caught sight of the tan curtain hanging in the door, +and the slit of darkness beneath. Yet it was the chief church of +the village. + +But the Church of San Tommaso perched over the village. Coming down the +cobbled, submerged street, many a time I looked up between the houses +and saw the thin old church standing above in the light, as if it +perched on the house-roofs. Its thin grey neck was held up stiffly, +beyond was a vision of dark foliage, and the high hillside. + +I saw it often, and yet for a long time it never occurred to me that it +actually existed. It was like a vision, a thing one does not expect to +come close to. It was there standing away upon the house-tops, against a +glamour of foliaged hillside. I was submerged in the village, on the +uneven, cobbled street, between old high walls and cavernous shops and +the houses with flights of steps. + +For a long time I knew how the day went, by the imperious clangour of +midday and evening bells striking down upon the houses and the edge of +the lake. Yet it did not occur to me to ask where these bells rang. Till +at last my everyday trance was broken in upon, and I knew the ringing of +the Church of San Tommaso. The church became a living connexion with me. + +So I set out to find it, I wanted to go to it. It was very near. I could +see it from the piazza by the lake. And the village itself had only a +few hundreds of inhabitants. The church must be within a stone's throw. + +Yet I could not find it. I went out of the back door of the house, into +the narrow gully of the back street. Women glanced down at me from the +top of the flights of steps, old men stood, half-turning, half-crouching +under the dark shadow of the walls, to stare. It was as if the strange +creatures of the under-shadow were looking at me. I was of +another element. + +The Italian people are called 'Children of the Sun'. They might better +be called 'Children of the Shadow'. Their souls are dark and nocturnal. +If they are to be easy, they must be able to hide, to be hidden in lairs +and caves of darkness. Going through these tiny chaotic backways of the +village was like venturing through the labyrinth made by furtive +creatures, who watched from out of another element. And I was pale, and +clear, and evanescent, like the light, and they were dark, and close, +and constant, like the shadow. + +So I was quite baffled by the tortuous, tiny, deep passages of the +village. I could not find my way. I hurried towards the broken end of a +street, where the sunshine and the olive trees looked like a mirage +before me. And there above me I saw the thin, stiff neck of old San +Tommaso, grey and pale in the sun. Yet I could not get up to the church, +I found myself again on the piazza. + +Another day, however, I found a broken staircase, where weeds grew in +the gaps the steps had made in falling, and maidenhair hung on the +darker side of the wall. I went up unwillingly, because the Italians +used this old staircase as a privy, as they will any deep side-passage. + +But I ran up the broken stairway, and came out suddenly, as by a +miracle, clean on the platform of my San Tommaso, in the +tremendous sunshine. + +It was another world, the world of the eagle, the world of fierce +abstraction. It was all clear, overwhelming sunshine, a platform hung in +the light. Just below were the confused, tiled roofs of the village, and +beyond them the pale blue water, down below; and opposite, opposite my +face and breast, the clear, luminous snow of the mountain across the +lake, level with me apparently, though really much above. + +I was in the skies now, looking down from my square terrace of cobbled +pavement, that was worn like the threshold of the ancient church. Round +the terrace ran a low, broad wall, the coping of the upper heaven where +I had climbed. + +There was a blood-red sail like a butterfly breathing down on the blue +water, whilst the earth on the near side gave off a green-silver smoke +of olive trees, coming up and around the earth-coloured roofs. + +It always remains to me that San Tommaso and its terrace hang suspended +above the village, like the lowest step of heaven, of Jacob's ladder. +Behind, the land rises in a high sweep. But the terrace of San Tommaso +is let down from heaven, and does not touch the earth. + +I went into the church. It was very dark, and impregnated with centuries +of incense. It affected me like the lair of some enormous creature. My +senses were roused, they sprang awake in the hot, spiced darkness. My +skin was expectant, as if it expected some contact, some embrace, as if +it were aware of the contiguity of the physical world, the physical +contact with the darkness and the heavy, suggestive substance of the +enclosure. It was a thick, fierce darkness of the senses. But my +soul shrank. + +I went out again. The pavemented threshold was clear as a jewel, the +marvellous clarity of sunshine that becomes blue in the height seemed to +distil me into itself. + +Across, the heavy mountain crouched along the side of the lake, the +upper half brilliantly white, belonging to the sky, the lower half dark +and grim. So, then, that is where heaven and earth are divided. From +behind me, on the left, the headland swept down out of a great, +pale-grey, arid height, through a rush of russet and crimson, to the +olive smoke and the water of the level earth. And between, like a blade +of the sky cleaving the earth asunder, went the pale-blue lake, cleaving +mountain from mountain with the triumph of the sky. + +Then I noticed that a big, blue-checked cloth was spread on the parapet +before me, over the parapet of heaven. I wondered why it hung there. + +Turning round, on the other side of the terrace, under a caper-bush that +hung like a blood-stain from the grey wall above her, stood a little +grey woman whose fingers were busy. Like the grey church, she made me +feel as if I were not in existence. I was wandering by the parapet of +heaven, looking down. But she stood back against the solid wall, under +the caper-bush, unobserved and unobserving. She was like a fragment of +earth, she was a living stone of the terrace, sun-bleached. She took no +notice of me, who was hesitating looking down at the earth beneath. She +stood back under the sun-bleached solid wall, like a stone rolled down +and stayed in a crevice. + +Her head was tied in a dark-red kerchief, but pieces of hair, like dirty +snow, quite short, stuck out over her ears. And she was spinning. I +wondered so much, that I could not cross towards her. She was grey, and +her apron, and her dress, and her kerchief, and her hands and her face +were all sun-bleached and sun-stained, greyey, bluey, browny, like +stones and half-coloured leaves, sunny in their colourlessness. In my +black coat, I felt myself wrong, false, an outsider. + +She was spinning, spontaneously, like a little wind. Under her arm she +held a distaff of dark, ripe wood, just a straight stick with a clutch +at the end, like a grasp of brown fingers full of a fluff of blackish, +rusty fleece, held up near her shoulder. And her fingers were plucking +spontaneously at the strands of wool drawn down from it. And hanging +near her feet, spinning round upon a black thread, spinning busily, like +a thing in a gay wind, was her shuttle, her bobbin wound fat with the +coarse, blackish worsted she was making. + +All the time, like motion without thought, her fingers teased out the +fleece, drawing it down to a fairly uniform thickness: brown, old, +natural fingers that worked as in a sleep, the thumb having a long grey +nail; and from moment to moment there was a quick, downward rub, between +thumb and forefinger, of the thread that hung in front of her apron, the +heavy bobbin spun more briskly, and she felt again at the fleece as she +drew it down, and she gave a twist to the thread that issued, and the +bobbin spun swiftly. + +Her eyes were clear as the sky, blue, empyrean, transcendent. They were +dear, but they had no looking in them. Her face was like a +sun-worn stone. + +'You are spinning,' I said to her. + +Her eyes glanced over me, making no effort of attention. + +'Yes,' she said. + +She saw merely a man's figure, a stranger standing near. I was a bit of +the outside, negligible. She remained as she was, clear and sustained +like an old stone upon the hillside. She stood short and sturdy, looking +for the most part straight in front, unseeing, but glancing from time to +time, with a little, unconscious attention, at the thread. She was +slightly more animated than the sunshine and the stone and the +motionless caper-bush above her. Still her fingers went along the strand +of fleece near her breast. + +'That is an old way of spinning,' I said. + +'What?' + +She looked up at me with eyes clear and transcendent as the heavens. But +she was slightly roused. There was the slight motion of the eagle in her +turning to look at me, a faint gleam of rapt light in her eyes. It was +my unaccustomed Italian. + +'That is an old way of spinning,' I repeated. + +'Yes--an old way,' she repeated, as if to say the words so that they +should be natural to her. And I became to her merely a transient +circumstance, a man, part of the surroundings. We divided the gift of +speech, that was all. + +She glanced at me again, with her wonderful, unchanging eyes, that were +like the visible heavens, unthinking, or like two flowers that are open +in pure clear unconsciousness. To her I was a piece of the environment. +That was all. Her world was clear and absolute, without consciousness of +self. She was not self-conscious, because she was not aware that there +was anything in the universe except _her_ universe. In her universe I +was a stranger, a foreign _signore_. That I had a world of my own, other +than her own, was not conceived by her. She did not care. + +So we conceive the stars. We are told that they are other worlds. But +the stars are the clustered and single gleaming lights in the night-sky +of our world. When I come home at night, there are the stars. When I +cease to exist as the microcosm, when I begin to think of the cosmos, +then the stars are other worlds. Then the macrocosm absorbs me. But the +macrocosm is not me. It is something which I, the microcosm, am not. + +So that there is something which is unknown to me and which nevertheless +exists. I am finite, and my understanding has limits. The universe is +bigger than I shall ever see, in mind or spirit. There is that which +is not me. + +If I say 'The planet Mars is inhabited,' I do not know what I mean by +'inhabited', with reference to the planet Mars. I can only mean that +that world is not my world. I can only know there is that which is not +me. I am the microcosm, but the macrocosm is that also which I am not. + +The old woman on the terrace in the sun did not know this. She was +herself the core and centre to the world, the sun, and the single +firmament. She knew that I was an inhabitant of lands which she had +never seen. But what of that! There were parts of her own body which she +had never seen, which physiologically she could never see. They were +none the less her own because she had never seen them. The lands she had +not seen were corporate parts of her own living body, the knowledge she +had not attained was only the hidden knowledge of her own self. She +_was_ the substance of the knowledge, whether she had the knowledge in +her mind or not. There was nothing which was not herself, ultimately. +Even the man, the male, was part of herself. He was the mobile, separate +part, but he was none the less herself because he was sometimes severed +from her. If every apple in the world were cut in two, the apple would +not be changed. The reality is the apple, which is just the same in the +half-apple as in the whole. + +And she, the old spinning-woman, was the apple, eternal, unchangeable, +whole even in her partiality. It was this which gave the wonderful clear +unconsciousness to her eyes. How could she be conscious of herself when +all was herself? + +She was talking to me of a sheep that had died, but I could not +understand because of her dialect. It never occurred to her that I could +not understand. She only thought me different, stupid. And she talked +on. The ewes had lived under the house, and a part was divided off for +the he-goat, because the other people brought their she-goats to be +covered by the he-goat. But how the ewe came to die I could not +make out. + +Her fingers worked away all the time in a little, half-fretful movement, +yet spontaneous as butterflies leaping here and there. She chattered +rapidly on in her Italian that I could not understand, looking meanwhile +into my face, because the story roused her somewhat. Yet not a feature +moved. Her eyes remained candid and open and unconscious as the skies. +Only a sharp will in them now and then seemed to gleam at me, as if to +dominate me. + +Her shuttle had caught in a dead chicory plant, and spun no more. She +did not notice. I stooped and broke off the twigs. There was a glint of +blue on them yet. Seeing what I was doing, she merely withdrew a few +inches from the plant. Her bobbin hung free. + +She went on with her tale, looking at me wonderfully. She seemed like +the Creation, like the beginning of the world, the first morning. Her +eyes were like the first morning of the world, so ageless. + +Her thread broke. She seemed to take no notice, but mechanically picked +up the shuttle, wound up a length of worsted, connected the ends from +her wool strand, set the bobbin spinning again, and went on talking, in +her half-intimate, half-unconscious fashion, as if she were talking to +her own world in me. + +So she stood in the sunshine on the little platform, old and yet like +the morning, erect and solitary, sun-coloured, sun-discoloured, whilst I +at her elbow, like a piece of night and moonshine, stood smiling into +her eyes, afraid lest she should deny me existence. + +Which she did. She had stopped talking, did not look at me any more, but +went on with her spinning, the brown shuttle twisting gaily. So she +stood, belonging to the sunshine and the weather, taking no more notice +of me than of the dark-stained caper-bush which hung from the wall above +her head, whilst I, waiting at her side, was like the moon in the +daytime sky, overshone, obliterated, in spite of my black clothes. + +'How long has it taken you to do that much?' I asked. + +She waited a minute, glanced at her bobbin. + +'This much? I don't know. A day or two.' + +'But you do it quickly.' + +She looked at me, as if suspiciously and derisively. Then, quite +suddenly, she started forward and went across the terrace to the great +blue-and-white checked cloth that was drying on the wall. I hesitated. +She had cut off her consciousness from me. So I turned and ran away, +taking the steps two at a time, to get away from her. In a moment I was +between the walls, climbing upwards, hidden. + +The schoolmistress had told me I should find snowdrops behind San +Tommaso. If she had not asserted such confident knowledge I should have +doubted her translation of _perce-neige_. She meant Christmas roses all +the while. + +However, I went looking for snowdrops. The walls broke down suddenly, +and I was out in a grassy olive orchard, following a track beside pieces +of fallen overgrown masonry. So I came to skirt the brink of a steep +little gorge, at the bottom of which a stream was rushing down its steep +slant to the lake. Here I stood to look for my snowdrops. The grassy, +rocky bank went down steep from my feet. I heard water tittle-tattling +away in deep shadow below. There were pale flecks in the dimness, but +these, I knew, were primroses. So I scrambled down. + +Looking up, out of the heavy shadow that lay in the cleft, I could see, +right in the sky, grey rocks shining transcendent in the pure empyrean. +'Are they so far up?' I thought. I did not dare to say, 'Am I so far +down?' But I was uneasy. Nevertheless it was a lovely place, in the cold +shadow, complete; when one forgot the shining rocks far above, it was a +complete, shadowless world of shadow. Primroses were everywhere in nests +of pale bloom upon the dark, steep face of the cleft, and tongues of +fern hanging out, and here and there under the rods and twigs of bushes +were tufts of wrecked Christmas roses, nearly over, but still, in the +coldest corners, the lovely buds like handfuls of snow. There had been +such crowded sumptuous tufts of Christmas roses everywhere in the +stream-gullies, during the shadow of winter, that these few remaining +flowers were hardly noticeable. + +I gathered instead the primroses, that smelled of earth and of the +weather. There were no snowdrops. I had found the day before a bank of +crocuses, pale, fragile, lilac-coloured flowers with dark veins, +pricking up keenly like myriad little lilac-coloured flames among the +grass, under the olive trees. And I wanted very much to find the +snowdrops hanging in the gloom. But there were not any. + +I gathered a handful of primroses, then I climbed suddenly, quickly out +of the deep watercourse, anxious to get back to the sunshine before the +evening fell. Up above I saw the olive trees in the sunny golden grass, +and sunlit grey rocks immensely high up. I was afraid lest the evening +would fall whilst I was groping about like an otter in the damp and the +darkness, that the day of sunshine would be over. + +Soon I was up in the sunshine again, on the turf under the olive trees, +reassured. It was the upper world of glowing light, and I was +safe again. + +All the olives were gathered, and the mills were going night and day, +making a great, acrid scent of olive oil in preparation, by the lake. +The little stream rattled down. A mule driver 'Hued!' to his mules on +the Strada Vecchia. High up, on the Strada Nuova, the beautiful, new, +military high-road, which winds with beautiful curves up the +mountain-side, crossing the same stream several times in clear-leaping +bridges, travelling cut out of sheer slope high above the lake, winding +beautifully and gracefully forward to the Austrian frontier, where it +ends: high up on the lovely swinging road, in the strong evening +sunshine, I saw a bullock wagon moving like a vision, though the +clanking of the wagon and the crack of the bullock whip responded close +in my ears. + +Everything was clear and sun-coloured up there, clear-grey rocks +partaking of the sky, tawny grass and scrub, browny-green spires of +cypresses, and then the mist of grey-green olives fuming down to the +lake-side. There was no shadow, only clear sun-substance built up to the +sky, a bullock wagon moving slowly in the high sunlight, along the +uppermost terrace of the military road. It sat in the warm stillness of +the transcendent afternoon. + +The four o'clock steamer was creeping down the lake from the Austrian +end, creeping under the cliffs. Far away, the Verona side, beyond the +Island, lay fused in dim gold. The mountain opposite was so still, that +my heart seemed to fade in its beating as if it too would be still. All +was perfectly still, pure substance. The little steamer on the floor of +the world below, the mules down the road cast no shadow. They too were +pure sun-substance travelling on the surface of the sun-made world. + +A cricket hopped near me. Then I remembered that it was Saturday +afternoon, when a strange suspension comes over the world. And then, +just below me, I saw two monks walking in their garden between the +naked, bony vines, walking in their wintry garden of bony vines and +olive trees, their brown cassocks passing between the brown vine-stocks, +their heads bare to the sunshine, sometimes a glint of light as their +feet strode from under their skirts. + +It was so still, everything so perfectly suspended, that I felt them +talking. They marched with the peculiar march of monks, a long, loping +stride, their heads together, their skirts swaying slowly, two brown +monks with hidden hands, sliding under the bony vines and beside the +cabbages, their heads always together in hidden converse. It was as if I +were attending with my dark soul to their inaudible undertone. All the +time I sat still in silence, I was one with them, a partaker, though I +could hear no sound of their voices. I went with the long stride of +their skirted feet, that slid springless and noiseless from end to end +of the garden, and back again. Their hands were kept down at their +sides, hidden in the long sleeves, and the skirts of their robes. They +did not touch each other, nor gesticulate as they walked. There was no +motion save the long, furtive stride and the heads leaning together. Yet +there was an eagerness in their conversation. Almost like +shadow-creatures ventured out of their cold, obscure element, they went +backwards and forwards in their wintry garden, thinking nobody could +see them. + +Across, above them, was the faint, rousing dazzle of snow. They never +looked up. But the dazzle of snow began to glow as they walked, the +wonderful, faint, ethereal flush of the long range of snow in the +heavens, at evening, began to kindle. Another world was coming to pass, +the cold, rare night. It was dawning in exquisite, icy rose upon the +long mountain-summit opposite. The monks walked backwards and forwards, +talking, in the first undershadow. + +And I noticed that up above the snow, frail in the bluish sky, a frail +moon had put forth, like a thin, scalloped film of ice floated out on +the slow current of the coming night. And a bell sounded. + +And still the monks were pacing backwards and forwards, backwards and +forwards, with a strange, neutral regularity. + +The shadows were coming across everything, because of the mountains in +the west. Already the olive wood where I sat was extinguished. This was +the world of the monks, the rim of pallor between night and day. Here +they paced, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, in the +neutral, shadowless light of shadow. + +Neither the flare of day nor the completeness of night reached them, +they paced the narrow path of the twilight, treading in the neutrality +of the law. Neither the blood nor the spirit spoke in them, only the +law, the abstraction of the average. The infinite is positive and +negative. But the average is only neutral. And the monks trod backward +and forward down the line of neutrality. + +Meanwhile, on the length of mountain-ridge, the snow grew +rosy-incandescent, like heaven breaking into blossom. After all, eternal +not-being and eternal being are the same. In the rosy snow that shone in +heaven over a darkened earth was the ecstasy of consummation. Night and +day are one, light and dark are one, both the same in the origin and in +the issue, both the same in the moment, of ecstasy, light fused in +darkness and darkness fused in light, as in the rosy snow above +the twilight. + +But in the monks it was not ecstasy, in them it was neutrality, the +under earth. Transcendent, above the shadowed, twilit earth was the rosy +snow of ecstasy. But spreading far over us, down below, was the +neutrality of the twilight, of the monks. The flesh neutralizing the +spirit, the spirit neutralizing the flesh, the law of the average +asserted, this was the monks as they paced backward and forward. + +The moon climbed higher, away from the snowy, fading ridge, she became +gradually herself. Between the roots of the olive tree was a rosy-tipped +daisy just going to sleep. I gathered it and put it among the frail, +moony little bunch of primroses, so that its sleep should warm the rest. +Also I put in some little periwinkles, that were very blue, reminding me +of the eyes of the old woman. + +The day was gone, the twilight was gone, and the snow was invisible as I +came down to the side of the lake. Only the moon, white and shining, was +in the sky, like a woman glorying in her own loveliness as she loiters +superbly to the gaze of all the world, looking sometimes through the +fringe of dark olive leaves, sometimes looking at her own superb, +quivering body, wholly naked in the water of the lake. + +My little old woman was gone. She, all day-sunshine, would have none of +the moon. Always she must live like a bird, looking down on all the +world at once, so that it lay all subsidiary to herself, herself the +wakeful consciousness hovering over the world like a hawk, like a sleep +of wakefulness. And, like a bird, she went to sleep as the shadows came. + +She did not know the yielding up of the senses and the possession of the +unknown, through the senses, which happens under a superb moon. The +all-glorious sun knows none of these yieldings up. He takes his way. And +the daisies at once go to sleep. And the soul of the old spinning-woman +also closed up at sunset, the rest was a sleep, a cessation. + +It is all so strange and varied: the dark-skinned Italians ecstatic in +the night and the moon, the blue-eyed old woman ecstatic in the busy +sunshine, the monks in the garden below, who are supposed to unite both, +passing only in the neutrality of the average. Where, then, is the +meeting-point: where in mankind is the ecstasy of light and dark +together, the supreme transcendence of the afterglow, day hovering in +the embrace of the coming night like two angels embracing in the +heavens, like Eurydice in the arms of Orpheus, or Persephone embraced +by Pluto? + +Where is the supreme ecstasy in mankind, which makes day a delight and +night a delight, purpose an ecstasy and a concourse in ecstasy, and +single abandon of the single body and soul also an ecstasy under the +moon? Where is the transcendent knowledge in our hearts, uniting sun and +darkness, day and night, spirit and senses? Why do we not know that the +two in consummation are one; that each is only part; partial and alone +for ever; but that the two in consummation are perfect, beyond the range +of loneliness or solitude? + + + +_2_ + +THE LEMON GARDENS + + +The padrone came just as we were drinking coffee after dinner. It was +two o'clock, because the steamer going down the lake to Desenzano had +bustled through the sunshine, and the rocking of the water still made +lights that danced up and down upon the wall among the shadows by +the piano. + +The signore was very apologetic. I found him bowing in the hall, cap in +one hand, a slip of paper in the other, protesting eagerly, in broken +French, against disturbing me. + +He is a little, shrivelled man, with close-cropped grey hair on his +skull, and a protruding jaw, which, with his gesticulations, always +makes me think of an ancient, aristocratic monkey. The signore is a +gentleman, and the last, shrivelled representative of his race. His only +outstanding quality, according to the villagers, is his avarice. + +_'Mais--mais, monsieur--je crains que--que--que je vous derange--'_ + +He spreads wide his hands and bows, looking up at me with implicit brown +eyes, so ageless in his wrinkled, monkey's face, like onyx. He loves to +speak French, because then he feels grand. He has a queer, naive, +ancient passion to be grand. As the remains of an impoverished family, +he is not much better than a well-to-do peasant. But the old spirit is +eager and pathetic in him. + +He loves to speak French to me. He holds his chin and waits, in his +anxiety for the phrase to come. Then it stammers forth, a little rush, +ending in Italian. But his pride is all on edge: we must continue +in French. + +The hall is cold, yet he will not come into the large room. This is not +a courtesy visit. He is not here in his quality of gentleman. He is only +an anxious villager. + +'_Voyez, monsieur--cet--cet--qu'est-ce que--qu'est-ce que veut dire +cet--cela?_' + +He shows me the paper. It is an old scrap of print, the picture of an +American patent door-spring, with directions: 'Fasten the spring either +end up. Wind it up. Never unwind.' + +It is laconic and American. The signore watches me anxiously, waiting, +holding his chin. He is afraid he ought to understand my English. I +stutter off into French, confounded by the laconic phrases of the +directions. Nevertheless, I make it clear what the paper says. + +He cannot believe me. It must say something else as well. He has not +done anything contrary to these directions. He is most distressed. + +'_Mais, monsieur, la porte--la porte--elle ferme_ pas--_elle s'ouvre_--' + +He skipped to the door and showed me the whole tragic mystery. The door, +it is shut--_ecco_! He releases the catch, and pouf!--she flies open. +She flies _open_. It is quite final. + +The brown, expressionless, ageless eyes, that remind me of a monkey's, +or of onyx, wait for me. I feel the responsibility devolve upon me. I +am anxious. + +'Allow me,' I said, 'to come and look at the door.' + +I feel uncomfortably like Sherlock Holmes. The padrone protests--_non, +monsieur, non, cela vous derange_--that he only wanted me to translate +the words, he does not want to disturb me. Nevertheless, we go. I feel I +have the honour of mechanical England in my hands. + +The Casa di Paoli is quite a splendid place. It is large, pink and +cream, rising up to a square tower in the centre, throwing off a painted +loggia at either extreme of the facade. It stands a little way back from +the road, just above the lake, and grass grows on the bay of cobbled +pavement in front. When at night the moon shines full on this pale +facade, the theatre is far outdone in staginess. + +The hall is spacious and beautiful, with great glass doors at either +end, through which shine the courtyards where bamboos fray the sunlight +and geraniums glare red. The floor is of soft red tiles, oiled and +polished like glass, the walls are washed grey-white, the ceiling is +painted with pink roses and birds. This is half-way between the outer +world and the interior world, it partakes of both. + +The other rooms are dark and ugly. There is no mistake about their being +interior. They are like furnished vaults. The red-tiled, polished floor +in the drawing-room seems cold and clammy, the carved, cold furniture +stands in its tomb, the air has been darkened and starved to death, it +is perished. + +Outside, the sunshine runs like birds singing. Up above, the grey rocks +build the sun-substance in heaven, San Tommaso guards the terrace. But +inside here is the immemorial shadow. + +Again I had to think of the Italian soul, how it is dark, cleaving to +the eternal night. It seems to have become so, at the Renaissance, after +the Renaissance. + +In the Middle Ages Christian Europe seems to have been striving, out of +a strong, primitive, animal nature, towards the self-abnegation and the +abstraction of Christ. This brought about by itself a great sense of +completeness. The two halves were joined by the effort towards the one +as yet unrealized. There was a triumphant joy in the Whole. + +But the movement all the time was in one direction, towards the +elimination of the flesh. Man wanted more and more to become purely free +and abstract. Pure freedom was in pure abstraction. The Word was +absolute. When man became as the Word, a pure law, then he was free. + +But when this conclusion was reached, the movement broke. Already +Botticelli painted Aphrodite, queen of the senses, supreme along with +Mary, Queen of Heaven. And Michelangelo suddenly turned back on the +whole Christian movement, back to the flesh. The flesh was supreme and +god-like, in the oneness of the flesh, in the oneness of our physical +being, we are one with God, with the Father. God the Father created man +in the flesh, in His own image. Michelangelo swung right back to the old +Mosaic position. Christ did not exist. To Michelangelo there was no +salvation in the spirit. There was God the Father, the Begetter, the +Author of all flesh. And there was the inexorable law of the flesh, the +Last Judgement, the fall of the immortal flesh into Hell. + +This has been the Italian position ever since. The mind, that is the +Light; the senses, they are the Darkness. Aphrodite, the queen of the +senses, she, born of the sea-foam, is the luminousness of the gleaming +senses, the phosphorescence of the sea, the senses become a conscious +aim unto themselves; she is the gleaming darkness, she is the luminous +night, she is goddess of destruction, her white, cold fire consumes and +does not create. + +This is the soul of the Italian since the Renaissance. In the sunshine +he basks asleep, gathering up a vintage into his veins which in the +night-time he will distil into ecstatic sensual delight, the intense, +white-cold ecstasy of darkness and moonlight, the raucous, cat-like, +destructive enjoyment, the senses conscious and crying out in their +consciousness in the pangs of the enjoyment, which has consumed the +southern nation, perhaps all the Latin races, since the Renaissance. + +It is a lapse back, back to the original position, the Mosaic position, +of the divinity of the flesh, and the absoluteness of its laws. But also +there is the Aphrodite-worship. The flesh, the senses, are now +self-conscious. They know their aim. Their aim is in supreme sensation. +They seek the maximum of sensation. They seek the reduction of the +flesh, the flesh reacting upon itself, to a crisis, an ecstasy, a +phosphorescent transfiguration in ecstasy. + +The mind, all the time, subserves the senses. As in a cat, there is +subtlety and beauty and the dignity of the darkness. But the fire is +cold, as in the eyes of a cat, it is a green fire. It is fluid, +electric. At its maximum it is the white ecstasy of phosphorescence, in +the darkness, always amid the darkness, as under the black fur of a cat. +Like the feline fire, it is destructive, always consuming and reducing +to the ecstasy of sensation, which is the end in itself. + +There is the I, always the I. And the mind is submerged, overcome. But +the senses are superbly arrogant. The senses are the absolute, the +god-like. For I can never have another man's senses. These are me, my +senses absolutely me. And all that is can only come to me through my +senses. So that all is me, and is administered unto me. The rest, that +is not me, is nothing, it is something which is nothing. So the Italian, +through centuries, has avoided our Northern purposive industry, because +it has seemed to him a form of nothingness. + +It is the spirit of the tiger. The tiger is the supreme manifestation of +the senses made absolute. This is the + + Tiger, tiger burning bright, + In the forests of the night + +of Blake. It does indeed burn within the darkness. But the +_essential_ fate, of the tiger is cold and white, a white ecstasy. +It is seen in the white eyes of the blazing cat. This is the supremacy +of the flesh, which devours all, and becomes transfigured into a +magnificent brindled flame, a burning bush indeed. + +This is one way of transfiguration into the eternal flame, the +transfiguration through ecstasy in the flesh. Like the tiger in the +night, I devour all flesh, I drink all blood, until this fuel blazes up +in me to the consummate fire of the Infinite. In the ecstacy I am +Infinite, I become again the great Whole, I am a flame of the One White +Flame which is the Infinite, the Eternal, the Originator, the Creator, +the Everlasting God. In the sensual ecstasy, having drunk all blood and +devoured all flesh, I am become again the eternal Fire, I am infinite. + +This is the way of the tiger; the tiger is supreme. His head is +flattened as if there were some great weight on the hard skull, +pressing, pressing, pressing the mind into a stone, pressing it down +under the blood, to serve the blood. It is the subjugate instrument of +the blood. The will lies above the loins, as it were at the base of the +spinal column, there is the living will, the living mind of the tiger, +there in the slender loins. That is the node, there in the spinal cord. + +So the Italian, so the soldier. This is the spirit of the soldier. He, +too, walks with his consciousness concentrated at the base of the spine, +his mind subjugated, submerged. The will of the soldier is the will of +the great cats, the will to ecstasy in destruction, in absorbing life +into his own life, always his own life supreme, till the ecstasy burst +into the white, eternal flame, the Infinite, the Flame of the Infinite. +Then he is satisfied, he has been consummated in the Infinite. + +This is the true soldier, this is the immortal climax of the senses. +This is the acme of the flesh, the one superb tiger who has devoured all +living flesh, and now paces backwards and forwards in the cage of its +own infinite, glaring with blind, fierce, absorbed eyes at that which is +nothingness to it. + +The eyes of the tiger cannot see, except with the light from within +itself, by the light of its own desire. Its own white, cold light is so +fierce that the other warm light of day is outshone, it is not, it does +not exist. So the white eyes of the tiger gleam to a point of +concentrated vision, upon that which does not exist. Hence its +terrifying sightlessness. The something which I know I am is hollow +space to its vision, offers no resistance to the tiger's looking. It can +only see of me that which it knows I am, a scent, a resistance, a +voluptuous solid, a struggling warm violence that it holds overcome, a +running of hot blood between its Jaws, a delicious pang of live flesh in +the mouth. This it sees. The rest is not. + +And what is the rest, that which is-not the tiger, that which the tiger +is-not? What is this? + +What is that which parted ways with the terrific eagle-like angel of the +senses at the Renaissance? The Italians said, 'We are one in the Father: +we will go back.' The Northern races said, 'We are one in Christ: we +will go on.' + +What _is_ the consummation in Christ? Man knows satisfaction when he +surpasses all conditions and becomes, to himself, consummate in the +Infinite, when he reaches a state of infinity. In the supreme ecstasy +of the flesh, the Dionysic ecstasy, he reaches this state. But how does +it come to pass in Christ? + +It is not the mystic ecstasy. The mystic ecstasy is a special sensual +ecstasy, it is the senses satisfying themselves with a self-created +object. It is self-projection into the self, the sensuous self satisfied +in a projected self. + + Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. + + Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for + theirs is the kingdom of heaven. + +The kingdom of heaven is this Infinite into which we may be consummated, +then, if we are poor in spirit or persecuted for righteousness' sake. + + Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other + also. + + Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that + hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and + persecute you. + + Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is + perfect. + +To be perfect, to be one with God, to be infinite and eternal, what +shall we do? We must turn the other cheek, and love our enemies. + +Christ is the lamb which the eagle swoops down upon, the dove taken by +the hawk, the deer which the tiger devours. + +What then, if a man come to me with a sword, to kill me, and I do not +resist him, but suffer his sword and the death from his sword, what am +I? Am I greater than he, am I stronger than he? Do I know a consummation +in the Infinite, I, the prey, beyond the tiger who devours me? By my +non-resistance I have robbed him of his consummation. For a tiger knows +no consummation unless he kill a violated and struggling prey. There is +no consummation merely for the butcher, nor for a hyena. I can rob the +tiger of his ecstasy, his consummation, his very __my non-resistance. In +my non-resistance the tiger is infinitely destroyed. + +But I, what am I? 'Be ye therefore perfect.' Wherein am I perfect in +this submission? Is there an affirmation, behind my negation, other than +the tiger's affirmation of his own glorious infinity? + +What is the Oneness to which I subscribe, I who offer no resistance in +the flesh? + +Have I only the negative ecstasy of being devoured, of becoming thus +part of the Lord, the Great Moloch, the superb and terrible God? I have +this also, this subject ecstasy of consummation. But is there +nothing else? + +The Word of the tiger is: my senses are supremely Me, and my senses are +God in me. But Christ said: God is in the others, who are not-me. In all +the multitude of the others is God, and this is the great God, greater +than the God which is Me. God is that which is Not-Me. + +And this is the Christian truth, a truth complementary to the pagan +affirmation: 'God is that which is Me.' + +God is that which is Not-Me. In realizing the Not-Me I am consummated, I +become infinite. In turning the other cheek I submit to God who is +greater than I am, other than I am, who is in that which is not me. This +is the supreme consummation. To achieve this consummation I love my +neighbour as myself. My neighbour is all that is not me. And if I love +all this, have I not become one with the Whole, is not my consummation +complete, am I not one with God, have I not achieved the Infinite? + +After the Renaissance the Northern races continued forward to put into +practice this religious belief in the God which is Not-Me. Even the idea +of the saving of the soul was really negative: it was a question of +escaping damnation. The Puritans made the last great attack on the God +who is Me. When they beheaded Charles the First, the king by Divine +Right, they destroyed, symbolically, for ever, the supremacy of the Me +who am the image of God, the Me of the flesh, of the senses, Me, the +tiger burning bright, me the king, the Lord, the aristocrat, me who am +divine because I am the body of God. + +After the Puritans, we have been gathering data for the God who is +not-me. When Pope said 'Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The +proper study of mankind is Man,' he was stating the proposition: A man +is right, he is consummated, when he is seeking to know Man, the great +abstract; and the method of knowledge is by the analysis, which is the +destruction, of the Self. The proposition up to that time was, a man is +the epitome of the universe. He has only to express himself, to fulfil +his desires, to satisfy his supreme senses. + +Now the change has come to pass. The individual man is a limited being, +finite in himself. Yet he is capable of apprehending that which is not +himself. 'The proper study of mankind is Man.' This is another way of +saying, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' Which means, a man +is consummated in his knowledge of that which is not himself, the +abstract Man. Therefore the consummation lies in seeking that other, in +knowing that other. Whereas the Stuart proposition was: 'A man is +consummated in expressing his own Self.' + +The new spirit developed into the empirical and ideal systems of +philosophy. Everything that is, is consciousness. And in every man's +consciousness, Man is great and illimitable, whilst the individual is +small and fragmentary. Therefore the individual must sink himself in the +great whole of Mankind. + +This is the spirituality of Shelley, the perfectibility of man. This is +the way in which we fulfil the commandment, 'Be ye therefore perfect, +even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.' This is Saint +Paul's, 'Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am known.' + +When a man knows everything and understands everything, then he will be +perfect, and life will be blessed. He is capable of knowing everything +and understanding everything. Hence he is justified in his hope of +infinite freedom and blessedness. + +The great inspiration of the new religion was the inspiration of +freedom. When I have submerged or distilled away my concrete body and my +limited desires, when I am like the skylark dissolved in the sky yet +filling heaven and earth with song, then I am perfect, consummated in +the Infinite. When I am all that is not-me, then I have perfect liberty, +I know no limitation. Only I must eliminate the Self. + +It was this religious belief which expressed itself in science. Science +was the analysis of the outer self, the elementary substance of the +self, the outer world. And the machine is the great reconstructed +selfless power. Hence the active worship to which we were given at the +end of the last century, the worship of mechanized force. + +Still we continue to worship that which is not-me, the Selfless world, +though we would fain bring in the Self to help us. We are shouting the +Shakespearean advice to warriors: 'Then simulate the action of the +tiger.' We are trying to become again the tiger, the supreme, imperial, +warlike Self. At the same time our ideal is the selfless world +of equity. + +We continue to give service to the Selfless God, we worship the great +selfless oneness in the spirit, oneness in service of the great +humanity, that which is Not-Me. This selfless God is He who works for +all alike, without consideration. And His image is the machine which +dominates and cows us, we cower before it, we run to serve it. For it +works for all humanity alike. + +At the same time, we want to be warlike tigers. That is the horror: the +confusing of the two ends. We warlike tigers fit ourselves out with +machinery, and our blazing tiger wrath is emitted through a machine. It +is a horrible thing to see machines hauled about by tigers, at the mercy +of tigers, forced to express the tiger. It is a still more horrible +thing to see tigers caught up and entangled and torn in machinery. It is +horrible, a chaos beyond chaos, an unthinkable hell. + +The tiger is not wrong, the machine is not wrong, but we, liars, +lip-servers, duplicate fools, we are unforgivably wrong. We say: 'I will +be a tiger because I love mankind; out of love for other people, out of +selfless service to that which is not me, I will even become a tiger.' +Which is absurd. A tiger devours because it is consummated in devouring, +it achieves its absolute self in devouring. It does not devour because +its unselfish conscience bids it do so, for the sake of the other deer +and doves, or the other tigers. + +Having arrived at the one extreme of mechanical selflessness, we +immediately embrace the other extreme of the transcendent Self. But we +try to be both at once. We do not cease to be the one before we become +the other. We do not even play the roles in turn. We want to be the +tiger and the deer both in one. Which is just ghastly nothingness. We +try to say, 'The tiger is the lamb and the lamb is the tiger.' Which is +nil, nihil, nought. + +The padrone took me into a small room almost contained in the thickness +of the wall. There the Signora's dark eyes glared with surprise and +agitation, seeing me intrude. She is younger than the Signore, a mere +village tradesman's daughter, and, alas, childless. + +It was quite true, the door stood open. Madame put down the screw-driver +and drew herself erect. Her eyes were a flame of excitement. This +question of a door-spring that made the door fly open when it should +make it close roused a vivid spark in her soul. It was she who was +wrestling with the angel of mechanism. + +She was about forty years old, and flame-like and fierily sad. I think +she did not know she was sad. But her heart was eaten by some impotence +in her life. + +She subdued her flame of life to the little padrone. He was strange and +static, scarcely human, ageless, like a monkey. She supported him with +her flame, supported his static, ancient, beautiful form, kept it +intact. But she did not believe in him. + +Now, the Signora Gemma held her husband together whilst he undid the +screw that fixed the spring. If they had been alone, she would have done +it, pretending to be under his direction. But since I was there, he did +it himself; a grey, shaky, highly-bred little gentleman, standing on a +chair with a long screw-driver, whilst his wife stood behind him, her +hands half-raised to catch him if he should fall. Yet he was strangely +absolute, with a strange, intact force in his breeding. + +They had merely adjusted the strong spring to the shut door, and +stretched it slightly in fastening it to the door-jamb, so that it drew +together the moment the latch was released, and the door flew open. + +We soon made it right. There was a moment of anxiety, the screw was +fixed. And the door swung to. They were delighted. The Signora Gemma, +who roused in me an electric kind of melancholy, clasped her hands +together in ecstasy as the door swiftly shut itself. + +'_Ecco!_' she cried, in her vibrating, almost warlike woman's voice: +'_Ecco!_' + +Her eyes were aflame as they looked at the door. She ran forward to try +it herself. She opened the door expectantly, eagerly. Pouf!--it shut +with a bang. + +'_Ecco!_' she cried, her voice quivering like bronze, overwrought but +triumphant. + +I must try also. I opened the door. Pouf! It shut with a bang. We all +exclaimed with joy. + +Then the Signor di Paoli turned to me, with a gracious, bland, formal +grin. He turned his back slightly on the woman, and stood holding his +chin, his strange horse-mouth grinning almost pompously at me. It was an +affair of gentlemen. His wife disappeared as if dismissed. Then the +padrone broke into cordial motion. We must drink. + +He would show me the estate. I had already seen the house. We went out +by the glass doors on the left, into the domestic courtyard. + +It was lower than the gardens round it, and the sunshine came through +the trellised arches on to the flagstones, where the grass grew fine and +green in the cracks, and all was deserted and spacious and still. There +were one or two orange-tubs in the light. + +Then I heard a noise, and there in the corner, among all the pink +geraniums and the sunshine, the Signora Gemma sat laughing with a baby. +It was a fair, bonny thing of eighteen months. The Signora was +concentrated upon the child as he sat, stolid and handsome, in his +little white cap, perched on a bench picking at the pink geraniums. + +She laughed, bent forward her dark face out of the shadow, swift into a +glitter of sunshine near the sunny baby, laughing again excitedly, +making mother-noises. The child took no notice of her. She caught him +swiftly into the shadow, and they were obscured; her dark head was +against the baby's wool jacket, she was kissing his neck, avidly, under +the creeper leaves. The pink geraniums still frilled joyously in +the sunshine. + +I had forgotten the padrone. Suddenly I turned to him inquiringly. + +'The Signora's nephew,' he explained, briefly, curtly, in a small voice. +It was as if he were ashamed, or too deeply chagrined. + +The woman had seen us watching, so she came across the sunshine with the +child, laughing, talking to the baby, not coming out of her own world to +us, not acknowledging us, except formally. + +The Signor Pietro, queer old horse, began to laugh and neigh at the +child, with strange, rancorous envy. The child twisted its face to cry. +The Signora caught it away, dancing back a few yards from her +old husband. + +'I am a stranger,' I said to her across the distance. 'He is afraid of a +stranger.' + +'No, no,' she cried back, her eyes flaring up. 'It is the man. He always +cries at the men.' + +She advanced again, laughing and roused, with the child in her arms. Her +husband stood as if overcast, obliterated. She and I and the baby, in +the sunshine, laughed a moment. Then I heard the neighing, forced laugh +of the old man. He would not be left out. He seemed to force himself +forward. He was bitter, acrid with chagrin and obliteration, struggling +as if to assert his own existence. He was nullified. + +The woman also was uncomfortable. I could see she wanted to go away with +the child, to enjoy him alone, with palpitating, pained enjoyment. It +was her brother's boy. And the old padrone was as if nullified by her +ecstasy over the baby. He held his chin, gloomy, fretful, unimportant. + +He was annulled. I was startled when I realized it. It was as though his +reality were not attested till he had a child. It was as if his _raison +d'etre_ had been to have a son. And he had no children. Therefore he had +no _raison d'etre_. He was nothing, a shadow that vanishes into nothing. +And he was ashamed, consumed by his own nothingness. + +I was startled. This, then, is the secret of Italy's attraction for us, +this phallic worship. To the Italian the phallus is the symbol of +individual creative immortality, to each man his own Godhead. The child +is but the evidence of the Godhead. + +And this is why the Italian is attractive, supple, and beautiful, +because he worships the Godhead in the flesh. We envy him, we feel pale +and insignificant beside him. Yet at the same time we feel superior to +him, as if he were a child and we adult. + +Wherein are we superior? Only because we went beyond the phallus in the +search of the Godhead, the creative origin. And we found the physical +forces and the secrets of science. + +We have exalted Man far above the man who is in each one of us. Our aim +is a perfect humanity, a perfect and equable human consciousness, +selfless. And we obtain it in the subjection, reduction, analysis, and +destruction of the Self. So on we go, active in science and mechanics, +and social reform. + +But we have exhausted ourselves in the process. We have found great +treasures, and we are now impotent to use them. So we have said: 'What +good are these treasures, they are vulgar nothings.' We have said: 'Let +us go back from this adventuring, let us enjoy our own flesh, like the +Italian.' But our habit of life, our very constitution, prevents our +being quite like the Italian. The phallus will never serve us as a +Godhead, because we do not believe in it: no Northern race does. +Therefore, either we set ourselves to serve our children, calling them +'the future', or else we turn perverse and destructive, give ourselves +joy in the destruction of the flesh. + +The children are not the future. The living truth is the future. Time +and people do not make the future. Retrogression is not the future. +Fifty million children growing up purposeless, with no purpose save the +attainment of their own individual desires, these are not the future, +they are only a disintegration of the past. The future is in living, +growing truth, in advancing fulfilment. + +But it is no good. Whatever we do, it is within the greater will towards +self-reduction and a perfect society, analysis on the one hand, and +mechanical construction on the other. This will dominates us as a whole, +and until the whole breaks down, the will must persist. So that now, +continuing in the old, splendid will for a perfect selfless humanity, we +have become inhuman and unable to help ourselves, we are but attributes +of the great mechanized society we have created on our way to +perfection. And this great mechanized society, being selfless, is +pitiless. It works on mechanically and destroys us, it is our master +and our God. + +It is past the time to leave off, to cease entirely from what we are +doing, and from what we have been doing for hundreds of years. It is +past the time to cease seeking one Infinite, ignoring, striving to +eliminate the other. The Infinite is twofold, the Father and the Son, +the Dark and the Light, the Senses and the Mind, the Soul and the +Spirit, the self and the not-self, the Eagle and the Dove, the Tiger and +the Lamb. The consummation of man is twofold, in the Self and in +Selflessness. By great retrogression back to the source of darkness in +me, the Self, deep in the senses, I arrive at the Original, Creative +Infinite. By projection forth from myself, by the elimination of my +absolute sensual self, I arrive at the Ultimate Infinite, Oneness in the +Spirit. They are two Infinites, twofold approach to God. And man must +know both. + +But he must never confuse them. They are eternally separate. The lion +shall never lie down with the lamb. The lion eternally shall devour the +lamb, the lamb eternally shall be devoured. Man knows the great +consummation in the flesh, the sensual ecstasy, and that is eternal. +Also the spiritual ecstasy of unanimity, that is eternal. But the two +are separate and never to be confused. To neutralize the one with the +other is unthinkable, an abomination. Confusion is horror and +nothingness. + +The two Infinites, negative and positive, they are always related, but +they are never identical. They are always opposite, but there exists a +relation between them. This is the Holy Ghost of the Christian Trinity. +And it is this, the relation which is established between the two +Infinites, the two natures of God, which we have transgressed, +forgotten, sinned against. The Father is the Father, and the Son is the +Son. I may know the Son and deny the Father, or know the Father and deny +the Son. But that which I may never deny, and which I have denied, is +the Holy Ghost which relates the dual Infinites into One Whole, which +relates and keeps distinct the dual natures of God. To say that the two +are one, this is the inadmissible lie. The two are related, by the +intervention of the Third, into a Oneness. + +There are two ways, there is not only One. There are two opposite ways +to consummation. But that which relates them, like the base of the +triangle, this is the constant, the Absolute, this makes the Ultimate +Whole. And in the Holy Spirit I know the Two Ways, the Two Infinites, +the Two Consummations. And knowing the Two, I admit the Whole. But +excluding One, I exclude the Whole. And confusing the two, I make +nullity nihil. + +'_Mais_,' said the Signore, starting from his scene of ignominy, where +his wife played with another man's child, '_mais--voulez-vous vous +promener dans mes petites terres?_' + +It came out fluently, he was so much roused in self-defence and +self-assertion. + +We walked under the pergola of bony vine-stocks, secure in the sunshine +within the walls, only the long mountain, parallel with us, looking in. + +I said how I liked the big vine-garden, I asked when it ended. The pride +of the padrone came back with a click. He pointed me to the terrace, to +the great shut lemon-houses above. They were all his. But--he shrugged +his Italian shoulders--it was nothing, just a little garden, _vous +savez, monsieur_. I protested it was beautiful, that I loved it, and +that it seemed to me _very_ large indeed. He admitted that today, +perhaps, it was beautiful. + +'_Perche--parce que--il fait un tempo--cosi--tres bell'--tres beau, +ecco!_' + +He alighted on the word _beau_ hurriedly, like a bird coming to ground +with a little bounce. + +The terraces of the garden are held up to the sun, the sun falls full +upon them, they are like a vessel slanted up, to catch the superb, heavy +light. Within the walls we are remote, perfect, moving in heavy spring +sunshine, under the bony avenue of vines. The padrone makes little +exclamatory noises that mean nothing, and teaches me the names of +vegetables. The land is rich and black. + +Opposite us, looking down on our security, is the long, arched mountain +of snow. We climbed one flight of steps, and we could see the little +villages on the opposite side of the lake. We climbed again, and could +see the water rippling. + +We came to a great stone building that I had thought was a storehouse, +for open-air storage, because the walls are open halfway up, showing the +darkness inside and the corner pillar very white and square and distinct +in front of it. + +Entering carelessly into the dimness, I started, for at my feet was a +great floor of water, clear and green in its obscurity, going down +between the walls, a reservoir in the gloom. The Signore laughed at my +surprise. It was for irrigating the land, he said. It stank, slightly, +with a raw smell; otherwise, I said, what a wonderful bath it would +make. The old Signore gave his little neighing laugh at the idea. + +Then we climbed into a great loft of leaves, ruddy brown, stored in a +great bank under the roof, seeming to give off a little red heat, as +they gave off the lovely perfume of the hills. We passed through, and +stood at the foot of the lemon-house. The big, blind building rose high +in the sunshine before us. + +All summer long, upon the mountain slopes steep by the lake, stands the +rows of naked pillars rising out of the green foliage like ruins of +temples: white, square pillars of masonry, standing forlorn in their +colonnades and squares, rising up the mountain-sides here and there, as +if they remained from some great race that had once worshipped here. And +still, in the winter, some are seen, standing away in lonely places +where the sun streams full, grey rows of pillars rising out of a broken +wall, tier above tier, naked to the sky, forsaken. + +They are the lemon plantations, and the pillars are to support the heavy +branches of the trees, but finally to act as scaffolding of the great +wooden houses that stand blind and ugly, covering the lemon trees in +the winter. + +In November, when cold winds came down and snow had fallen on the +mountains, from out of the storehouses the men were carrying timber, and +we heard the clang of falling planks. Then, as we walked along the +military road on the mountain-side, we saw below, on the top of the +lemon gardens, long, thin poles laid from pillar to pillar, and we heard +the two men talking and singing as they walked across perilously, +placing the poles. In their clumsy zoccoli they strode easily across, +though they had twenty or thirty feet to fall if they slipped. But the +mountain-side, rising steeply, seemed near, and above their heads the +rocks glowed high into the sky, so that the sense of elevation must have +been taken away. At any rate, they went easily from pillar-summit to +pillar-summit, with a great cave of space below. Then again was the +rattle and clang of planks being laid in order, ringing from the +mountain-side over the blue lake, till a platform of timber, old and +brown, projected from the mountain-side, a floor when seen from above, a +hanging roof when seen from below. And we, on the road above, saw the +men sitting easily on this flimsy hanging platform, hammering the +planks. And all day long the sound of hammering echoed among the rocks +and olive woods, and came, a faint, quick concussion, to the men on the +boats far out. When the roofs were on they put in the fronts, blocked in +between the white pillars withhold, dark wood, in roughly made panels. +And here and there, at irregular intervals, was a panel of glass, pane +overlapping pane in the long strip of narrow window. So that now these +enormous, unsightly buildings bulge out on the mountain-sides, rising in +two or three receding tiers, blind, dark, sordid-looking places. + +In the morning I often lie in bed and watch the sunrise. The lake lies +dim and milky, the mountains are dark blue at the back, while over them +the sky gushes and glistens with light. At a certain place on the +mountain ridge the light burns gold, seems to fuse a little groove on +the hill's rim. It fuses and fuses at this point, till of a sudden it +comes, the intense, molten, living light. The mountains melt suddenly, +the light steps down, there is a glitter, a spangle, a clutch of +spangles, a great unbearable sun-track flashing across the milky lake, +and the light falls on my face. Then, looking aside, I hear the little +slotting noise which tells me they are opening the lemon gardens, a long +panel here and there, a long slot of darkness at irregular intervals +between the brown wood and the glass stripes. + +'_Voulez-vous_'--the Signore bows me in with outstretched +hand--'_voulez-vous entrer, monsieur?_' + +I went into the lemon-house, where the poor threes seem to mope in the +darkness. It is an immense, dark, cold place. Tall lemon trees, heavy +with half-visible fruit, crowd together, and rise in the gloom. They +look like ghosts in the darkness of the underworld, stately, and as if +in life, but only grand shadows of themselves. And lurking here and +there, I see one of the pillars, But he, too, seems a shadow, not one of +the dazzling white fellows I knew. Here we are trees, men, pillars, the +dark earth, the sad black paths, shut in in this enormous box. It is +true, there are long strips of window and slots of space, so that the +front is striped, and an occasional beam of light fingers the leaves of +an enclosed tree and the sickly round lemons. But it is nevertheless +very gloomy. + +'But it is much colder in here than outside,' I said. + +'Yes,' replied the Signore, 'now. But at night--I _think_--' + +I almost wished it were night to try. I wanted to imagine the trees +cosy. They seemed now in the underworld. Between the lemon trees, beside +the path, were little orange trees, and dozens of oranges hanging like +hot coals in the twilight. When I warm my hands at them the Signore +breaks me off one twig after another, till I have a bunch of burning +oranges among dark leaves, a heavy bouquet. Looking down the Hades of +the lemon-house, the many ruddy-clustered oranges beside the path remind +me of the lights of a village along the lake at night, while the pale +lemons above are the stars. There is a subtle, exquisite scent of lemon +flowers. Then I notice a citron. He hangs heavy and bloated upon so +small a tree, that he seems a dark green enormity. There is a great host +of lemons overhead, half-visible, a swarm of ruddy oranges by the paths, +and here and there a fat citron. It is almost like being under the sea. + +At the corners of the path were round little patches of ash and stumps +of charred wood, where fires had been kindled inside the house on cold +nights. For during the second and third weeks in January the snow came +down so low on the mountains that, after climbing for an hour, I found +myself in a snow lane, and saw olive orchards on lawns of snow. + +The padrone says that all lemons and sweet oranges are grafted on a +bitter-orange stock. The plants raised from seed, lemon and sweet +orange, fell prey to disease, so the cultivators found it safe only to +raise the native bitter orange, and then graft upon it. + +And the maestra--she is the schoolmistress, who wears black gloves while +she teaches us Italian--says that the lemon was brought by St Francis of +Assisi, who came to the Garda here and founded a church and a monastery. +Certainly the church of San Francesco is very old and dilapidated, and +its cloisters have some beautiful and original carvings of leaves and +fruit upon the pillars, which seem to connect San Francesco with the +lemon. I imagine him wandering here with a lemon in his pocket. Perhaps +he made lemonade in the hot summer. But Bacchus had been before him in +the drink trade. + +Looking at his lemons, the Signore sighed. I think he hates them. They +are leaving him in the lurch. They are sold retail at a halfpenny each +all the year round. 'But that is as dear, or dearer, than in England,' I +say. 'Ah, but,' says the maestra, 'that is because your lemons are +outdoor fruit from Sicily. _Pero_--one of our lemons is as good as _two_ +from elsewhere.' + +It is true these lemons have an exquisite fragrance and perfume, but +whether their force as lemons is double that of an ordinary fruit is a +question. Oranges are sold at fourpence halfpenny the kilo--it comes +about five for twopence, small ones. The citrons are sold also by weight +in Salo for the making of that liqueur known as 'Cedro'. One citron +fetches sometimes a shilling or more, but then the demand is necessarily +small. So that it is evident, from these figures, the Lago di Garda +cannot afford to grow its lemons much longer. The gardens are already +many of them in ruins, and still more 'Da Vendere'. + +We went out of the shadow of the lemon-house on to the roof of the +section below us. When we came to the brink of the roof I sat down. The +padrone stood behind me, a shabby, shaky little figure on his roof in +the sky, a little figure of dilapidation, dilapidated as the +lemon-houses themselves. + +We were always level with the mountain-snow opposite. A film of pure +blue was on the hills to the right and the left. There had been a wind, +but it was still now. The water breathed an iridescent dust on the far +shore, where the villages were groups of specks. + +On the low level of the world, on the lake, an orange-sailed boat leaned +slim to the dark-blue water, which had flecks of foam. A woman went +down-hill quickly, with two goats and a sheep. Among the olives a man +was whistling. + +'_Voyez_,' said the padrone, with distant, perfect melancholy. 'There +was once a lemon garden also there--you see the short pillars, cut off +to make a pergola for the vine. Once there were twice as many lemons as +now. Now we must have vine instead. From that piece of land I had two +hundred lire a year, in lemons. From the vine I have only eighty.' + +'But wine is a valuable crop,' I said. + +'Ah--_cosi-cosi_! For a man who grows much. For me--_poco, poco--peu_.' + +Suddenly his face broke into a smile of profound melancholy, almost a +grin, like a gargoyle. It was the real Italian melancholy, very +deep, static. + +'_Vous voyez, monsieur_--the lemon, it is all the year, all the year. +But the vine--one crop--?' + +He lifts his shoulders and spreads his hands with that gesture of +finality and fatality, while his face takes the blank, ageless look of +misery, like a monkey's. There is no hope. There is the present. Either +that is enough, the present, or there is nothing. + +I sat and looked at the lake. It was beautiful as paradise, as the first +creation. On the shores were the ruined lemon-pillars standing out in +melancholy, the clumsy, enclosed lemon-houses seemed ramshackle, bulging +among vine stocks and olive trees. The villages, too, clustered upon +their churches, seemed to belong to the past. They seemed to be +lingering in bygone centuries. + +'But it is very beautiful,' I protested. 'In England--' + +'Ah, in England,' exclaimed the padrone, the same ageless, monkey-like +grin of fatality, tempered by cunning, coming on his face, 'in England +you have the wealth--_les richesses_--you have the mineral coal and the +machines, _vous savez_. Here we have the sun--' + +He lifted his withered hand to the sky, to the wonderful source of that +blue day, and he smiled, in histrionic triumph. But his triumph was only +histrionic. The machines were more to his soul than the sun. He did not +know these mechanisms, their great, human-contrived, inhuman power, and +he wanted to know them. As for the sun, that is common property, and no +man is distinguished by it. He wanted machines, machine production, +money, and human power. He wanted to know the joy of man who has got the +earth in his grip, bound it up with railways, burrowed it with iron +fingers, subdued it. He wanted this last triumph of the ego, this last +reduction. He wanted to go where the English have gone, beyond the Self, +into the great inhuman Not Self, to create the great unliving creators, +the machines, out of the active forces of nature that existed +before flesh. + +But he is too old. It remains for the young Italian to embrace his +mistress, the machine. + +I sat on the roof of the lemon-house, with the lake below and the snowy +mountain opposite, and looked at the ruins on the old, olive-fuming +shores, at all the peace of the ancient world still covered in sunshine, +and the past seemed to me so lovely that one must look towards it, +backwards, only backwards, where there is peace and beauty and no more +dissonance. + +I thought of England, the great mass of London, and the black, fuming, +laborious Midlands and north-country. It seemed horrible. And yet, it +was better than the padrone, this old, monkey-like cunning of fatality. +It is better to go forward into error than to stay fixed inextricably +in the past. + +Yet what should become of the world? There was London and the industrial +counties spreading like a blackness over all the world, horrible, in the +end destructive. And the Garda was so lovely under the sky of sunshine, +it was intolerable. For away, beyond, beyond all the snowy Alps, with +the iridescence of eternal ice above them, was this England, black and +foul and dry, with her soul worn down, almost worn away. And England was +conquering the world with her machines and her horrible destruction of +natural life. She was conquering the whole world. + +And yet, was she not herself finished in this work? She had had enough. +She had conquered the natural life to the end: she was replete with the +conquest of the outer world, satisfied with the destruction of the Self. +She would cease, she would turn round; or else expire. + +If she still lived, she would begin to build her knowledge into a great +structure of truth. There it lay, vast masses of rough-hewn knowledge, +vast masses of machines and appliances, vast masses of ideas and +methods, and nothing done with it, only teeming swarms of disintegrated +human beings seething and perishing rapidly away amongst it, till it +seems as if a world will be left covered with huge ruins, and scored by +strange devices of industry, and quite dead, the people disappeared, +swallowed up in the last efforts towards a perfect, selfless society. + + + +_3_ + +THE THEATRE + + +During carnival a company is playing in the theatre. On Christmas Day +the padrone came in with the key of his box, and would we care to see +the drama? The theatre was small, a mere nothing, in fact; a mere affair +of peasants, you understand; and the Signor Di Paoli spread his hands +and put his head on one side, parrot-wise; but we might find a little +diversion--_un peu de divertiment_. With this he handed me the key. + +I made suitable acknowledgements, and was really impressed. To be handed +the key of a box at the theatre, so simply and pleasantly, in the large +sitting-room looking over the grey lake of Christmas Day; it seemed to +me a very graceful event. The key had a chain and a little shield of +bronze, on which was beaten out a large figure 8. + +So the next day we went to see _I Spettri_, expecting some good, crude +melodrama. The theatre is an old church. Since that triumph of the deaf +and dumb, the cinematograph, has come to give us the nervous excitement +of speed--grimace agitation, and speed, as of flying atoms, chaos--many +an old church in Italy has taken a new lease of life. + +This cast-off church made a good theatre. I realized how cleverly it had +been constructed for the dramatic presentation of religious ceremonies. +The east end is round, the walls are windowless, sound is well +distributed. Now everything is theatrical, except the stone floor and +two pillars at the back of the auditorium, and the slightly +ecclesiastical seats below. + +There are two tiers of little boxes in the theatre, some forty in all, +with fringe and red velvet, and lined with dark red paper, quite like +real boxes in a real theatre. And the padrone's is one of the best. It +just holds three people. + +We paid our threepence entrance fee in the stone hall and went upstairs. +I opened the door of Number 8, and we were shut in our little cabin, +looking down on the world. Then I found the barber, Luigi, bowing +profusely in a box opposite. It was necessary to make bows all round: +ah, the chemist, on the upper tier, near the barber; how-do-you-do to +the padrona of the hotel, who is our good friend, and who sits, wearing +a little beaver shoulder-cape, a few boxes off; very cold salutation to +the stout village magistrate with the long brown beard, who leans +forward in the box facing the stage, while a grouping of faces look out +from behind him; a warm smile to the family of the Signora Gemma, across +next to the stage. Then we are settled. + +I cannot tell why I hate the village magistrate. He looks like a family +portrait by a Flemish artist, he himself weighing down the front of the +picture with his portliness and his long brown beard, whilst the faces +of his family are arranged in two groups for the background. I think he +is angry at our intrusion. He is very republican and self-important. But +we eclipse him easily, with the aid of a large black velvet hat, and +black furs, and our Sunday clothes. + +Downstairs the villagers are crowding, drifting like a heavy current. +The women are seated, by church instinct, all together on the left, with +perhaps an odd man at the end of a row, beside his wife. On the right, +sprawling in the benches, are several groups of bersaglieri, in grey +uniforms and slanting cock's-feather hats; then peasants, fishermen, and +an odd couple or so of brazen girls taking their places on the +men's side. + +At the back, lounging against the pillars or standing very dark and +sombre, are the more reckless spirits of the village. Their black felt +hats are pulled down, their cloaks are thrown over their mouths, they +stand very dark and isolated in their moments of stillness, they shout +and wave to each other when anything occurs. + +The men are clean, their clothes are all clean washed. The rags of the +poorest porter are always well washed. But it is Sunday tomorrow, and +they are shaved only on a Sunday. So that they have a week's black +growth on their chins. But they have dark, soft eyes, unconscious and +vulnerable. They move and balance with loose, heedless motion upon their +clattering zoccoli, they lounge with wonderful ease against the wall at +the back, or against the two pillars, unconscious of the patches on +their clothes or of their bare throats, that are knotted perhaps with a +scarlet rag. Loose and abandoned, they lounge and talk, or they watch +with wistful absorption the play that is going on. + +They are strangely isolated in their own atmosphere, and as if revealed. +It is as if their vulnerable being was exposed and they have not the wit +to cover it. There is a pathos of physical sensibility and mental +inadequacy. Their mind is not sufficiently alert to run with their +quick, warm senses. + +The men keep together, as if to support each other, the women also are +together; in a hard, strong herd. It is as if the power, the hardness, +the triumph, even in this Italian village, were with the women in their +relentless, vindictive unity. + +That which drives men and women together, the indomitable necessity, is +like a bondage upon the people. They submit as under compulsion, under +constraint. They come together mostly in anger and in violence of +destructive passion. There is no comradeship between men and women, none +whatsoever, but rather a condition of battle, reserve, hostility. + +On Sundays the uncomfortable, excited, unwilling youth walks for an hour +with his sweetheart, at a little distance from her, on the public +highway in the afternoon. This is a concession to the necessity for +marriage. There is no real courting, no happiness of being together, +only the roused excitement which is based on a fundamental hostility. +There is very little flirting, and what there is is of the subtle, cruel +kind, like a sex duel. On the whole, the men and women avoid each other, +almost shun each other. Husband and wife are brought together in a +child, which they both worship. But in each of them there is only the +great reverence for the infant, and the reverence for fatherhood or +motherhood, as the case may be; there is no spiritual love. + +In marriage, husband and wife wage the subtle, satisfying war of sex +upon each other. It gives a profound satisfaction, a profound intimacy. +But it destroys all joy, all unanimity in action. + +On Sunday afternoons the uncomfortable youth walks by the side of his +maiden for an hour in the public highway. Then he escapes; as from a +bondage he goes back to his men companions. On Sunday afternoons and +evenings the married woman, accompanied by a friend or by a child--she +dare not go alone, afraid of the strange, terrible sex-war between her +and the drunken man--is seen leading home the wine-drunken, liberated +husband. Sometimes she is beaten when she gets home. It is part of the +process. But there is no synthetic love between men and women, there is +only passion, and passion is fundamental hatred, the act of love is +a fight. + +The child, the outcome, is divine. Here the union, the oneness, is +manifest. Though spirit strove with spirit, in mortal conflict, during +the sex-passion, yet the flesh united with flesh in oneness. The phallus +is still divine. But the spirit, the mind of man, this has +become nothing. + +So the women triumph. They sit down below in the theatre, their +perfectly dressed hair gleaming, their backs very straight, their heads +carried tensely. They are not very noticeable. They seem held in +reserve. They are just as tense and stiff as the men are slack and +abandoned. Some strange will holds the women taut. They seem like +weapons, dangerous. There is nothing charming nor winning about them; at +the best a full, prolific maternity, at the worst a yellow poisonous +bitterness of the flesh that is like a narcotic. But they are too strong +for the men. The male spirit, which would subdue the immediate flesh to +some conscious or social purpose, is overthrown. The woman in her +maternity is the law-giver, the supreme authority. The authority of the +man, in work, in public affairs, is something trivial in comparison. The +pathetic ignominy of the village male is complete on Sunday afternoon, +on his great day of liberation, when he is accompanied home, drunk but +sinister, by the erect, unswerving, slightly cowed woman. His drunken +terrorizing is only pitiable, she is so obviously the more +constant power. + +And this is why the men must go away to America. It is not the money. It +is the profound desire to rehabilitate themselves, to recover some +dignity as men, as producers, as workers, as creators from the spirit, +not only from the flesh. It is a profound desire to get away from women +altogether, the terrible subjugation to sex, the phallic worship. + +The company of actors in the little theatre was from a small town away +on the plain, beyond Brescia. The curtain rose, everybody was still, +with that profound, naive attention which children give. And after a few +minutes I realized that _I Spettri_ was Ibsen's _Ghosts_. The peasants +and fishermen of the Garda, even the rows of ungovernable children, sat +absorbed in watching as the Norwegian drama unfolded itself. + +The actors are peasants. The leader is the son of a peasant proprietor. +He is qualified as a chemist, but is unsettled, vagrant, prefers +play-acting. The Signer Pietro di Paoli shrugs his shoulders and +apologizes for their vulgar accent. It is all the same to me. I am +trying to get myself to rights with the play, which I have just lately +seen in Munich, perfectly produced and detestable. + +It was such a change from the hard, ethical, slightly mechanized +characters in the German play, which was as perfect an interpretation as +I can imagine, to the rather pathetic notion of the Italian peasants, +that I had to wait to adjust myself. + +The mother was a pleasant, comfortable woman harassed by something, she +did not quite know what. The pastor was a ginger-haired caricature +imitated from the northern stage, quite a lay figure. The peasants never +laughed, they watched solemnly and absorbedly like children. The servant +was just a slim, pert, forward hussy, much too flagrant. And then the +son, the actor-manager: he was a dark, ruddy man, broad and thick-set, +evidently of peasant origin, but with some education now; he was the +important figure, the play was his. + +And he was strangely disturbing. Dark, ruddy, and powerful, he could not +be the blighted son of 'Ghosts', the hectic, unsound, northern issue of +a diseased father. His flashy Italian passion for his half-sister was +real enough to make one uncomfortable: something he wanted and would +have in spite of his own soul, something which fundamentally he did +not want. + +It was this contradiction within the man that made the play so +interesting. A robust, vigorous man of thirty-eight, flaunting and +florid as a rather successful Italian can be, there was yet a secret +sickness which oppressed him. But it was no taint in the blood, it was +rather a kind of debility in the soul. That which he wanted and would +have, the sensual excitement, in his soul he did not want it, no, not at +all. And yet he must act from his physical desires, his physical will. + +His true being, his real self, was impotent. In his soul he was +dependent, forlorn. He was childish and dependent on the mother. To hear +him say, '_Grazia, mamma!_' would have tormented the mother-soul in any +woman living. Such a child crying in the night! And for what? + +For he was hot-blooded, healthy, almost in his prime, and free as a man +can be in his circumstances. He had his own way, he admitted no +thwarting. He governed his circumstances pretty much, coming to our +village with his little company, playing the plays he chose himself. And +yet, that which he would have he did not vitally want, it was only a +sort of inflamed obstinacy that made him so insistent, in the masculine +way. He was not going to be governed by women, he was not going to be +dictated to in the least by any one. And this because he was beaten by +his own flesh. + +His real man's soul, the soul that goes forth and builds up a new world +out of the void, was ineffectual. It could only revert to the senses. +His divinity was the phallic divinity. The other male divinity, which is +the spirit that fulfils in the world the new germ of an idea, this was +denied and obscured in him, unused. And it was this spirit which cried +out helplessly in him through the insistent, inflammable flesh. Even +this play-acting was a form of physical gratification for him, it had in +it neither real mind nor spirit. + +It was so different from Ibsen, and so much more moving. Ibsen is +exciting, nervously sensational. But this was really moving, a real +crying in the night. One loved the Italian nation, and wanted to help it +with all one's soul. But when one sees the perfect Ibsen, how one hates +the Norwegian and Swedish nations! They are detestable. + +They seem to be fingering with the mind the secret places and sources of +the blood, impertinent, irreverent, nasty. There is a certain +intolerable nastiness about the real Ibsen: the same thing is in +Strindberg and in most of the Norwegian and Swedish writings. It is with +them a sort of phallic worship also, but now the worship is mental and +perverted: the phallus is the real fetish, but it is the source of +uncleanliness and corruption and death, it is the Moloch, worshipped in +obscenity. + +Which is unbearable. The phallus is a symbol of creative divinity. But +it represents only part of creative divinity. The Italian has made it +represent the whole. Which is now his misery, for he has to destroy his +symbol in himself. + +Which is why the Italian men have the enthusiasm for war, unashamed. +Partly it is the true phallic worship, for the phallic principle is to +absorb and dominate all life. But also it is a desire to expose +themselves to death, to know death, that death may destroy in them this +too strong dominion of the blood, may once more liberate the spirit of +outgoing, of uniting, of making order out of chaos, in the outer world, +as the flesh makes a new order from chaos in begetting a new life, set +them free to know and serve a greater idea. + +The peasants below sat and listened intently, like children who hear and +do not understand, yet who are spellbound. The children themselves sit +spellbound on the benches till the play is over. They do not fidget or +lose interest. They watch with wide, absorbed eyes at the mystery, held +in thrall by the sound of emotion. + +But the villagers do not really care for Ibsen. They let it go. On the +feast of Epiphany, as a special treat, was given a poetic drama by +D'Annunzio, _La Fiaccola sotto il Moggio_--_The Light under the Bushel_. + +It is a foolish romantic play of no real significance. There are several +murders and a good deal of artificial horror. But it is all a very nice +and romantic piece of make-believe, like a charade. + +So the audience loved it. After the performance of _Ghosts_ I saw the +barber, and he had the curious grey clayey look of an Italian who is +cold and depressed. The sterile cold inertia, which the so-called +passionate nations know so well, had settled on him, and he went +obliterating himself in the street, as if he were cold, dead. + +But after the D'Annunzio play he was like a man who has drunk sweet wine +and is warm. + +'_Ah, bellissimo, bellissimo_!' he said, in tones of intoxicated +reverence, when he saw me. + +'Better than _I Spettri_?' I said. + +He half-raised his hands, as if to imply the fatuity of the question. + +'Ah, but--' he said, 'it was D'Annunzio. The other....' + +'That was Ibsen--a great Norwegian,' I said, 'famous all over the +world.' + +'But you know--D'Annunzio is a poet--oh, beautiful, beautiful!' There +was no going beyond this '_bello--bellissimo_'. + +It was the language which did it. It was the Italian passion for +rhetoric, for the speech which appeals to the senses and makes no demand +on the mind. When an Englishman listens to a speech he wants at least to +imagine that he understands thoroughly and impersonally what is meant. +But an Italian only cares about the emotion. It is the movement, the +physical effect of the language upon the blood which gives him supreme +satisfaction. His mind is scarcely engaged at all. He is like a child, +hearing and feeling without understanding. It is the sensuous +gratification he asks for. Which is why D'Annunzio is a god in Italy. He +can control the current of the blood with his words, and although much +of what he says is bosh, yet his hearer is satisfied, fulfilled. + +Carnival ends on the 5th of February, so each Thursday there is a Serata +d' Onore of one of the actors. The first, and the only one for which +prices were raised--to a fourpence entrance fee instead of +threepence--was for the leading lady. The play was _The Wife of the +Doctor_, a modern piece, sufficiently uninteresting; the farce that +followed made me laugh. + +Since it was her Evening of Honour, Adelaida was the person to see. She +is very popular, though she is no longer young. In fact, she is the +mother of the young pert person of _Ghosts_. + +Nevertheless, Adelaida, stout and blonde and soft and pathetic, is the +real heroine of the theatre, the prima. She is very good at sobbing; and +afterwards the men exclaim involuntarily, out of their strong emotion, +'_bella, bella_!' The women say nothing. They sit stiffly and +dangerously as ever. But, no doubt, they quite agree this is the true +picture of ill-used, tear-stained woman, the bearer of many wrongs. +Therefore they take unto themselves the homage of the men's '_bella, +bella_!' that follows the sobs: it is due recognition of their hard +wrongs: 'the woman pays.' Nevertheless, they despise in their souls the +plump, soft Adelaida. + +Dear Adelaida, she is irreproachable. In every age, in every clime, she +is dear, at any rate to the masculine soul, this soft, tear-blenched, +blonde, ill-used thing. She must be ill-used and unfortunate. Dear +Gretchen, dear Desdemona, dear Iphigenia, dear Dame aux Camelias, dear +Lucy of Lammermoor, dear Mary Magdalene, dear, pathetic, unfortunate +soul, in all ages and lands, how we love you. In the theatre she +blossoms forth, she is the lily of the stage. Young and inexperienced as +I am, I have broken my heart over her several times. I could write a +sonnet-sequence to her, yes, the fair, pale, tear-stained thing, +white-robed, with her hair down her back; I could call her by a hundred +names, in a hundred languages, Melisande, Elizabeth, Juliet, Butterfly, +Phedre, Minnehaha, etc. Each new time I hear her voice, with its faint +clang of tears, my heart grows big and hot, and my bones melt. I detest +her, but it is no good. My heart begins to swell like a bud under the +plangent rain. + +The last time I saw her was here, on the Garda, at Salo. She was the +chalked, thin-armed daughter of Rigoletto. I detested her, her voice had +a chalky squeak in it. And yet, by the end, my heart was overripe in my +breast, ready to burst with loving affection. I was ready to walk on to +the stage, to wipe out the odious, miscreant lover, and to offer her all +myself, saying, 'I can see it is real _love_ you want, and you shall +have it: _I_ will give it to you.' + +Of course I know the secret of the Gretchen magic; it is all in the +'Save me, Mr Hercules!' phrase. Her shyness, her timidity, her +trustfulness, her tears foster my own strength and grandeur. I am the +positive half of the universe. But so I am, if it comes to that, just as +positive as the other half. + +Adelaida is plump, and her voice has just that moist, plangent strength +which gives one a real voluptuous thrill. The moment she comes on the +stage and looks round--a bit scared--she is _she_, Electra, Isolde, +Sieglinde, Marguerite. She wears a dress of black voile, like the lady +who weeps at the trial in the police-court. This is her modern uniform. +Her antique garment is of trailing white, with a blonde pigtail and a +flower. Realistically, it is black voile and a handkerchief. + +Adelaida always has a handkerchief. And still I cannot resist it. I say, +'There's the hanky!' Nevertheless, in two minutes it has worked its way +with me. She squeezes it in her poor, plump hand as the tears begin to +rise; Fate, or man, is inexorable, so cruel. There is a sob, a cry; she +presses the fist and the hanky to her eyes, one eye, then the other. She +weeps real tears, tears shaken from the depths of her soft, vulnerable, +victimized female self. I cannot stand it. There I sit in the padrone's +little red box and stifle my emotion, whilst I repeat in my heart: 'What +a shame, child, what a shame!' She is twice my age, but what is age in +such circumstances? 'Your poor little hanky, it's sopping. There, then, +don't cry. It'll be all right. _I'll_ see you're all right. _All_ men +are not beasts, you know.' So I cover her protectively in my arms, and +soon I shall be kissing her, for comfort, in the heat and prowess of my +compassion, kissing her soft, plump cheek and neck closely, bringing my +comfort nearer and nearer. + +It is a pleasant and exciting role for me to play. Robert Burns did the +part to perfection: + + O wert thou in the cauld blast + On yonder lea, on yonder lea. + +How many times does one recite that to all the Ophelias and Gretchens in +the world: + + Thy bield should be my bosom. + +How one admires one's bosom in that capacity! Looking down at one's +shirt-front, one is filled with strength and pride. + +Why are the women so bad at playing this part in real life, this +Ophelia-Gretchen role? Why are they so unwilling to go mad and die for +our sakes? They do it regularly on the stage. + +But perhaps, after all, we write the plays. What a villain I am, what a +black-browed, passionate, ruthless, masculine villain I am to the +leading lady on the stage; and, on the other hand, dear heart, what a +hero, what a fount of chivalrous generosity and faith! I am _anything_ +but a dull and law-abiding citizen. I am a Galahad, full of purity and +spirituality, I am the Lancelot of valour and lust; I fold my hands, or +I cock my hat in one side, as the case may be: I am _myself_. Only, I am +not a respectable citizen, not that, in this hour of my glory and +my escape. + +Dear Heaven, how Adelaida wept, her voice plashing like violin music, at +my ruthless, masculine cruelty. Dear heart, how she sighed to rest on my +sheltering bosom! And how I enjoyed my dual nature! How I +admired myself! + +Adelaida chose _La Moglie del Dottore_ for her Evening of Honour. During +the following week came a little storm of coloured bills: 'Great Evening +of Honour of Enrico Persevalli.' + +This is the leader, the actor-manager. What should he choose for his +great occasion, this broad, thick-set, ruddy descendant of the peasant +proprietors of the plain? No one knew. The title of the play was +not revealed. + +So we were staying at home, it was cold and wet. But the maestra came +inflammably on that Thursday evening, and were we not going to the +theatre, to see _Amleto_? + +Poor maestra, she is yellow and bitter-skinned, near fifty, but her dark +eyes are still corrosively inflammable. She was engaged to a lieutenant +in the cavalry, who got drowned when she was twenty-one. Since then she +has hung on the tree unripe, growing yellow and bitter-skinned, never +developing. + +'_Amleto!_' I say. '_Non lo conosco._' + +A certain fear comes into her eyes. She is schoolmistress, and has a +mortal dread of being wrong. + +'_Si_,' she cries, wavering, appealing, '_una dramma inglese_.' + +'English!' I repeated. + +'Yes, an English drama.' + +'How do you write it?' + +Anxiously, she gets a pencil from her reticule, and, with black-gloved +scrupulousness, writes _Amleto_. + +'_Hamlet_!' I exclaim wonderingly. + +'_Ecco, Amleto!_' cries the maestra, her eyes aflame with thankful +justification. + +Then I knew that Signore Enrico Persevalli was looking to me for an +audience. His Evening of Honour would be a bitter occasion to him if the +English were not there to see his performance. + +I hurried to get ready, I ran through the rain. I knew he would take it +badly that it rained on his Evening of Honour. He counted himself a man +who had fate against him. + +'_Sono un disgraziato, io._' + +I was late. The First Act was nearly over. The play was not yet alive, +neither in the bosoms of the actors nor in the audience. I closed the +door of the box softly, and came forward. The rolling Italian eyes of +Hamlet glanced up at me. There came a new impulse over the Court +of Denmark. + +Enrico looked a sad fool in his melancholy black. The doublet sat close, +making him stout and vulgar, the knee-breeches seemed to exaggerate the +commonness of his thick, rather short, strutting legs. And he carried a +long black rag, as a cloak, for histrionic purposes. And he had on his +face a portentous grimace of melancholy and philosophic importance. His +was the caricature of Hamlet's melancholy self-absorption. + +I stooped to arrange my footstool and compose my countenance. I was +trying not to grin. For the first time, attired in philosophic +melancholy of black silk, Enrico looked a boor and a fool. His +close-cropped, rather animal head was common above the effeminate +doublet, his sturdy, ordinary figure looked absurd in a +melancholic droop. + +All the actors alike were out of their element. Their Majesties of +Denmark were touching. The Queen, burly little peasant woman, was ill at +ease in her pink satin. Enrico had had no mercy. He knew she loved to be +the scolding servant or housekeeper, with her head tied up in a +handkerchief, shrill and vulgar. Yet here she was pranked out in an +expanse of satin, la Regina. Regina, indeed! + +She obediently did her best to be important. Indeed, she rather fancied +herself; she looked sideways at the audience, self-consciously, quite +ready to be accepted as an imposing and noble person, if they would +esteem her such. Her voice sounded hoarse and common, but whether it was +the pink satin in contrast, or a cold, I do not know. She was almost +childishly afraid to move. Before she began a speech she looked down and +kicked her skirt viciously, so that she was sure it was under control. +Then she let go. She was a burly, downright little body of sixty, one +rather expected her to box Hamlet on the ears. + +Only she liked being a queen when she sat on the throne. There she +perched with great satisfaction, her train splendidly displayed down the +steps. She was as proud as a child, and she looked like Queen Victoria +of the Jubilee period. + +The King, her noble consort, also had new honours thrust upon him, as +well as new garments. His body was real enough but it had nothing at all +to do with his clothes. They established a separate identity by +themselves. But wherever he went, they went with him, to the confusion +of everybody. + +He was a thin, rather frail-looking peasant, pathetic, and very gentle. +There was something pure and fine about him, he was so exceedingly +gentle and by natural breeding courteous. But he did not feel kingly, he +acted the part with beautiful, simple resignation. + +Enrico Persevalli had overshot himself in every direction, but worst of +all in his own. He had become a hulking fellow, crawling about with his +head ducked between his shoulders, pecking and poking, creeping about +after other people, sniffing at them, setting traps for them, absorbed +by his own self-important self-consciousness. His legs, in their black +knee-breeches, had a crawling, slinking look; he always carried the +black rag of a cloak, something for him to twist about as he twisted in +his own soul, overwhelmed by a sort of inverted perversity. + +I had always felt an aversion from Hamlet: a creeping, unclean thing he +seems, on the stage, whether he is Forbes Robertson or anybody else. His +nasty poking and sniffing at his mother, his setting traps for the King, +his conceited perversion with Ophelia make him always intolerable. The +character is repulsive in its conception, based on self-dislike and a +spirit of disintegration. + +There is, I think, this strain of cold dislike, or self-dislike, through +much of the Renaissance art, and through all the later Shakespeare. In +Shakespeare it is a kind of corruption in the flesh and a conscious +revolt from this. A sense of corruption in the flesh makes Hamlet +frenzied, for he will never admit that it is his own flesh. Leonardo da +Vinci is the same, but Leonardo loves the corruption maliciously. +Michelangelo rejects any feeling of corruption, he stands by the flesh, +the flesh only. It is the corresponding reaction, but in the opposite +direction. But that is all four hundred years ago. Enrico Persevalli has +just reached the position. He _is_ Hamlet, and evidently he has great +satisfaction in the part. He is the modern Italian, suspicious, +isolated, self-nauseated, labouring in a sense of physical corruption. +But he will not admit it is in himself. He creeps about in self-conceit, +transforming his own self-loathing. With what satisfaction did he reveal +corruption--corruption in his neighbours he gloated in--letting his +mother know he had discovered her incest, her uncleanness, gloated in +torturing the incestuous King. Of all the unclean ones, Hamlet was the +uncleanest. But he accused only the others. + +Except in the 'great' speeches, and there Enrico was betrayed, Hamlet +suffered the extremity of physical self-loathing, loathing of his own +flesh. The play is the statement of the most significant philosophic +position of the Renaissance. Hamlet is far more even than Orestes, his +prototype, a mental creature, anti-physical, anti-sensual. The whole +drama is the tragedy of the convulsed reaction of the mind from the +flesh, of the spirit from the self, the reaction from the great +aristocratic to the great democratic principle. + +An ordinary instinctive man, in Hamlet's position, would either have set +about murdering his uncle, by reflex action, or else would have gone +right away. There would have been no need for Hamlet to murder his +mother. It would have been sufficient blood-vengeance if he had killed +his uncle. But that is the statement according to the aristocratic +principle. + +Orestes was in the same position, but the same position two thousand +years earlier, with two thousand years of experience wanting. So that +the question was not so intricate in him as in Hamlet, he was not nearly +so conscious. The whole Greek life was based on the idea of the +supremacy of the self, and the self was always male. Orestes was his +father's child, he would be the same whatever mother he had. The mother +was but the vehicle, the soil in which the paternal seed was planted. +When Clytemnestra murdered Agamemnon, it was as if a common individual +murdered God, to the Greek. + +But Agamemnon, King and Lord, was not infallible. He was fallible. He +had sacrificed Iphigenia for the sake of glory in war, for the +fulfilment of the superb idea of self, but on the other hand he had made +cruel dissension for the sake of the concubines captured in war. The +paternal flesh was fallible, ungodlike. It lusted after meaner pursuits +than glory, war, and slaying, it was not faithful to the highest idea of +the self. Orestes was driven mad by the furies of his mother, because of +the justice that they represented. Nevertheless he was in the end +exculpated. The third play of the trilogy is almost foolish, with its +prating gods. But it means that, according to the Greek conviction, +Orestes was right and Clytemnestra entirely wrong. But for all that, the +infallible King, the infallible male Self, is dead in Orestes, killed by +the furies of Clytemnestra. He gains his peace of mind after the +revulsion from his own physical fallibility, but he will never be an +unquestioned lord, as Agamemnon was. Orestes is left at peace, +neutralized. He is the beginning of non-aristocratic Christianity. + +Hamlet's father, the King, is, like Agamemnon, a warrior-king. But, +unlike Agamemnon, he is blameless with regard to Gertrude. Yet Gertrude, +like Clytemnestra, is the potential murderer of her husband, as Lady +Macbeth is murderess, as the daughters of Lear. The women murder the +supreme male, the ideal Self, the King and Father. + +This is the tragic position Shakespeare must dwell upon. The woman +rejects, repudiates the ideal Self which the male represents to her. The +supreme representative, King and Father, is murdered by the Wife and the +Daughters. + +What is the reason? Hamlet goes mad in a revulsion of rage and nausea. +Yet the women-murderers only represent some ultimate judgement in his +own soul. At the bottom of his own soul Hamlet has decided that the Self +in its supremacy, Father and King, must die. It is a suicidal decision +for his involuntary soul to have arrived at. Yet it is inevitable. The +great religious, philosophic tide, which has been swelling all through +the Middle Ages, had brought him there. + +The question, to be or not to be, which Hamlet puts himself, does not +mean, to live or not to live. It is not the simple human being who puts +himself the question, it is the supreme I, King and Father. To be or not +to be King, Father, in the Self supreme? And the decision is, not to be. + +It is the inevitable philosophic conclusion of all the Renaissance. The +deepest impulse in man, the religious impulse, is the desire to be +immortal, or infinite, consummated. And this impulse is satisfied in +fulfilment of an idea, a steady progression. In this progression man is +satisfied, he seems to have reached his goal, this infinity, this +immortality, this eternal being, with every step nearer which he takes. + +And so, according to his idea of fulfilment, man establishes the whole +order of life. If my fulfilment is the fulfilment and establishment of +the unknown divine Self which I am, then I shall proceed in the +realizing of the greatest idea of the self, the highest conception of +the I, my order of life will be kingly, imperial, aristocratic. The body +politic also will culminate in this divinity of the flesh, this body +imbued with glory, invested with divine power and might, the King, the +Emperor. In the body politic also I shall desire a king, an emperor, a +tyrant, glorious, mighty, in whom I see myself consummated and +fulfilled. This is inevitable! + +But during the Middle Ages, struggling within this pagan, original +transport, the transport of the Ego, was a small dissatisfaction, a +small contrary desire. Amid the pomp of kings and popes was the Child +Jesus and the Madonna. Jesus the King gradually dwindled down. There was +Jesus the Child, helpless, at the mercy of all the world. And there was +Jesus crucified. + +The old transport, the old fulfilment of the Ego, the Davidian ecstasy, +the assuming of all power and glory unto the self, the becoming infinite +through the absorption of all into the Ego, this gradually became +unsatisfactory. This was not the infinite, this was not immortality. +This was eternal death, this was damnation. + +The monk rose up with his opposite ecstasy, the Christian ecstasy. There +was a death to die: the flesh, the self, must die, so that the spirit +should rise again immortal, eternal, infinite. I am dead unto myself, +but I live in the Infinite. The finite Me is no more, only the Infinite, +the Eternal, is. + +At the Renaissance this great half-truth overcame the other great +half-truth. The Christian Infinite, reached by a process of abnegation, +a process of being absorbed, dissolved, diffused into the great +Not-Self, supplanted the old pagan Infinite, wherein the self like a +root threw out branches and radicles which embraced the whole universe, +became the Whole. + +There is only one Infinite, the world now cried, there is the great +Christian Infinite of renunciation and consummation in the not-self. The +other, that old pride, is damnation. The sin of sins is Pride, it is the +way to total damnation. Whereas the pagans based their life on pride. + +And according to this new Infinite, reached through renunciation and +dissolving into the Others, the Neighbour, man must build up his actual +form of life. With Savonarola and Martin Luther the living Church +actually transformed itself, for the Roman Church was still pagan. Henry +VIII simply said: 'There is no Church, there is only the State.' But +with Shakespeare the transformation had reached the State also. The +King, the Father, the representative of the Consummate Self, the maximum +of all life, the symbol of the consummate being, the becoming Supreme, +Godlike, Infinite, he must perish and pass away. This Infinite was not +infinite, this consummation was not consummated, all this was fallible, +false. It was rotten, corrupt. It must go. But Shakespeare was also the +thing itself. Hence his horror, his frenzy, his self-loathing. + +The King, the Emperor is killed in the soul of man, the old order of +life is over, the old tree is dead at the root. So said Shakespeare. It +was finally enacted in Cromwell. Charles I took up the old position of +kingship by divine right. Like Hamlet's father, he was blameless +otherwise. But as representative of the old form of life, which mankind +now hated with frenzy, he must be cut down, removed. It was a +symbolic act. + +The world, our world of Europe, had now really turned, swung round to a +new goal, a new idea, the Infinite reached through the omission of Self. +God is all that which is Not-Me. I am consummate when my Self, the +resistant solid, is reduced and diffused into all that which is Not-Me: +my neighbour, my enemy, the great Otherness. Then I am perfect. + +And from this belief the world began gradually to form a new State, a +new body politic, in which the Self should be removed. There should be +no king, no lords, no aristocrats. The world continued in its religious +belief, beyond the French Revolution, beyond the great movement of +Shelley and Godwin. There should be no Self. That which was supreme was +that which was Not-Me, the other. The governing factor in the State was +the idea of the good of others; that is, the Common Good. And the +_vital_ governing idea in the State has been this idea since Cromwell. + +Before Cromwell the idea was 'For the King', because every man saw +himself consummated in the King. After Cromwell the idea was 'For the +good of my neighbour', or 'For the good of the people', or 'For the good +of the whole'. This has been our ruling idea, by which we have more or +less lived. + +Now this has failed. Now we say that the Christian Infinite is not +infinite. We are tempted, like Nietzsche, to return back to the old +pagan Infinite, to say that is supreme. Or we are inclined, like the +English and the Pragmatist, to say, 'There is no Infinite, there is no +Absolute. The only Absolute is expediency, the only reality is sensation +and momentariness.' But we may say this, even act on it, _a la Sanine_. +But we never believe it. + +What is really Absolute is the mystic Reason which connects both +Infinites, the Holy Ghost that relates both natures of God. If we now +wish to make a living State, we must build it up to the idea of the Holy +Spirit, the supreme Relationship. We must say, the pagan Infinite is +infinite, the Christian Infinite is infinite: these are our two +Consummations, in both of these we are consummated. But that which +relates them alone is absolute. + +This Absolute of the Holy Ghost we may call Truth or Justice or Right. +These are partial names, indefinite and unsatisfactory unless there be +kept the knowledge of the two Infinites, pagan and Christian, which they +go between. When both are there, they are like a superb bridge, on which +one can stand and know the whole world, my world, the two halves of +the universe. + +'_Essere, o non essere, e qui il punto._' + +To be or not to be was the question for Hamlet to settle. It is no +longer our question, at least, not in the same sense. When it is a +question of death, the fashionable young suicide declares that his +self-destruction is the final proof of his own incontrovertible being. +And as for not-being in our public life, we have achieved it as much as +ever we want to, as much as is necessary. Whilst in private life there +is a swing back to paltry selfishness as a creed. And in the war there +is the position of neutralization and nothingness. It is a question of +knowing how _to be_, and how _not to be_, for we must fulfil both. +Enrico Persevalli was detestable with his '_Essere, o non essere_'. He +whispered it in a hoarse whisper as if it were some melodramatic murder +he was about to commit. As a matter of fact, he knows quite well, and +has known all his life, that his pagan Infinite, his transport of the +flesh and the supremacy of the male in fatherhood, is all +unsatisfactory. All his life he has really cringed before the northern +Infinite of the Not-Self, although he has continued in the Italian habit +of Self. But it is mere habit, sham. + +How can he know anything about being and not-being when he is only a +maudlin compromise between them, and all he wants is to be a maudlin +compromise? He is neither one nor the other. He has neither being nor +riot-being. He is as equivocal as the monks. He was detestable, mouthing +Hamlet's sincere words. He has still to let go, to know what not-being +is, before he can _be_. Till he has gone through the Christian negation +of himself, and has known the Christian consummation, he is a mere +amorphous heap. + +For the soliloquies of Hamlet are as deep as the soul of man can go, in +one direction, and as sincere as the Holy Spirit itself in their +essence. But thank heaven, the bog into which Hamlet struggled is almost +surpassed. + +It is a strange thing, if a man covers his face, and speaks with his +eyes blinded, how significant and poignant he becomes. The ghost of this +Hamlet was very simple. He was wrapped down to the knees in a great +white cloth, and over his face was an open-work woollen shawl. But the +naive blind helplessness and verity of his voice was strangely +convincing. He seemed the most real thing in the play. From the knees +downward he was Laertes, because he had on Laertes' white trousers and +patent leather slippers. Yet he was strangely real, a voice out of +the dark. + +The Ghost is really one of the play's failures, it is so trivial and +unspiritual and vulgar. And it was spoilt for me from the first. When I +was a child I went to the twopenny travelling theatre to see _Hamlet_. +The Ghost had on a helmet and a breastplate. I sat in pale transport. + +''Amblet, 'Amblet, I _am_ thy father's ghost.' + +Then came a voice from the dark, silent audience, like a cynical knife +to my fond soul: + +'Why tha arena, I can tell thy voice.' + +The peasants loved Ophelia: she was in white with her hair down her +back. Poor thing, she was pathetic, demented. And no wonder, after +Hamlet's 'O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt!' What then of +her young breasts and her womb? Hamlet with her was a very disagreeable +sight. The peasants loved her. There was a hoarse roar, half of +indignation, half of roused passion, at the end of her scene. + +The graveyard scene, too, was a great success, but I could not bear +Hamlet. And the grave-digger in Italian was a mere buffoon. The whole +scene was farcical to me because of the Italian, '_Questo cranio, +Signore_--'And Enrico, dainty fellow, took the skull in a corner of his +black cloak. As an Italian, he would not willingly touch it. It was +unclean. But he looked a fool, hulking himself in his lugubriousness. He +was as self-important as D'Annunzio. + +The close fell flat. The peasants had applauded the whole graveyard +scene wildly. But at the end of all they got up and crowded to the +doors, as if to hurry away: this in spite of Enrico's final feat: he +fell backwards, smack down three steps of the throne platform, on to the +stage. But planks and braced muscle will bounce, and Signer Amleto +bounced quite high again. + +It was the end of _Amleto_, and I was glad. But I loved the theatre, I +loved to look down on the peasants, who were so absorbed. At the end of +the scenes the men pushed back their black hats, and rubbed their hair +across their brows with a pleased, excited movement. And the women +stirred in their seats. + +Just one man was with his wife and child, and he was of the same race as +my old woman at San Tommaso. He was fair, thin, and clear, abstract, of +the mountains. He seemed to have gathered his wife and child together +into another, finer atmosphere, like the air of the mountains, and to +guard them in it. This is the real Joseph, father of the child. He has a +fierce, abstract look, wild and untamed as a hawk, but like a hawk at +its own nest, fierce with love. He goes out and buys a tiny bottle of +lemonade for a penny, and the mother and child sip it in tiny sips, +whilst he bends over, like a hawk arching its wings. + +It is the fierce spirit of the Ego come out of the primal infinite, but +detached, isolated, an aristocrat. He is not an Italian, dark-blooded. +He is fair, keen as steel, with the blood of the mountaineer in him. He +is like my old spinning woman. It is curious how, with his wife and +child, he makes a little separate world down there in the theatre, like +a hawk's nest, high and arid under the gleaming sky. + +The Bersaglieri sit close together in groups, so that there is a +strange, corporal connexion between them. They have close-cropped, dark, +slightly bestial heads, and thick shoulders, and thick brown hands on +each other's shoulders. When an act is over they pick up their cherished +hats and fling on their cloaks and go into the hall. They are rather +rich, the Bersaglieri. + +They are like young, half-wild oxen, such strong, sturdy, dark lads, +thickly built and with strange hard heads, like young male caryatides. +They keep close together, as if there were some physical instinct +connecting them. And they are quite womanless. There is a curious +inter-absorption among themselves, a sort of physical trance that holds +them all, and puts their minds to sleep. There is a strange, hypnotic +unanimity among them as they put on their plumed hats and go out +together, always very close, as if their bodies must touch. Then they +feel safe and content in this heavy, physical trance. They are in love +with one another, the young men love the young men. They shrink from the +world beyond, from the outsiders, from all who are not Bersaglieri of +their barracks. + +One man is a sort of leader. He is very straight and solid, solid like a +wall, with a dark, unblemished will. His cock-feathers slither in a +profuse, heavy stream from his black oil-cloth hat, almost to his +shoulder. He swings round. His feathers slip into a cascade. Then he +goes out to the hall, his feather tossing and falling richly. He must be +well off. The Bersaglieri buy their own black cock's-plumes, and some +pay twenty or thirty francs for the bunch, so the maestra said. The poor +ones have only poor, scraggy plumes. + +There is something very primitive about these men. They remind me really +of Agamemnon's soldiers clustered oil the seashore, men, all men, a +living, vigorous, physical host of men. But there is a pressure on these +Italian soldiers, as if they were men caryatides, with a great weight on +their heads, making their brain hard, asleep, stunned. They all look is +if their real brain were stunned, as if there were another centre of +physical consciousness from which they lived. + +Separate from them all is Pietro, the young man who lounges on the wharf +to carry things from the steamer. He starts up from sleep like a +wild-cat as somebody claps him on the shoulder. It is the start of a man +who has many enemies. He is almost an outlaw. Will he ever find himself +in prison? He is the _gamin_ of the village, well detested. + +He is twenty-four years old, thin, dark, handsome, with a cat-like +lightness and grace, and a certain repulsive, _gamin_ evil in his face. +Where everybody is so clean and tidy, he is almost ragged. His week's +beard shows very black in his slightly hollow cheeks. He hates the man +who has waked him by clapping him on the shoulder. + +Pietro is already married, yet he behaves as if he were not. He has been +carrying on with a loose woman, the wife of the citron-coloured barber, +the Siciliano. Then he seats himself on the women's side of the theatre, +behind a young person from Bogliaco, who also has no reputation, and +makes her talk to him. He leans forward, resting his arms on the seat +before him, stretching his slender, cat-like, flexible loins. The +padrona of the hotel hates him--'_ein frecher Kerl_,' she says with +contempt, and she looks away. Her eyes hate to see him. + +In the village there is the clerical party, which is the majority; +there is the anti-clerical party, and there are the ne'er-do-wells. The +clerical people are dark and pious and cold; there is a curious +stone-cold, ponderous darkness over them, moral and gloomy. Then the +anti-clerical party, with the Syndaco at the head, is bourgeois and +respectable as far as the middle-aged people are concerned, banal, +respectable, shut off as by a wall from the clerical people. The young +anti-clericals are the young bloods of the place, the men who gather +every night in the more expensive and less-respectable cafe. These young +men are all free-thinkers, great dancers, singers, players of the +guitar. They are immoral and slightly cynical. Their leader is the young +shopkeeper, who has lived in Vienna, who is a bit of a bounder, with a +veneer of sneering irony on an original good nature. He is well-to-do, +and gives dances to which only the looser women go, with these reckless +young men. He also gets up parties of pleasure, and is chiefly +responsible for the coming of the players to the theatre this carnival. +These young men are disliked, but they belong to the important class, +they are well-to-do, and they have the life of the village in their +hands. The clerical peasants are priest-ridden and good, because they +are poor and afraid and superstitious. There is, lastly, a sprinkling of +loose women, one who keeps the inn where the soldiers drink. These women +are a definite set. They know what they are, they pretend nothing else. +They are not prostitutes, but just loose women. They keep to their own +clique, among men and women, never wanting to compromise anybody else. + +And beyond all these there are the Franciscan friars in their brown +robes, so shy, so silent, so obliterated, as they stand back in the +shop, waiting to buy the bread for the monastery, waiting obscure and +neutral, till no one shall be in the shop wanting to be served. The +village women speak to them in a curious neutral, official, slightly +contemptuous voice. They answer neutral and humble, though distinctly. + +At the theatre, now the play is over, the peasants in their black hats +and cloaks crowd the hall. Only Pietro, the wharf-lounger, has no cloak, +and a bit of a cap on the side of his head instead of a black felt hat. +His clothes are thin and loose on his thin, vigorous, cat-like body, and +he is cold, but he takes no notice. His hands are always in his pockets, +his shoulders slightly raised. + +The few women slip away home. In the little theatre bar the well-to-do +young atheists are having another drink. Not that they spend much. A +tumbler of wine or a glass of vermouth costs a penny. And the wine is +horrible new stuff. Yet the little baker, Agostino, sits on a bench with +his pale baby on his knee, putting the wine to its lips. And the baby +drinks, like a blind fledgeling. + +Upstairs, the quality has paid its visits and shaken hands: the Syndaco +and the well-to-do half-Austrian owners of the woodyard, the Bertolini, +have ostentatiously shown their mutual friendship; our padrone, the +Signer Pietro Di Paoli, has visited his relatives the Graziani in the +box next the stage and has spent two intervals with us in our box; +meanwhile, his two peasants standing down below, pathetic, thin +contadini of the old school, like worn stones, have looked up at us as +if we are the angels in heaven, with a reverential, devotional eye, they +themselves far away below, standing in the bay at the back, below all. + +The chemist and the grocer and the schoolmistress pay calls. They have +all sat self-consciously posed in the front of their boxes, like framed +photographs of themselves. The second grocer and the baker visit each +other. The barber looks in on the carpenter, then drops downstairs among +the crowd. Class distinctions are cut very fine. As we pass with the +padrona of the hotel, who is a Bavarian, we stop to speak to our own +padroni, the Di Paoli. They have a warm handshake and effusive polite +conversation for us; for Maria Samuelli, a distant bow. We realize +our mistake. + +The barber--not the Siciliano, but flashy little Luigi with the big +tie-ring and the curls--knows all about the theatre. He says that Enrico +Persevalli has for his mistress Carina, the servant in _Ghosts_: that +the thin, gentle, old-looking king in _Hamlet_ is the husband of +Adelaida, and Carina is their daughter: that the old, sharp, fat little +body of a queen is Adelaida's mother: that they all like Enrico +Persevalli, because he is a very clever man: but that the 'Comic', Il +Brillante, Francesco, is unsatisfied. + +In three performances in Epiphany week, the company took two hundred and +sixty-five francs, which was phenomenal. The manager, Enrico Persevalli, +and Adelaida pay twenty-four francs for every performance, or every +evening on which a performance is given, as rent for the theatre, +including light. The company is completely satisfied with its reception +on the Lago di Garda. + +So it is all over. The Bersaglieri go running all the way home, because +it is already past half past ten. The night is very dark. About four +miles up the lake the searchlights of the Austrian border are swinging, +looking for smugglers. Otherwise the darkness is complete. + + + +_4_ + +SAN GAUDENZIO + + +In the autumn the little rosy cyclamens blossom in the shade of this +west side of the lake. They are very cold and fragrant, and their scent +seems to belong to Greece, to the Bacchae. They are real flowers of the +past. They seem to be blossoming in the landscape of Phaedra and Helen. +They bend down, they brood like little chill fires. They are little +living myths that I cannot understand. + +After the cyclamens the Christmas roses are in bud. It is at this season +that the cacchi are ripe on the trees in the garden, whole naked trees +full of lustrous, orange-yellow, paradisal fruit, gleaming against the +wintry blue sky. The monthly roses still blossom frail and pink, there +are still crimson and yellow roses. But the vines are bare and the +lemon-houses shut. And then, mid-winter, the lowest buds of the +Christmas roses appear under the hedges and rocks and by the streams. +They are very lovely, these first large, cold, pure buds, like violets, +like magnolias, but cold, lit up with the light from the snow. + +The days go by, through the brief silence of winter, when the sunshine +is so still and pure, like iced wine, and the dead leaves gleam brown, +and water sounds hoarse in the ravines. It is so still and transcendent, +the cypress trees poise like flames of forgotten darkness, that should +have been blown out at the end of the summer. For as we have candles to +light the darkness of night, so the cypresses are candles to keep the +darkness aflame in the full sunshine. + +Meanwhile, the Christmas roses become many. They rise from their budded, +intact humbleness near the ground, they rise up, they throw up their +crystal, they become handsome, they are heaps of confident, mysterious +whiteness in the shadow of a rocky stream. It is almost uncanny to see +them. They are the flowers of darkness, white and wonderful +beyond belief. + +Then their radiance becomes soiled and brown, they thaw, break, and +scatter and vanish away. Already the primroses are coming out, and the +almond is in bud. The winter is passing away. On the mountains the +fierce snow gleams apricot gold as evening approaches, golden, apricot, +but so bright that it is almost frightening. What can be so fiercely +gleaming when all is shadowy? It is something inhuman and unmitigated +between heaven and earth. + +The heavens are strange and proud all the winter, their progress goes on +without reference to the dim earth. The dawns come white and +translucent, the lake is a moonstone in the dark hills, then across the +lake there stretches a vein of fire, then a whole, orange, flashing +track over the whiteness. There is the exquisite silent passage of the +day, and then at evening the afterglow, a huge incandescence of rose, +hanging above and gleaming, as if it were the presence of a host of +angels in rapture. It gleams like a rapturous chorus, then passes away, +and the stars appear, large and flashing. + +Meanwhile, the primroses are dawning on the ground, their light is +growing stronger, spreading over the banks and under the bushes. Between +the olive roots the violets are out, large, white, grave violets, and +less serious blue ones. And looking down the bill, among the grey smoke +of olive leaves, pink puffs of smoke are rising up. It is the almond and +the apricot trees, it is the Spring. + +Soon the primroses are strong on the ground. There is a bank of small, +frail crocuses shooting the lavender into this spring. And then the +tussocks and tussocks of primroses are fully out, there is full morning +everywhere on the banks and roadsides and stream-sides, and around the +olive roots, a morning of primroses underfoot, with an invisible +threading of many violets, and then the lovely blue clusters of +hepatica, really like pieces of blue sky showing through a clarity of +primrose. The few birds are piping thinly and shyly, the streams sing +again, there is a strange flowering shrub full of incense, overturned +flowers of crimson and gold, like Bohemian glass. Between the olive +roots new grass is coming, day is leaping all clear and coloured from +the earth, it is full Spring, full first rapture. + +Does it pass away, or does it only lose its pristine quality? It deepens +and intensifies, like experience. The days seem to be darker and richer, +there is a sense of power in the strong air. On the banks by the lake +the orchids are out, many, many pale bee-orchids standing clear from the +short grass over the lake. And in the hollows are the grape hyacinths, +purple as noon, with the heavy, sensual fragrance of noon. They are +many-breasted, and full of milk, and ripe, and sun-darkened, like +many-breasted Diana. + +We could not bear to live down in the village any more, now that the +days opened large and spacious and the evenings drew out in sunshine. We +could not bear the indoors, when above us the mountains shone in clear +air. It was time to go up, to climb with the sun. + +So after Easter we went to San Gaudenzio. It was three miles away, up +the winding mule-track that climbed higher and higher along the lake. +Leaving the last house of the village, the path wound on the steep, +cliff-like side of the lake, curving into the hollow where the landslip +had tumbled the rocks in chaos, then out again on to the bluff of a +headland that hung over the lake. + +Thus we came to the tall barred gate of San Gaudenzio, on which was the +usual little fire-insurance tablet, and then the advertisements for +beer, 'Birra, Verona', which is becoming a more and more popular drink. + +Through the gate, inside the high wall, is the little Garden of Eden, a +property of three or four acres fairly level upon a headland over the +lake. The high wall girds it on the land side, and makes it perfectly +secluded. On the lake-side it is bounded by the sudden drops of the +land, in sharp banks and terraces, overgrown with ilex and with laurel +bushes, down to the brink of the cliff, so that the thicket of the first +declivities seems to safeguard the property. + +The pink farm-house stands almost in the centre of the little territory, +among the olive trees. It is a solid, six-roomed place, about fifty +years old, having been rebuilt by Paolo's uncle. Here we came to live +for a time with the Fiori, Maria and Paolo, and their three children, +Giovanni and Marco and Felicina. + +Paolo had inherited, or partly inherited, San Gaudenzio, which had been +in his family for generations. He was a peasant of fifty-three, very +grey and wrinkled and worn-looking, but at the same time robust, with +full strong limbs and a powerful chest. His face was old, but his body +was solid and powerful. His eyes were blue like upper ice, beautiful. He +had been a fair-haired man, now he was almost white. + +He, was strangely like the pictures of peasants in the northern Italian +pictures, with the same curious nobility, the same aristocratic, eternal +look of motionlessness, something statuesque. His head was hard and +fine, the bone finely constructed, though the skin of his face was loose +and furrowed with work. His temples had that fine, hard clarity which is +seen in Mantegna, an almost jewel-like quality. + +We all loved Paolo, he was so finished in his being, detached, with an +almost classic simplicity and gentleness, an eternal kind of sureness. +There was also something concluded and unalterable about him, something +inaccessible. + +Maria Fiori was different. She was from the plain, like Enrico +Persevalli and the Bersaglier from the Venetian district. She reminded +me again of oxen, broad-boned and massive in physique, dark-skinned, +slow in her soul. But, like the oxen of the plain, she knew her work, +she knew the other people engaged in the work. Her intelligence was +attentive and purposive. She had been a housekeeper, a servant, in +Venice and Verona, before her marriage. She had got the hang of this +world of commerce and activity, she wanted to master it. But she was +weighted down by her heavy animal blood. + +Paolo and she were the opposite sides of the universe, the light and the +dark. Yet they lived together now without friction, detached, each +subordinated in their common relationship. With regard to Maria, Paolo +omitted himself; Maria omitted herself with regard to Paolo. Their souls +were silent and detached, completely apart, and silent, quite silent. +They shared the physical relationship of marriage as if it were +something beyond them, a third thing. + +They had suffered very much in the earlier stages of their connexion. +Now the storm had gone by, leaving them, as it were, spent. They were +both by nature passionate, vehement. But the lines of their passion were +opposite. Hers was the primitive, crude, violent flux of the blood, +emotional and undiscriminating, but wanting to mix and mingle. His was +the hard, clear, invulnerable passion of the bones, finely tempered and +unchangeable. She was the flint and he the steel. But in continual +striking together they only destroyed each other. The fire was a third +thing, belonging to neither of them. + +She was still heavy and full of desire. She was much younger than he. + +'How long did you know your Signora before you were married?' she asked +me. + +'Six weeks,' I said. + +'_Il Paolo e me, venti giorni, tre settimane_,' she cried vehemently. +Three weeks they had known each other when they married. She still +triumphed in the fact. So did Paolo. But it was past, strangely and +rather terribly past. + +What did they want when they came together, Paolo and she? He was a man +over thirty, she was a woman of twenty-three. They were both violent in +desire and of strong will. They came together at once, like two +wrestlers almost matched in strength. Their meetings must have been +splendid. Giovanni, the eldest child, was a tall lad of sixteen, with +soft brown hair and grey eyes, and a clarity of brow, and the same calm +simplicity of bearing which made Paolo so complete; but the son had at +the same time a certain brownness of skin, a heaviness of blood, which +he had from his mother. Paolo was so clear and translucent. + +In Giovanni the fusion of the parents was perfect, he was a perfect +spark from the flint and steel. There was in Paolo a subtle intelligence +in feeling, a delicate appreciation of the other person. But the mind +was unintelligent, he could not grasp a new order. Maria Fiori was much +sharper and more adaptable to the ways of the world. Paolo had an almost +glass-like quality, fine and clear and perfectly tempered; but he was +also finished and brittle. Maria was much coarser, more vulgar, but also +she was more human, more fertile, with crude potentiality. His passion +was too fixed in its motion, hers too loose and overwhelming. + +But Giovanni was beautiful, gentle, and courtly like Paolo, but warm, +like Maria, ready to flush like a girl with anger or confusion. He stood +straight and tall, and seemed to look into the far distance with his +clear grey eyes. Yet also he could look at one and touch one with his +look, he could meet one. Paolo's blue eyes were like the eyes of the old +spinning-woman, clear and blue and belonging to the mountains, their +vision seemed to end in space, abstract. They reminded me of the eyes of +the eagle, which looks into the sun, and which teaches its young to do +the same, although they are unwilling. + +Marco, the second son, was thirteen years old. He was his mother's +favourite, Giovanni loved his father best. But Marco was his mother's +son, with the same brown-gold and red complexion, like a pomegranate, +and coarse black hair, and brown eyes like pebble, like agate, like an +animal's eyes. He had the same broad, bovine figure, though he was only +a boy. But there was some discrepancy in him. He was not unified, he had +no identity. + +He was strong and full of animal life, but always aimless, as though his +wits scarcely controlled him. But he loved his mother with a +fundamental, generous, undistinguishing love. Only he always forgot what +he was going to do. He was much more sensitive than Maria, more shy and +reluctant. But his shyness, his sensitiveness only made him more aimless +and awkward, a tiresome clown, slack and uncontrolled, witless. All day +long his mother shouted and shrilled and scolded at him, or hit him +angrily. He did not mind, he came up like a cork, warm and roguish and +curiously appealing. She loved him with a fierce protective love, +grounded on pain. There was such a split, a contrariety in his soul, one +part reacting against the other, which landed him always into trouble. + +It was when Marco was a baby that Paolo had gone to America. They were +poor on San Gaudenzio. There were the few olive trees, the grapes, and +the fruit; there was the one cow. But these scarcely made a living. +Neither was Maria content with the real peasants' lot any more, polenta +at midday and vegetable soup in the evening, and no way out, nothing to +look forward to, no future, only this eternal present. She had been in +service, and had eaten bread and drunk coffee, and known the flux and +variable chance of life. She had departed from the old static +conception. She knew what one might be, given a certain chance. The +fixture was the thing she militated against. So Paolo went to America, +to California, into the gold mines. + +Maria wanted the future, the endless possibility of life on earth. She +wanted her sons to be freer, to achieve a new plane of living. The +peasant's life was a slave's life, she said, railing against the poverty +and the drudgery. And it was quite true, Paolo and Giovanni worked +twelve and fourteen hours a day at heavy laborious work that would have +broken an Englishman. And there was nothing at the end of it. Yet Paolo +was even happy so. This was the truth to him. + +It was the mother who wanted things different. It was she who railed and +railed against the miserable life of the peasants. When we were going to +throw to the fowls a dry broken penny roll of white bread, Maria said, +with anger and shame and resentment in her voice: 'Give it to Marco, he +will eat it. It isn't too dry for him.' + +White bread was a treat for them even now, when everybody eats bread. +And Maria Fiori hated it, that bread should be a treat to her children, +when it was the meanest food of all the rest of the world. She was in +opposition to this order. She did not want her sons to be peasants, +fixed and static as posts driven in the earth. She wanted them to be in +the great flux of life in the midst of all possibilities. So she at +length sent Paolo to America to the gold-mines. Meanwhile, she covered +the wall of her parlour with picture postcards, to bring the outer world +of cities and industries into her house. + +Paolo was entirely remote from Maria's world. He had not yet even +grasped the fact of money, not thoroughly. He reckoned in land and olive +trees. So he had the old fatalistic attitude to his circumstances, even +to his food. The earth was the Lord's and the fulness thereof; also the +leanness thereof. Paolo could only do his part and leave the rest. If he +ate in plenty, having oil and wine and sausage in the house, and plenty +of maize-meal, he was glad with the Lord. If he ate meagrely, of poor +polenta, that was fate, it was the skies that ruled these things, and no +man ruled the skies. He took his fate as it fell from the skies. + +Maria was exorbitant about money. She would charge us all she could for +what we had and for what was done for us. + +Yet she was not mean in her soul. In her soul she was in a state of +anger because of her own closeness. It was a violation to her strong +animal nature. Yet her mind had wakened to the value of money. She knew +she could alter her position, the position of her children, by virtue of +money. She knew it was only money that made the difference between +master and servant. And this was all the difference she would +acknowledge. So she ruled her life according to money. Her supreme +passion was to be mistress rather than servant, her supreme aspiration +for her children was that in the end they might be masters and +not servants. + +Paolo was untouched by all this. For him there was some divinity about a +master which even America had not destroyed. If we came in for supper +whilst the family was still at table he would have the children at once +take their plates to the wall, he would have Maria at once set the table +for us, though their own meal were never finished. And this was not +servility, it was the dignity of a religious conception. Paolo regarded +us as belonging to the Signoria, those who are elect, near to God. And +this was part of his religious service. His life was a ritual. It was +very beautiful, but it made me unhappy, the purity of his spirit was so +sacred and the actual facts seemed such a sacrilege to it. Maria was +nearer to the actual truth when she said that money was the only +distinction. But Paolo had hold of an eternal truth, where hers was +temporal. Only Paolo misapplied this eternal truth. He should not have +given Giovanni the inferior status and a fat, mean Italian tradesman the +superior. That was false, a real falsity. Maria knew it and hated it. +But Paolo could not distinguish between the accident of riches and the +aristocracy of the spirit. So Maria rejected him altogether, and went to +the other extreme. We were all human beings like herself; naked, there +was no distinction between us, no higher nor lower. But we were +possessed of more money than she. And she had to steer her course +between these two conceptions. The money alone made the real +distinction, the separation; the being, the life made the common level. + +Paolo had the curious peasant's avarice also, but it was not meanness. +It was a sort of religious conservation of his own power, his own self. +Fortunately he could leave all business transactions on our account to +Maria, so that his relation with us was purely ritualistic. He would +have given me anything, trusting implicitly that I would fulfil my own +nature as Signore, one of those more godlike, nearer the light of +perfection than himself, a peasant. It was pure bliss to him to bring us +the first-fruit of the garden, it was like laying it on an altar. + +And his fulfilment was in a fine, subtle, exquisite relationship, not of +manners, but subtle interappreciation. He worshipped a finer +understanding and a subtler tact. A further fineness and dignity and +freedom in bearing was to him an approach towards the divine, so he +loved men best of all, they fulfilled his soul. A woman was always a +woman, and sex was a low level whereon he did not esteem himself. But a +man, a doer, the instrument of God, he was really godlike. + +Paolo was a Conservative. For him the world was established and divine +in its establishment. His vision grasped a small circle. A finer nature, +a higher understanding, took in a greater circle, comprehended the +whole. So that when Paolo was in relation to a man of further vision, he +himself was extended towards the whole. Thus he was fulfilled. And his +initial assumption was that every signore, every gentleman, was a man of +further, purer vision than himself. This assumption was false. But +Maria's assumption, that no one had a further vision, no one was more +elect than herself, that we are all one flesh and blood and being, was +even more false. Paolo was mistaken in actual life, but Maria was +ultimately mistaken. + +Paolo, conservative as he was, believing that a priest must be a priest +of God, yet very rarely went to church. And he used the religious oaths +that Maria hated, even _Porca-Maria_. He always used oaths, either +Bacchus or God or Mary or the Sacrament. Maria was always offended. Yet +it was she who, in her soul, jeered at the Church and at religion. She +wanted the human society as the absolute, without religious +abstractions. So Paolo's oaths enraged her, because of their profanity, +she said. But it was really because of their subscribing to another +superhuman order. She jeered at the clerical people. She made a loud +clamour of derision when the parish priest of the village above went +down to the big village on the lake, and across the piazza, the quay, +with two pigs in a sack on his shoulder. This was a real picture of the +sacred minister to her. + +One day, when a storm had blown down an olive tree in front of the +house, and Paolo and Giovanni were beginning to cut it up, this same +priest of Mugiano came to San Gaudenzio. He was an iron-grey, thin, +disreputable-looking priest, very talkative and loud and queer. He +seemed like an old ne'er-do-well in priests' black, and he talked +loudly, almost to himself, as drunken people do. At once _he_ must show +the Fiori how to cut up the tree, he must have the axe from Paolo. He +shouted to Maria for a glass of wine. She brought it out to him with a +sort of insolent deference, insolent contempt of the man and traditional +deference to the cloth. The priest drained the tumblerful of wine at one +drink, his thin throat with its Adam's apple working. And he did not pay +the penny. + +Then he stripped off his cassock and put away his hat, and, a ludicrous +figure in ill-fitting black knee-breeches and a not very clean shirt, a +red handkerchief round his neck, he proceeded to give great extravagant +blows at the tree. He was like a caricature. In the doorway Maria was +encouraging him rather jeeringly, whilst she winked at me. Marco was +stifling his hysterical amusement in his mother's apron, and prancing +with glee. Paolo and Giovanni stood by the fallen tree, very grave and +unmoved, inscrutable, abstract. Then the youth came away to the doorway, +with a flush mounting on his face and a grimace distorting its +youngness. Only Paolo, unmoved and detached, stood by the tree with +unchanging, abstract face, very strange, his eyes fixed in the ageless +stare which is so characteristic. + +Meanwhile the priest swung drunken blows at the tree, his thin buttocks +bending in the green-black broadcloth, supported on thin shanks, and +thin throat growing dull purple in the red-knotted kerchief. +Nevertheless he was doing the job. His face was wet with sweat. He +wanted another glass of wine. + +He took no notice of us. He was strangely a local, even a mountebank +figure, but entirely local, an appurtenance of the district. + +It was Maria who jeeringly told us the story of the priest, who shrugged +her shoulders to imply that he was a contemptible figure. Paolo sat with +the abstract look on his face, as of one who hears and does not hear, is +not really concerned. He never opposed or contradicted her, but stayed +apart. It was she who was violent and brutal in her ways. But sometimes +Paolo went into a rage, and then Maria, everybody, was afraid. It was a +white heavy rage, when his blue eyes shone unearthly, and his mouth +opened with a curious drawn blindness of the old Furies. There was +something of the cruelty of a falling mass of snow, heavy, horrible. +Maria drew away, there was a silence. Then the avalanche was finished. + +They must have had some cruel fights before they learned to withdraw +from each other so completely. They must have begotten Marco in hatred, +terrible disintegrated opposition and otherness. And it was after this, +after the child of their opposition was born, that Paolo went away to +California, leaving his San Gaudenzio, travelling with several +companions, like blind beasts, to Havre, and thence to New York, then to +California. He stayed five years in the gold-mines, in a wild valley, +living with a gang of Italians in a town of corrugated iron. + +All the while he had never really left San Gaudenzio. I asked him, 'Used +you to think of it, the lake, the Monte Baldo, the laurel trees down the +slope?' He tried to see what I wanted to know. Yes, he said--but +uncertainly. I could see that he had never been really homesick. It had +been very wretched on the ship going from Havre to New York. That he +told me about. And he told me about the gold-mines, the galleries, the +valley, the huts in the valley. But he had never really fretted for San +Gaudenzio whilst he was in California. + +In real truth he was at San Gaudenzio all the time, his fate was riveted +there. His going away was an excursion from reality, a kind of +sleep-walking. He left his own reality there in the soil above the lake +of Garda. That his body was in California, what did it matter? It was +merely for a time, and for the sake of his own earth, his land. He would +pay off the mortgage. But the gate at home was his gate all the time, +his hand was on the latch. + +As for Maria, he had felt his duty towards her. She was part of his +little territory, the rooted centre of the world. He sent her home the +money. But it did not occur to him, in his soul, to miss her. He wanted +her to be safe with the children, that was all. In his flesh perhaps he +missed the woman. But his spirit was even more completely isolated since +marriage. Instead of having united with each other, they had made each +other more terribly distinct and separate. He could live alone +eternally. It was his condition. His sex was functional, like eating and +drinking. To take a woman, a prostitute at the camp, or not to take her, +was no more vitally important than to get drunk or not to get drunk of a +Sunday. And fairly often on Sunday Paolo got drunk. His world remained +unaltered. + +But Maria suffered more bitterly. She was a young, powerful, passionate +woman, and she was unsatisfied body and soul. Her soul's satisfaction +became a bodily unsatisfaction. Her blood was heavy, violent, anarchic, +insisting on the equality of the blood in all, and therefore on her own +absolute right to satisfaction. + +She took a wine licence for San Gaudenzio, and she sold wine. There were +many scandals about her. Somehow it did not matter very much, outwardly. +The authorities were too divided among themselves to enforce public +opinion. Between the clerical party and the radicals and the socialists, +what canons were left that were absolute? Besides, these wild villages +had always been ungoverned. + +Yet Maria suffered. Even she, according to her conviction belonged to +Paolo. And she felt betrayed, betrayed and deserted. The iron had gone +deep into her soul. Paolo had deserted her, she had been betrayed to +other men for five years. There was something cruel and implacable in +life. She sat sullen and heavy, for all her quick activity. Her soul was +sullen and heavy. + +I could never believe Felicina was Paolo's child. She was an +unprepossessing little girl, affected, cold, selfish, foolish. Maria and +Paolo, with real Italian greatness, were warm and natural towards the +child in her. But they did not love her in their very souls, she was the +fruit of ash to them. And this must have been the reason that she was so +self-conscious and foolish and affected, small child that she was. + +Paolo had come back from America a year before she was born--a year +before she was born, Maria insisted. The husband and wife lived together +in a relationship of complete negation. In his soul he was sad for her, +and in her soul she felt annulled. He sat at evening in the +chimney-seat, smoking, always pleasant and cheerful, not for a moment +thinking he was unhappy. It had all taken place in his subconsciousness. +But his eyebrows and eyelids were lifted in a kind of vacancy, his blue +eyes were round and somehow finished, though he was so gentle and +vigorous in body. But the very quick of him was killed. He was like a +ghost in the house, with his loose throat and powerful limbs, his open, +blue extinct eyes, and his musical, slightly husky voice, that seemed to +sound out of the past. + +And Maria, stout and strong and handsome like a peasant woman, went +about as if there were a weight on her, and her voice was high and +strident. She, too, was finished in her life. But she remained unbroken, +her will was like a hammer that destroys the old form. + +Giovanni was patiently labouring to learn a little English. Paolo knew +only four or five words, the chief of which were 'a'right', 'boss', +'bread', and 'day'. The youth had these by heart, and was studying a +little more. He was very graceful and lovable, but he found it difficult +to learn. A confused light, like hot tears, would come into his eyes +when he had again forgotten the phrase. But he carried the paper about +with him, and he made steady progress. + +He would go to America, he also. Not for anything would he stay in San +Gaudenzio. His dream was to be gone. He would come back. The world was +not San Gaudenzio to Giovanni. + +The old order, the order of Paolo and of Pietro di Paoli, the +aristocratic order of the supreme God, God the Father, the Lord, was +passing away from the beautiful little territory. The household no +longer receives its food, oil and wine and maize, from out of the earth +in the motion of fate. The earth is annulled, and money takes its place. +The landowner, who is the lieutenant of God and of Fate, like Abraham, +he, too, is annulled. There is now the order of the rich, which +supersedes the order of the Signoria. + +It is passing away from Italy as it has passed from England. The peasant +is passing away, the workman is taking his place. The stability is gone. +Paolo is a ghost, Maria is the living body. And the new order means +sorrow for the Italian more even than it has meant for us. But he will +have the new order. + +San Gaudenzio is already becoming a thing of the past. Below the house, +where the land drops in sharp slips to the sheer cliff's edge, over +which it is Maria's constant fear that Felicina will tumble, there are +the deserted lemon gardens of the little territory, snug down below. +They are invisible till one descends by tiny paths, sheer down into +them. And there they stand, the pillars and walls erect, but a dead +emptiness prevailing, lemon trees all dead, gone, a few vines in their +place. It is only twenty years since the lemon trees finally perished of +a disease and were not renewed. But the deserted terrace, shut between +great walls, descending in their openness full to the south, to the lake +and the mountain opposite, seem more terrible than Pompeii in their +silence and utter seclusion. The grape hyacinths flower in the cracks, +the lizards run, this strange place hangs suspended and forgotten, +forgotten for ever, its erect pillars utterly meaningless. + +I used to sit and write in the great loft of the lemon-house, high up, +far, far from the ground, the open front giving across the lake and the +mountain snow opposite, flush with twilight. The old matting and boards, +the old disused implements of lemon culture made shadows in the deserted +place. Then there would come the call from the back, away above: +'_Venga, venga mangiare_.' + +We ate in the kitchen, where the olive and laurel wood burned in the +open fireplace. It was always soup in the evening. Then we played games +or cards, all playing; or there was singing, with the accordion, and +sometimes a rough mountain peasant with a guitar. + +But it is all passing away. Giovanni is in America, unless he has come +back to the War. He will not want to live in San Gaudenzio when he is a +man, he says. He and Marco will not spend their lives wringing a little +oil and wine out of the rocky soil, even if they are not killed in the +fighting which is going on at the end of the lake. In my loft by the +lemon-houses now I should hear the guns. And Giovanni kissed me with a +kind of supplication when I went on to the steamer, as if he were +beseeching for a soul. His eyes were bright and clear and lit up with +courage. He will make a good fight for the new soul he wants--that is, +if they do not kill him in this War. + + + +_5_ + +THE DANCE + + +Maria had no real licence for San Gaudenzio, yet the peasants always +called for wine. It is easy to arrange in Italy. The penny is paid +another time. + +The wild old road that skirts the lake-side, scrambling always higher as +the precipice becomes steeper, climbing and winding to the villages +perched high up, passes under the high boundary-wall of San Gaudenzio, +between that and the ruined church. But the road went just as much +between the vines and past the house as outside, under the wall; for the +high gates were always open, and men or women and mules come into the +property to call at the door of the homestead. There was a loud shout, +'Ah--a--a--ah--Mari--a. O--O--Oh Pa'o!' from outside, another wild, +inarticulate cry from within, and one of the Fiori appeared in the +doorway to hail the newcomer. + +It was usually a man, sometimes a peasant from Mugiano, high up, +sometimes a peasant from the wilds of the mountain, a wood-cutter, or a +charcoal-burner. He came in and sat in the house-place, his glass of +wine in his hand between his knees, or on the floor between his feet, +and he talked in a few wild phrases, very shy, like a hawk indoors, and +unintelligible in his dialect. + +Sometimes we had a dance. Then, for the wine to drink, three men came +with mandolines and guitars, and sat in a corner playing their rapid +tunes, while all danced on the dusty brick floor of the little parlour. +No strange women were invited, only men; the young bloods from the big +village on the lake, the wild men from above. They danced the slow, +trailing, lilting polka-waltz round and round the small room, the +guitars and mandolines twanging rapidly, the dust rising from the soft +bricks. There were only the two English women: so men danced with men, +as the Italians love to do. They love even better to dance with men, +with a dear blood-friend, than with women. + +'It's better like this, two men?' Giovanni says to me, his blue eyes +hot, his face curiously tender. + +The wood-cutters and peasants take off their coats, their throats are +bare. They dance with strange intentness, particularly if they have for +partner an English Signora. Their feet in thick boots are curiously +swift and significant. And it is strange to see the Englishwomen, as +they dance with the peasants transfigured with a kind of brilliant +surprise. All the while the peasants are very courteous, but quiet. They +see the women dilate and flash, they think they have found a footing, +they are certain. So the male dancers are quiet, but even grandiloquent, +their feet nimble, their bodies wild and confident. + +They are at a loss when the two English Signoras move together and laugh +excitedly at the end of the dance. + +'Isn't it fine?' + +'Fine! Their arms are like iron, carrying you round.' + +'Yes! Yes! And the muscles on their shoulders! I never knew there were +such muscles! I'm almost frightened.' + +'But it's fine, isn't it? I'm getting into the dance.' + +'Yes--yes--you've only to let them take you.' + +Then the glasses are put down, the guitars give their strange, vibrant, +almost painful summons, and the dance begins again. + +It is a strange dance, strange and lilting, and changing as the music +changed. But it had always a kind of leisurely dignity, a trailing kind +of polka-waltz, intimate, passionate, yet never hurried, never violent +in its passion, always becoming more intense. The women's faces changed +to a kind of transported wonder, they were in the very rhythm of +delight. From the soft bricks of the floor the red ochre rose in a thin +cloud of dust, making hazy the shadowy dancers; the three musicians, in +their black hats and their cloaks, sat obscurely in the corner, making a +music that came quicker and quicker, making a dance that grew swifter +and more intense, more subtle, the men seeming to fly and to implicate +other strange inter-rhythmic dance into the women, the women drifting +and palpitating as if their souls shook and resounded to a breeze that +was subtly rushing upon them, through them; the men worked their feet, +their thighs swifter, more vividly, the music came to an almost +intolerable climax, there was a moment when the dance passed into a +possession, the men caught up the women and swung them from the earth, +leapt with them for a second, and then the next phase of the dance had +begun, slower again, more subtly interwoven, taking perfect, oh, +exquisite delight in every interrelated movement, a rhythm within a +rhythm, a subtle approaching and drawing nearer to a climax, nearer, +till, oh, there was the surpassing lift and swing of the women, when the +woman's body seemed like a boat lifted over the powerful, exquisite wave +of the man's body, perfect, for a moment, and then once more the slow, +intense, nearer movement of the dance began, always nearer, nearer, +always to a more perfect climax. + +And the women waited as if in transport for the climax, when they would +be flung into a movement surpassing all movement. They were flung, borne +away, lifted like a boat on a supreme wave, into the zenith and nave of +the heavens, consummate. + +Then suddenly the dance crashed to an end, and the dancers stood +stranded, lost, bewildered, on a strange shore. The air was full of red +dust, half-lit by the lamp on the wall; the players in the corner were +putting down their instruments to take up their glasses. + +And the dancers sat round the wall, crowding in the little room, faint +with the transport of repeated ecstasy. There was a subtle smile on the +face of the men, subtle, knowing, so finely sensual that the conscious +eyes could scarcely look at it. And the women were dazed, like creatures +dazzled by too much light. The light was still on their faces, like a +blindness, a reeling, like a transfiguration. The men were bringing +wine, on a little tin tray, leaning with their proud, vivid loins, their +faces flickering with the same subtle smile. Meanwhile, Maria Fiori was +splashing water, much water, on the red floor. There was the smell of +water among the glowing, transfigured men and women who sat gleaming in +another world, round the walls. + +The peasants have chosen their women. For the dark, handsome +Englishwoman, who looks like a slightly malignant Madonna, comes Il +Duro; for the '_bella bionda_', the wood-cutter. But the peasants have +always to take their turn after the young well-to-do men from the +village below. + +Nevertheless, they are confident. They cannot understand the +middle-class diffidence of the young men who wear collars and ties and +finger-rings. + +The wood-cutter from the mountain is of medium height, dark, thin, and +hard as a hatchet, with eyes that are black like the very flaming thrust +of night. He is quite a savage. There is something strange about his +dancing, the violent way he works one shoulder. He has a wooden leg, +from the knee-joint. Yet he dances well, and is inordinately proud. He +is fierce as a bird, and hard with energy as a thunderbolt. He will +dance with the blonde signora. But he never speaks. He is like some +violent natural phenomenon rather than a person. The woman begins to +wilt a little in his possession. + +'_E bello--il ballo?_' he asked at length, one direct, flashing +question. + +'_Si--molto bello_,' cries the woman, glad to have speech again. + +The eyes of the wood-cutter flash like actual possession. He seems now +to have come into his own. With all his senses, he is dominant, sure. + +He is inconceivably vigorous in body, and his dancing is almost perfect, +with a little catch in it, owing to his lameness, which brings almost a +pure intoxication. Every muscle in his body is supple as steel, supple, +as strong as thunder, and yet so quick, so delicately swift, it is +almost unbearable. As he draws near to the swing, the climax, the +ecstasy, he seems to lie in wait, there is a sense of a great strength +crouching ready. Then it rushes forth, liquid, perfect, transcendent, +the woman swoons over in the dance, and it goes on, enjoyment, infinite, +incalculable enjoyment. He is like a god, a strange natural phenomenon, +most intimate and compelling, wonderful. + +But he is not a human being. The woman, somewhere shocked in her +independent soul, begins to fall away from him. She has another being, +which he has not touched, and which she will fall back upon. The dance +is over, she will fall back on herself. It is perfect, too perfect. + +During the next dance, while she is in the power of the educated Ettore, +a perfect and calculated voluptuary, who knows how much he can get out +of this Northern woman, and only how much, the wood-cutter stands on the +edge of the darkness, in the open doorway, and watches. He is fixed upon +her, established, perfect. And all the while she is aware of the +insistent hawk-like poising of the face of the wood-cutter, poised on +the edge of the darkness, in the doorway, in possession, +unrelinquishing. + +And she is angry. There is something stupid, absurd, in the hard, +talon-like eyes watching so fiercely and so confidently in the doorway, +sure, unmitigated. Has the creature no sense? + +The woman reacts from him. For some time she will take no notice of him. +But he waits, fixed. Then she comes near to him, and his will seems to +take hold of her. He looks at her with a strange, proud, inhuman +confidence, as if his influence with her was already accomplished. + +'_Venga--venga un po'_,' he says, jerking his head strangely to the +darkness. + +'What?' she replies, and passes shaken and dilated and brilliant, +consciously ignoring him, passes away among the others, among those +who are safe. + +There is food in the kitchen, great hunks of bread, sliced sausage that +Maria has made, wine, and a little coffee. But only the quality come to +eat. The peasants may not come in. There is eating and drinking in the +little house, the guitars are silent. It is eleven o'clock. + +Then there is singing, the strange bestial singing of these hills. +Sometimes the guitars can play an accompaniment, but usually not. Then +the men lift up their heads and send out the high, half-howling music, +astounding. The words are in dialect. They argue among themselves for a +moment: will the Signoria understand? They sing. The Signoria does not +understand in the least. So with a strange, slightly malignant triumph, +the men sing all the verses of their song, sitting round the walls of +the little parlour. Their throats move, their faces have a slight +mocking smile. The boy capers in the doorway like a faun, with glee, his +straight black hair falling over his forehead. The elder brother sits +straight and flushed, but even his eyes glitter with a kind of yellow +light of laughter. Paolo also sits quiet, with the invisible smile on +his face.' Only Maria, large and active, prospering now, keeps +collected, ready to order a shrill silence in the same way as she orders +the peasants, violently, to keep their places. + +The boy comes to me and says: + +'Do you know, Signore, what they are singing?' + +'No,' I say. + +So he capers with furious glee. The men with the watchful eyes, all +roused, sit round the wall and sing more distinctly: + + _Si verra la primavera + Fiorann' le mandoline, + Vienn' di basso le Trentine + Coi 'taliani far' l'amor._ + +But the next verses are so improper that I pretend not to understand. +The women, with wakened, dilated faces, are listening, listening hard, +their two faces beautiful in their attention, as if listening to +something magical, a long way off. And the men sitting round the wall +sing more plainly, coming nearer to the correct Italian. The song comes +loud and vibrating and maliciously from their reedy throats, it +penetrates everybody. The foreign women can understand the sound, they +can feel the malicious, suggestive mockery. But they cannot catch the +words. The smile becomes more dangerous on the faces of the men. + +Then Maria Fiori sees that I have understood, and she cries, in her +loud, overriding voice: + +'_Basta--basta._ + +The men get up, straighten their bodies with a curious, offering +movement. The guitars and mandolines strike the vibrating strings. But +the vague Northern reserve has come over the Englishwomen. They dance +again, but without the fusion in the dance. They have had enough. + +The musicians are thanked, they rise and go into the night. The men pass +off in pairs. But the wood-cutter, whose name and whose nickname I could +never hear, still hovered on the edge of the darkness. + +Then Maria sent him also away, complaining that he was too wild, +_proprio selvatico_, and only the 'quality' remained, the well-to-do +youths from below. There was a little more coffee, and a talking, a +story of a man who had fallen over a declivity in a lonely part going +home drunk in the evening, and had lain unfound for eighteen hours. Then +a story of a donkey who had kicked a youth in the chest and killed him. + +But the women were tired, they would go to bed. Still the two young men +would not go away. We all went out to look at the night. + +The stars were very bright overhead, the mountain opposite and the +mountains behind us faintly outlined themselves on the sky. Below, the +lake was a black gulf. A little wind blew cold from the Adige. + +In the morning the visitors had gone. They had insisted on staying the +night. They had eaten eight eggs each and much bread at one o'clock in +the morning. Then they had gone to sleep, lying on the floor in the +sitting-room. + +In the early sunshine they had drunk coffee and gone down to the village +on the lake. Maria was very pleased. She would have made a good deal of +money. The young men were rich. Her cupidity seemed like her +very blossom. + + + +_6_ + +IL DURO + + +The first time I saw Il Duro was on a sunny day when there came up a +party of pleasure-makers to San Gaudenzio. They were three women and +three men. The women were in cotton frocks, one a large, dark, florid +woman in pink, the other two rather insignificant. The men I scarcely +noticed at first, except that two were young and one elderly. + +They were a queer party, even on a feast day, coming up purely for +pleasure, in the morning, strange, and slightly uncertain, advancing +between the vines. They greeted Maria and Paolo in loud, coarse voices. +There was something blowsy and uncertain and hesitating about the women +in particular, which made one at once notice them. + +Then a picnic was arranged for them out of doors, on the grass. They sat +just in front of the house, under the olive tree, beyond the well. It +should have been pretty, the women in their cotton frocks, and their +friends, sitting with wine and food in the spring sunshine. But somehow +it was not: it was hard and slightly ugly. + +But since they were picnicking out of doors, we must do so too. We were +at once envious. But Maria was a little unwilling, and then she set a +table for us. + +The strange party did not speak to us, they seemed slightly uneasy and +angry at our presence. I asked Maria who they were. She lifted her +shoulders, and, after a second's cold pause, said they were people from +down below, and then, in her rather strident, shrill, slightly bitter, +slightly derogatory voice, she added: + +'They are not people for you, signore. You don't know them.' + +She spoke slightly angrily and contemptuously of them, rather +protectively of me. So that vaguely I gathered that they were not quite +'respectable'. + +Only one man came into the house. He was very handsome, beautiful +rather, a man of thirty-two or-three, with a clear golden skin, and +perfectly turned face, something godlike. But the expression was +strange. His hair was jet black and fine and smooth, glossy as a bird's +wing, his brows were beautifully drawn, calm above his grey eyes, that +had long dark lashes. + +His eyes, however, had a sinister light in them, a pale, slightly +repelling gleam, very much like a god's pale-gleaming eyes, with the +same vivid pallor. And all his face had the slightly malignant, +suffering look of a satyr. Yet he was very beautiful. + +He walked quickly and surely, with his head rather down, passing from +his desire to his object, absorbed, yet curiously indifferent, as if the +transit were in a strange world, as if none of what he was doing were +worth the while. Yet he did it for his own pleasure, and the light on +his face, a pale, strange gleam through his clear skin, remained like a +translucent smile, unchanging as time. + +He seemed familiar with the household, he came and fetched wine at his +will. Maria was angry with him. She railed loudly and violently. He was +unchanged. He went out with the wine to the party on the grass. Maria +regarded them all with some hostility. + +They drank a good deal out there in the sunshine. The women and the +older man talked floridly. Il Duro crouched at the feast in his curious +fashion--he had strangely flexible loins, upon which he seemed to crouch +forward. But he was separate, like an animal that remains quite single, +no matter where it is. + +The party remained until about two o'clock. Then, slightly flushed, it +moved on in a ragged group up to the village beyond. I do not know if +they went to one of the inns of the stony village, or to the large +strange house which belonged to the rich young grocer of the village +below, a house kept only for feasts and riots, uninhabited for the most +part. Maria would tell me nothing about them. Only the young well-to-do +grocer, who had lived in Vienna, the Bertolotti, came later in the +afternoon inquiring for the party. + +And towards sunset I saw the elderly man of the group stumbling home +very drunk down the path, after the two women, who had gone on in front. +Then Paolo sent Giovanni to see the drunken one safely past the +landslip, which was dangerous. Altogether it was an unsatisfactory +business, very much like any other such party in any other country. + +Then in the evening Il Duro came in. His name is Faustino, but everybody +in the village has a nickname, which is almost invariably used. He came +in and asked for supper. We had all eaten. So he ate a little food alone +at the table, whilst we sat round the fire. + +Afterwards we played 'Up, Jenkins'. That was the one game we played with +the peasants, except that exciting one of theirs, which consists in +shouting in rapid succession your guesses at the number of fingers +rapidly spread out and shut into the hands again upon the table. + +Il Duro joined in the game. And that was because he had been in America, +and now was rich. He felt he could come near to the strange signori. But +he was always inscrutable. + +It was queer to look at the hands spread on the table: the Englishwomen, +having rings on their soft fingers; the large fresh hands of the elder +boy, the brown paws of the younger; Paolo's distorted great hard hands +of a peasant; and the big, dark brown, animal, shapely hands +of Faustino. + +He had been in America first for two years and then for five +years--seven years altogether--but he only spoke a very little English. +He was always with Italians. He had served chiefly in a flag factory, +and had had very little to do save to push a trolley with flags from the +dyeing-room to the drying-room I believe it was this. + +Then he had come home from America with a fair amount of money, he had +taken his uncle's garden, had inherited his uncle's little house, and he +lived quite alone. + +He was rich, Maria said, shouting in her strident voice. He at once +disclaimed it, peasant-wise. But before the signori he was glad also to +appear rich. He was mean, that was more, Maria cried, half-teasing, half +getting at him. + +He attended to his garden, grew vegetables all the year round, lived in +his little house, and in spring made good money as a vine-grafter: he +was an expert vine-grafter. + +After the boys had gone to bed he sat and talked to me. He was curiously +attractive and curiously beautiful, but somehow like stone in his clear +colouring and his clear-cut face. His temples, with the black hair, were +distinct and fine as a work of art. + +But always his eyes had this strange, half-diabolic, half-tortured pale +gleam, like a goat's, and his mouth was shut almost uglily, his cheeks +stern. His moustache was brown, his teeth strong and spaced. The women +said it was a pity his moustache was brown. + +'_Peccato!--sa, per bellezza, i baffi neri--ah-h!_' + +Then a long-drawn exclamation of voluptuous appreciation. + +'You live quite alone?' I said to him. + +He did. And even when he had been ill he was alone. He had been ill two +years before. His cheeks seemed to harden like marble and to become pale +at the thought. He was afraid, like marble with fear. + +'But why,' I said, 'why do you live alone? You are sad--_e triste_.' + +He looked at me with his queer, pale eyes. I felt a great static misery +in him, something very strange. + +'_Triste!_' he repeated, stiffening up, hostile. I could not understand. + +'_Vuol' dire che hai l'aria dolorosa_,' cried Maria, like a chorus +interpreting. And there was always a sort of loud ring of challenge +somewhere in her voice. + +'Sad,' I said in English. + +'Sad I' he repeated, also in English. And he did not smile or change, +only his face seemed to become more stone-like. And he only looked at +me, into my eyes, with the long, pale, steady, inscrutable look of a +goat, I can only repeat, something stone-like. + +'Why,' I said, 'don't you marry? Man doesn't live alone.' + +'I don't marry,' he said to me, in his emphatic, deliberate, cold +fashion, 'because I've seen too much. _Ho visto troppo._' + +'I don't understand,' I said. + +Yet I could feel that Paolo, sitting silent, like a monolith also, in +the chimney opening, he understood: Maria also understood. + +Il Duro looked again steadily into my eyes. + +'_Ho visto troppo_,' he repeated, and the words seemed engraved on +stone. 'I've seen too much.' + +'But you can marry,' I said, 'however much you have seen, if you have +seen all the world.' + +He watched me steadily, like a strange creature looking at me. + +'What woman?' he said to me. + +'You can find a woman--there are plenty of women,' I said. + +'Not for me,' he said. 'I have known too many. I've known too much, I +can marry nobody.' + +'Do you dislike women?' I said. + +'No--quite otherwise. I don't think ill of them.' + +'Then why can't you marry? Why must you live alone?' + +'Why live with a woman?' he said to me, and he looked mockingly. 'Which +woman is it to be?' + +'You can find her,' I said. 'There are many women.' + +Again he shook his head in the stony, final fashion. + +'Not for me. I have known too much.' + +'But does that prevent you from marrying?' + +He looked at me steadily, finally. And I could see it was impossible for +us to understand each other, or for me to understand him. I could not +understand the strange white gleam of his eyes, where it came from. + +Also I knew he liked me very much, almost loved me, which again was +strange and puzzling. It was as if he were a fairy, a faun, and had no +soul. But he gave me a feeling of vivid sadness, a sadness that gleamed +like phosphorescence. He himself was not sad. There was a completeness +about him, about the pallid otherworld he inhabited, which excluded +sadness. It was too complete, too final, too defined. There was no +yearning, no vague merging off into mistiness.... He was clear and fine +as semi-transparent rock, as a substance in moonlight. He seemed like a +crystal that has achieved its final shape and has nothing more +to achieve. + +That night he slept on the floor of the sitting-room. In the morning he +was gone. But a week after he came again, to graft the vines. + +All the morning and the afternoon he was among the vines, crouching +before them, cutting them back with his sharp, bright knife, amazingly +swift and sure, like a god. It filled me with a sort of panic to see him +crouched flexibly, like some strange animal god, doubled on his +haunches, before the young vines, and swiftly, vividly, without thought, +cut, cut, cut at the young budding shoots, which fell unheeded on to the +earth. Then again he strode with his curious half-goatlike movement +across the garden, to prepare the lime. + +He mixed the messy stuff, cow-dung and lime and water and earth, +carefully with his hands, as if he understood that too. He was not a +worker. He was a creature in intimate communion with the sensible world, +knowing purely by touch the limey mess he mixed amongst, knowing as if +by relation between that soft matter and the matter of himself. + +Then again he strode over the earth, a gleaming piece of earth himself, +moving to the young vines. Quickly, with a few clean cuts of the knife, +he prepared the new shoot, which he had picked out of a handful which +lay beside him on the ground; he went finely to the quick of the plant, +inserted the graft, then bound it up, fast, hard. + +It was like God grafting the life of man upon the body of the earth, +intimately conjuring with his own flesh. + +All the while Paolo stood by, somehow excluded from the mystery, talking +to me, to Faustino. And Il Duro answered easily, as if his mind were +disengaged. It was his senses that were absorbed in the sensible life of +the plant, and the lime and the cow-dung he handled. + +Watching him, watching his absorbed, bestial, and yet godlike crouching +before the plant, as if he were the god of lower life, I somehow +understood his isolation, why he did not marry. Pan and the ministers of +Pan do not marry, the sylvan gods. They are single and isolated in +their being. + +It is in the spirit that marriage takes place. In the flesh there is +connexion, but only in the spirit is there a new thing created out of +two different antithetic things. In the body I am conjoined with the +woman. But in the spirit my conjunction with her creates a third thing, +an absolute, a Word, which is neither me nor her, nor of me nor of her, +but which is absolute. + +And Faustino had none of this spirit. In him sensation itself was +absolute--not spiritual consummation, but physical sensation. So he +could not marry, it was not for him. He belonged to the god Pan, to the +absolute of the senses. + +All the while his beauty, so perfect and so defined, fascinated me, a +strange static perfection about him. But his movements, whilst they +fascinated, also repelled. I can always see him crouched before the +vines on his haunches, his haunches doubled together in a complete +animal unconsciousness, his face seeming in its strange golden pallor +and its hardness of line, with the gleaming black of the fine hair on +the brow and temples, like something reflective, like the reflecting +surface of a stone that gleams out of the depths of night. It was like +darkness revealed in its steady, unchanging pallor. + +Again he stayed through the evening, having quarrelled once more with +the Maria about money. He quarrelled violently, yet coldly. There was +something terrifying in it. And as soon as the matter of dispute was +settled, all trace of interest or feeling vanished from him. + +Yet he liked, above all things, to be near the English signori. They +seemed to exercise a sort of magnetic attraction over him. It was +something of the purely physical world, as a magnetized needle swings +towards soft iron. He was quite helpless in the relation. Only by +mechanical attraction he gravitated into line with us. + +But there was nothing between us except our complete difference. It was +like night and day flowing together. + + + +_7_ + +JOHN + + +Besides Il Duro, we found another Italian who could speak English, this +time quite well. We had walked about four or five miles up the lake, +getting higher and higher. Then quite suddenly, on the shoulder of a +bluff far up, we came on a village, icy cold, and as if forgotten. + +We went into the inn to drink something hot. The fire of olive sticks +was burning in the open chimney, one or two men were talking at a table, +a young woman with a baby stood by the fire watching something boil in a +large pot. Another woman was seen in the house-place beyond. + +In the chimney-seats sat a young mule-driver, who had left his two mules +at the door of the inn, and opposite him an elderly stout man. They got +down and offered us the seats of honour, which we accepted with +due courtesy. + +The chimneys are like the wide, open chimney-places of old English +cottages, but the hearth is raised about a foot and a half or two feet +from the floor, so that the fire is almost level with the hands; and +those who sit in the chimney-seats are raised above the audience in the +room, something like two gods flanking the fire, looking out of the cave +of ruddy darkness into the open, lower world of the room. + +We asked for coffee with milk and rum. The stout landlord took a seat +near us below. The comely young woman with the baby took the tin +coffee-pot that stood among the grey ashes, put in fresh coffee among +the old bottoms, filled it with water, then pushed it more into +the fire. + +The landlord turned to us with the usual naive, curious deference, and +the usual question: + +'You are Germans?' + +'English.' + +'Ah--_Inglesi_.' + +Then there is a new note of cordiality--or so I always imagine--and the +rather rough, cattle-like men who are sitting with their wine round the +table look up more amicably. They do not like being intruded upon. Only +the landlord is always affable. + +'I have a son who speaks English,' he says: he is a handsome, courtly +old man, of the Falstaff sort. + +'Oh!' + +'He has been in America.' + +'And where is he now?' + +'He is at home. O--Nicoletta, where is the Giovann'?' + +The comely young woman with the baby came in. + +'He is with the band,' she said. + +The old landlord looked at her with pride. + +'This is my daughter-in-law,' he said. + +She smiled readily to the Signora. + +'And the baby?' we asked. + +'_Mio figlio_,' cried the young woman, in the strong, penetrating voice +of these women. And she came forward to show the child to the Signora. + +It was a bonny baby: the whole company was united in adoration and +service of the bambino. There was a moment of suspension, when religious +submission seemed to come over the inn-room. + +Then the Signora began to talk, and it broke upon the Italian +child-reverence. + +'What is he called?' + +'Oscare,' came the ringing note of pride. And the mother talked to the +baby in dialect. All, men and women alike, felt themselves glorified by +the presence of the child. + +At last the coffee in the tin coffee-pot was boiling and frothing out of +spout and lid. The milk in the little copper pan was also hot, among the +ashes. So we had our drink at last. + +The landlord was anxious for us to see Giovanni, his son. There was a +village band performing up the street, in front of the house of a +colonel who had come home wounded from Tripoli. Everybody in the village +was wildly proud about the colonel and about the brass band, the music +of which was execrable. + +We just looked into the street. The band of uncouth fellows was playing +the same tune over and over again before a desolate, newish house. A +crowd of desolate, forgotten villagers stood round in the cold upper +air. It seemed altogether that the place was forgotten by God and man. + +But the landlord, burly, courteous, handsome, pointed out with a +flourish the Giovanni, standing in the band playing a cornet. The band +itself consisted only of five men, rather like beggars in the street. +But Giovanni was the strangest! He was tall and thin and somewhat +German-looking, wearing shabby American clothes and a very high double +collar and a small American crush hat. He looked entirely like a +ne'er-do-well who plays a violin in the street, dressed in the most +down-at-heel, sordid respectability. + +'That is he--you see, Signore--the young one under the balcony.' + +The father spoke with love and pride, and the father was a gentleman, +like Falstaff, a pure gentleman. The daughter-in-law also peered out to +look at Il Giovann', who was evidently a figure of repute, in his +sordid, degenerate American respectability. Meanwhile, this figure of +repute blew himself red in the face, producing staccato strains on his +cornet. And the crowd stood desolate and forsaken in the cold, upper +afternoon. + +Then there was a sudden rugged '_Evviva, Evviva_!' from the people, the +band stopped playing, somebody valiantly broke into a line of the song: + + _Tripoli, sara italiana, + Sara italiana al rombo del cannon'._ + +The colonel had appeared on the balcony, a smallish man, very yellow in +the face, with grizzled black hair and very shabby legs. They all seemed +so sordidly, hopelessly shabby. + +He suddenly began to speak, leaning forward, hot and feverish and +yellow, upon the iron rail of the balcony. There was something hot and +marshy and sick about him, slightly repulsive, less than human. He told +his fellow-villagers how he loved them, how, when he lay uncovered on +the sands of Tripoli, week after week, he had known they were watching +him from the Alpine height of the village, he could feel that where he +was they were all looking. When the Arabs came rushing like things gone +mad, and he had received his wound, he had known that in his own +village, among his own dear ones, there was recovery. Love would heal +the wounds, the home country was a lover who would heal all her sons' +wounds with love. + +Among the grey desolate crowd were sharp, rending 'Bravos!'--the people +were in tears--the landlord at my side was repeating softly, +abstractedly: '_Caro--caro--Ettore, caro colonello_--' and when it was +finished, and the little colonel with shabby, humiliated legs was gone +in, he turned to me and said, with challenge that almost frightened me: + +'_Un brav' uomo_.' + +'_Bravissimo_,' I said. + +Then we, too, went indoors. + +It was all, somehow, grey and hopeless and acrid, unendurable. + +The colonel, poor devil--we knew him afterwards--is now dead. It is +strange that he is dead. There is something repulsive to me in the +thought of his lying dead: such a humiliating, somehow degraded corpse. +Death has no beauty in Italy, unless it be violent. The death of man or +woman through sickness is an occasion of horror, repulsive. They belong +entirely to life, they are so limited to life, these people. + +Soon the Giovanni came home, and took his cornet upstairs. Then he came +to see us. He was an ingenuous youth, sordidly shabby and dirty. His +fair hair was long and uneven, his very high starched collar made one +aware that his neck and his ears were not clean, his American crimson +tie was ugly, his clothes looked as if they had been kicking about on +the floor for a year. + +Yet his blue eyes were warm and his manner and speech very gentle. + +'You will speak English with us,' I said. + +'Oh,' he said, smiling and shaking his head, 'I could speak English very +well. But it is two years that I don't speak it now, over two years now, +so I don't speak it.' + +'But you speak it very well.' + +'No. It is two years that I have not spoke, not a word--so, you see, I +have--' + +'You have forgotten it? No, you haven't. It will quickly come back.' + +'If I hear it--when I go to America--then I shall--I shall--' + +'You will soon pick it up.' + +'Yes--I shall pick it up.' + +The landlord, who had been watching with pride, now went away. The wife +also went away, and we were left with the shy, gentle, dirty, and +frowsily-dressed Giovanni. + +He laughed in his sensitive, quick fashion. + +'The women in America, when they came into the store, they said, "Where +is John, where is John?" Yes, they liked me.' + +And he laughed again, glancing with vague, warm blue eyes, very shy, +very coiled upon himself with sensitiveness. + +He had managed a store in America, in a smallish town. I glanced at his +reddish, smooth, rather knuckly hands, and thin wrists in the frayed +cuff. They were real shopman's hands. + +The landlord brought some special feast-day cake, so overjoyed he was to +have his Giovanni speaking English with the Signoria. + +When we went away, we asked 'John' to come down to our villa to see us. +We scarcely expected him to turn up. + +Yet one morning he appeared, at about half past nine, just as we were +finishing breakfast. It was sunny and warm and beautiful, so we asked +him please to come with us picnicking. + +He was a queer shoot, again, in his unkempt longish hair and slovenly +clothes, a sort of very vulgar down-at-heel American in appearance. And +he was transported with shyness. Yet ours was the world he had chosen as +his own, so he took his place bravely and simply, a hanger-on. + +We climbed up the water-course in the mountain-side, up to a smooth +little lawn under the olive trees, where daisies were flowering and +gladioli were in bud. It was a tiny little lawn of grass in a level +crevice, and sitting there we had the world below us--the lake, the +distant island, the far-off low Verona shore. + +Then 'John' began to talk, and he talked continuously, like a foreigner, +not saying the things he would have said in Italian, but following the +suggestion and scope of his limited English. + +In the first place, he loved his father--it was 'my father, my father' +always. His father had a little shop as well as the inn in the village +above. So John had had some education. He had been sent to Brescia and +then to Verona to school, and there had taken his examinations to become +a civil engineer. He was clever, and could pass his examinations. But he +never finished his course. His mother died, and his father, +disconsolate, had wanted him at home. Then he had gone back, when he was +sixteen or seventeen, to the village beyond the lake, to be with his +father and to look after the shop. + +'But didn't you mind giving up all your work?' I said. + +He did not quite understand. + +'My father wanted me to come back,' he said. + +It was evident that Giovanni had had no definite conception of what he +was doing or what he wanted to do. His father, wishing to make a +gentleman of him, had sent him to school in Verona. By accident he had +been moved on into the engineering course. When it all fizzled to an +end, and he returned half-baked to the remote, desolate village of the +mountain-side, he was not disappointed or chagrined. He had never +conceived of a coherent purposive life. Either one stayed in the +village, like a lodged stone, or one made random excursions into the +world, across the world. It was all aimless and purposeless. + +So he had stayed a while with his father, then he had gone, just as +aimlessly, with a party of men who were emigrating to America. He had +taken some money, had drifted about, living in the most comfortless, +wretched fashion, then he had found a place somewhere in Pennsylvania, +in a dry goods store. This was when he was seventeen or eighteen +years old. + +All this seemed to have happened to him without his being very much +affected, at least consciously. His nature was simple and self-complete. +Yet not so self-complete as that of Il Duro or Paolo. They had passed +through the foreign world and been quite untouched. Their souls were +static, it was the world that had flowed unstable by. + +But John was more sensitive, he had come more into contact with his new +surroundings. He had attended night classes almost every evening, and +had been taught English like a child. He had loved the American free +school, the teachers, the work. + +But he had suffered very much in America. With his curious, +over-sensitive, wincing laugh, he told us how the boys had followed him +and jeered at him, calling after him, 'You damn Dago, you damn Dago.' +They had stopped him and his friend in the street and taken away their +hats, and spat into them. So that at last he had gone mad. They were +youths and men who always tortured him, using bad language which +startled us very much as he repeated it, there on the little lawn under +the olive trees, above the perfect lake: English obscenities and abuse +so coarse and startling that we bit our lips, shocked almost into +laughter, whilst John, simple and natural, and somehow, for all his long +hair and dirty appearance, flower-like in soul, repeated to us these +things which may never be repeated in decent company. + +'Oh,' he said, 'at last, I get mad. When they come one day, shouting, +"You damn Dago, dirty dog," and will take my hat again, oh, I get mad, +and I would kill them, I would kill them, I am so mad. I run to them, +and throw one to the floor, and I tread on him while I go upon another, +the biggest. Though they hit me and kick me all over, I feel nothing, I +am mad. I throw the biggest to the floor, a man; he is older than I am, +and I hit him so hard I would kill him. When the others see it they are +afraid, they throw stones and hit me on the face. But I don't feel it--I +don't know nothing. I hit the man on the floor, I almost kill him. I +forget everything except I will kill him--' + +'But you didn't?' + +'No--I don't know--' and he laughed his queer, shaken laugh. 'The other +man that was with me, my friend, he came to me and we went away. Oh, I +was mad. I was completely mad. I would have killed them.' + +He was trembling slightly, and his eyes were dilated with a strange +greyish-blue fire that was very painful and elemental. He looked beside +himself. But he was by no means mad. + +We were shaken by the vivid, lambent excitement of the youth, we wished +him to forget. We were shocked, too, in our souls to see the pure +elemental flame shaken out of his gentle, sensitive nature. By his +slight, crinkled laugh we could see how much he had suffered. He had +gone out and faced the world, and he had kept his place, stranger and +Dago though he was. + +'They never came after me no more, not all the while I was there.' + +Then he said he became the foreman in the store--at first he was only +assistant. It was the best store in the town, and many English ladies +came, and some Germans. He liked the English ladies very much: they +always wanted him to be in the store. He wore white clothes there, and +they would say: + +'You look very nice in the white coat, John'; or else: + +'Let John come, he can find it'; or else they said: + +'John speaks like a born American.' + +This pleased him very much. + +In the end, he said, he earned a hundred dollars a month. He lived with +the extraordinary frugality of the Italians, and had quite a lot +of money. + +He was not like Il Duro. Faustino had lived in a state of miserliness +almost in America, but then he had had his debauches of shows and wine +and carousals. John went chiefly to the schools, in one of which he was +even asked to teach Italian. His knowledge of his own language was +remarkable and most unusual! + +'But what,' I asked, 'brought you back?' + +'It was my father. You see, if I did not come to have my military +service, I must stay till I am forty. So I think perhaps my father will +be dead, I shall never see him. So I came.' + +He had come home when he was twenty to fulfil his military duties. At +home he had married. He was very fond of his wife, but he had no +conception of love in the old sense. His wife was like the past, to +which he was wedded. Out of her he begot his child, as out of the past. +But the future was all beyond her, apart from her. He was going away +again, now, to America. He had been some nine months at home after his +military service was over. He had no more to do. Now he was leaving his +wife and child and his father to go to America. + +'But why,' I said, 'why? You are not poor, you can manage the shop in +your village.' + +'Yes,' he said. 'But I will go to America. Perhaps I shall go into the +store again, the same.' + +'But is it not just the same as managing the shop at home?' + +'No--no--it is quite different.' + +Then he told us how he bought goods in Brescia and in Said for the shop +at home, how he had rigged up a funicular with the assistance of the +village, an overhead wire by which you could haul the goods up the face +of the cliffs right high up, to within a mile of the village. He was +very proud of this. And sometimes he himself went down the funicular to +the water's edge, to the boat, when he was in a hurry. This also +pleased him. + +But he was going to Brescia this day to see about going again to +America. Perhaps in another month he would be gone. + +It was a great puzzle to me why he would go. He could not say himself. +He would stay four or five years, then he would come home again to see +his father--and his wife and child. + +There was a strange, almost frightening destiny upon him, which seemed +to take him away, always away from home, from the past, to that great, +raw America. He seemed scarcely like a person with individual choice, +more like a creature under the influence of fate which was +disintegrating the old life and precipitating him, a fragment +inconclusive, into the new chaos. + +He submitted to it all with a perfect unquestioning simplicity, never +even knowing that he suffered, that he must suffer disintegration from +the old life. He was moved entirely from within, he never questioned his +inevitable impulse. + +'They say to me, "Don't go--don't go"--' he shook his head. 'But I say I +will go.' + +And at that it was finished. + +So we saw him off at the little quay, going down the lake. He would +return at evening, and be pulled up in his funicular basket. And in a +month's time he would be standing on the same lake steamer going +to America. + +Nothing was more painful than to see him standing there in his degraded, +sordid American clothes, on the deck of the steamer, waving us good-bye, +belonging in his final desire to our world, the world of consciousness +and deliberate action. With his candid, open, unquestioning face, he +seemed like a prisoner being conveyed from one form of life to another, +or like a soul in trajectory, that has not yet found a resting-place. + +What were wife and child to him?--they were the last steps of the past. +His father was the continent behind him; his wife and child the +foreshore of the past; but his face was set outwards, away from it +all--whither, neither he nor anybody knew, but he called it America. + + + + +_Italians in Exile_ + + +When I was in Constance the weather was misty and enervating and +depressing, it was no pleasure to travel on the big flat desolate lake. + +When I went from Constance, it was on a small steamer down the Rhine to +Schaffhausen. That was beautiful. Still, the mist hung over the waters, +over the wide shallows of the river, and the sun, coming through the +morning, made lovely yellow lights beneath the bluish haze, so that it +seemed like the beginning of the world. And there was a hawk in the +upper air fighting with two crows, or two rooks. Ever they rose higher +and higher, the crow flickering above the attacking hawk, the fight +going on like some strange symbol in the sky, the Germans on deck +watching with pleasure. + +Then we passed out of sight between wooded banks and under bridges where +quaint villages of old romance piled their red and coloured pointed +roofs beside the water, very still, remote, lost in the vagueness of the +past. It could not be that they were real. Even when the boat put in to +shore, and the customs officials came to look, the village remained +remote in the romantic past of High Germany, the Germany of fairy tales +and minstrels and craftsmen. The poignancy of the past was almost +unbearable, floating there in colour upon the haze of the river. + +We went by some swimmers, whose white shadowy bodies trembled near the +side of the steamer under water. One man with a round, fair head lifted +his face and one arm from the water and shouted a greeting to us, as if +he were a Niebelung, saluting with bright arm lifted from the water, his +face laughing, the fair moustache hanging over his mouth. Then his white +body swirled in the water, and he was gone, swimming with the +side stroke. + +Schaffhausen the town, half old and bygone, half modern, with breweries +and industries, that is not very real. Schaffhausen Falls, with their +factory in the midst and their hotel at the bottom, and the general +cinematograph effect, they are ugly. + +It was afternoon when I set out to walk from the Falls to Italy, across +Switzerland. I remember the big, fat, rather gloomy fields of this part +of Baden, damp and unliving. I remember I found some apples under a tree +in a field near a railway embankment, then some mushrooms, and I ate +both. Then I came on to a long, desolate high-road, with dreary, +withered trees on either side, and flanked by great fields where groups +of men and women were working. They looked at me as I went by down the +long, long road, alone and exposed and out of the world. + +I remember nobody came at the border village to examine my pack, I +passed through unchallenged. All was quiet and lifeless and hopeless, +with big stretches of heavy land. + +Till sunset came, very red and purple, and suddenly, from the heavy +spacious open land I dropped sharply into the Rhine valley again, +suddenly, as if into another glamorous world. + +There was the river rushing along between its high, mysterious, romantic +banks, which were high as hills, and covered with vine. And there was +the village of tall, quaint houses flickering its lights on to the +deep-flowing river, and quite silent, save for the rushing of water. + +There was a fine covered bridge, very dark. I went to the middle and +looked through the opening at the dark water below, at the facade of +square lights, the tall village-front towering remote and silent above +the river. The hill rose on either side the flood; down here was a +small, forgotten, wonderful world that belonged to the date of isolated +village communities and wandering minstrels. + +So I went back to the inn of The Golden Stag, and, climbing some steps, +I made a loud noise. A woman came, and I asked for food. She led me +through a room where were enormous barrels, ten feet in diameter, lying +fatly on their sides; then through a large stone-clean kitchen, with +bright pans, ancient as the Meistersinger; then up some steps and into +the long guest-room, where a few tables were laid for supper. + +A few people were eating. I asked for Abendessen, and sat by the window +looking at the darkness of the river below, the covered bridge, the dark +hill opposite, crested with its few lights. + +Then I ate a very large quantity of knoedel soup and bread, and drank +beer, and was very sleepy. Only one or two village men came in, and +these soon went again; the place was dead still. Only at a long table on +the opposite side of the room were seated seven or eight men, ragged, +disreputable, some impudent--another came in late; the landlady gave +them all thick soup with dumplings and bread and meat, serving them in a +sort of brief disapprobation. They sat at the long table, eight or nine +tramps and beggars and wanderers out of work and they ate with a sort of +cheerful callousness and brutality for the most part, and as if +ravenously, looking round and grinning sometimes, subdued, cowed, like +prisoners, and yet impudent. At the end one shouted to know where he was +to sleep. The landlady called to the young serving-woman, and in a +classic German severity of disapprobation they were led up the stone +stairs to their room. They tramped off in threes and twos, making a bad, +mean, humiliated exit. It was not yet eight o'clock. The landlady sat +talking to one bearded man, staid and severe, whilst, with her work on +the table, she sewed steadily. + +As the beggars and wanderers went slinking out of the room, some called +impudently, cheerfully: + +'_Nacht, Frau Wirtin--G'Nacht, Wirtin--'te Nacht, Frau_,' to all of +which the hostess answered a stereotyped '_Gute Nacht_,' never turning +her head from her sewing, or indicating by the faintest movement that +she was addressing the men who were filing raggedly to the doorway. + +So the room was empty, save for the landlady and her sewing, the staid, +elderly villager to whom she was talking in the unbeautiful dialect, and +the young serving-woman who was clearing away the plates and basins of +the tramps and beggars. + +Then the villager also went. + +'_Gute Nacht, Frau Seidl_,' to the landlady; '_Gute Nacht_,' at random, +to me. + +So I looked at the newspaper. Then I asked the landlady for a cigarette, +not knowing how else to begin. So she came to my table, and we talked. + +It pleased me to take upon myself a sort of romantic, wandering +character; she said my German was '_schoen_'; a little goes a long way. + +So I asked her who were the men who had sat at the long table. She +became rather stiff and curt. + +'They are the men looking for work,' she said, as if the subject were +disagreeable. + +'But why do they come here, so many?' I asked. + +Then she told me that they were going out of the country: this was +almost the last village of the border: that the relieving officer in +each village was empowered to give to every vagrant a ticket entitling +the holder to an evening meal, bed, and bread in the morning, at a +certain inn. This was the inn for the vagrants coming to this village. +The landlady received fourpence per head, I believe it was, for each of +these wanderers. + +'Little enough,' I said. + +'Nothing,' she replied. + +She did not like the subject at all. Only her respect for me made her +answer. + +'_Bettler, Lumpen, und Taugenichtse!_' I said cheerfully. + +'And men who are out of work, and are going back to their own parish,' +she said stiffly. + +So we talked a little, and I too went to bed. + +'_Gute Nacht, Frau Wirtin._' + +'_Gute Nacht, mein Herr._' + +So I went up more and more stone stairs, attended by the young woman. It +was a great, lofty, old deserted house, with many drab doors. + +At last, in the distant topmost floor, I had my bedroom, with two beds +and bare floor and scant furniture. I looked down at the river far +below, at the covered bridge, at the far lights on the hill above, +opposite. Strange to be here in this lost, forgotten place, sleeping +under the roof with tramps and beggars. I debated whether they would +steal my boots if I put them out. But I risked it. The door-latch made a +loud noise on the deserted landing, everywhere felt abandoned, +forgotten. I wondered where the eight tramps and beggars were asleep. +There was no way of securing the door. But somehow I felt that, if I +were destined to be robbed or murdered, it would not be by tramps and +beggars. So I blew out the candle and lay under the big feather bed, +listening to the running and whispering of the medieval Rhine. + +And when I waked up again it was sunny, it was morning on the hill +opposite, though the river deep below ran in shadow. + +The tramps and beggars were all gone: they must be cleared out by seven +o'clock in the morning. So I had the inn to myself, I, and the landlady, +and the serving-woman. Everywhere was very clean, full of the German +morning energy and brightness, which is so different from the Latin +morning. The Italians are dead and torpid first thing, the Germans are +energetic and cheerful. + +It was cheerful in the sunny morning, looking down on the swift river, +the covered, picturesque bridge, the bank and the hill opposite. Then +down the curving road of the facing hill the Swiss cavalry came riding, +men in blue uniforms. I went out to watch them. They came thundering +romantically through the dark cavern of the roofed-in bridge, and they +dismounted at the entrance to the village. There was a fresh +morning-cheerful newness everywhere, in the arrival of the troops, in +the welcome of the villagers. + +The Swiss do not look very military, neither in accoutrement nor +bearing. This little squad of cavalry seemed more like a party of common +men riding out in some business of their own than like an army. They +were very republican and very free. The officer who commanded them was +one of themselves, his authority was by consent. + +It was all very pleasant and genuine; there was a sense of ease and +peacefulness, quite different from the mechanical, slightly sullen +manoeuvring of the Germans. + +The village baker and his assistant came hot and floury from the +bakehouse, bearing between them a great basket of fresh bread. The +cavalry were all dismounted by the bridge-head, eating and drinking like +business men. Villagers came to greet their friends: one soldier kissed +his father, who came wearing a leathern apron. The school bell +tang-tang-tanged from above, school children merged timidly through the +grouped horses, up the narrow street, passing unwillingly with their +books. The river ran swiftly, the soldiers, very haphazard and slack in +uniform, real shack-bags, chewed their bread in large mouthfuls; the +young lieutenant, who seemed to be an officer only by consent of the +men, stood apart by the bridge-head, gravely. They were all serious and +self-contented, very unglamorous. It was like a business excursion on +horseback, harmless and uninspiring. The uniforms were almost ludicrous, +so ill-fitting and casual. + +So I shouldered my own pack and set off, through the bridge over the +Rhine, and up the hill opposite. + +There is something very dead about this country. I remember I picked +apples from the grass by the roadside, and some were very sweet. But for +the rest, there was mile after mile of dead, uninspired +country--uninspired, so neutral and ordinary that it was almost +destructive. + +One gets this feeling always in Switzerland, except high up: this +feeling of average, of utter soulless ordinariness, something +intolerable. Mile after mile, to Zurich, it was just the same. It was +just the same in the tram-car going into Zurich; it was just the same in +the town, in the shops, in the restaurant. All was the utmost level of +ordinariness and well-being, but so ordinary that it was like a blight. +All the picturesqueness of the town is nothing, it is like a most +ordinary, average, usual person in an old costume. The place was +soul-killing. + +So after two hours' rest, eating in a restaurant, wandering by the quay +and through the market, and sitting on a seat by the lake, I found a +steamer that would take me away. That is how I always feel in +Switzerland: the only possible living sensation is the sensation of +relief in going away, always going away. The horrible average +ordinariness of it all, something utterly without flower or soul or +transcendence, the horrible vigorous ordinariness, is too much. + +So I went on a steamer down the long lake, surrounded by low grey hills. +It was Saturday afternoon. A thin rain came on. I thought I would rather +be in fiery Hell than in this dead level of average life. + +I landed somewhere on the right bank, about three-quarters of the way +down the lake. It was almost dark. Yet I must walk away. I climbed a +long hill from the lake, came to the crest, looked down the darkness of +the valley, and descended into the deep gloom, down into a +soulless village. + +But it was eight o'clock, and I had had enough. One might as well sleep. +I found the Gasthaus zur Post. + +It was a small, very rough inn, having only one common room, with bare +tables, and a short, stout, grim, rather surly landlady, and a landlord +whose hair stood up on end, and who was trembling on the edge of +delirium tremens. + +They could only give me boiled ham: so I ate boiled ham and drank beer, +and tried to digest the utter cold materialism of Switzerland. + +As I sat with my back to the wall, staring blankly at the trembling +landlord, who was ready at any moment to foam at the mouth, and at the +dour landlady, who was quite capable of keeping him in order, there came +in one of those dark, showy Italian girls with a man. She wore a blouse +and skirt, and no hat. Her hair was perfectly dressed. It was really +Italy. The man was soft, dark, he would get stout later, _trapu_, he +would have somewhat the figure of Caruso. But as yet he was soft, +sensuous, young, handsome. + +They sat at the long side-table with their beer, and created another +country at once within the room. Another Italian came, fair and fat and +slow, one from the Venetian province; then another, a little thin young +man, who might have been a Swiss save for his vivid movement. + +This last was the first to speak to the Germans. The others had just +said '_Bier._' But the little newcomer entered into a conversation with +the landlady. + +At last there were six Italians sitting talking loudly and warmly at the +side-table. The slow, cold German-Swiss at the other tables looked at +them occasionally. The landlord, with his crazed, stretched eyes, glared +at them with hatred. But they fetched their beer from the bar with easy +familiarity, and sat at their table, creating a bonfire of life in the +callousness of the inn. + +At last they finished their beer and trooped off down the passage. The +room was painfully empty. I did not know what to do. + +Then I heard the landlord yelling and screeching and snarling from the +kitchen at the back, for all the world like a mad dog. But the Swiss +Saturday evening customers at the other tables smoked on and talked in +their ugly dialect, without trouble. Then the landlady came in, and soon +after the landlord, he collarless, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, +showing his loose throat, and accentuating his round pot-belly. His +limbs were thin and feverish, the skin of his face hung loose, his eyes +glaring, his hands trembled. Then he sat down to talk to a crony. His +terrible appearance was a fiasco; nobody heeded him at all, only the +landlady was surly. + +From the back came loud noises of pleasure and excitement and banging +about. When the room door was opened I could see down the dark passage +opposite another lighted door. Then the fat, fair Italian came in for +more beer. + +'What is all the noise?' I asked the landlady at last. + +'It is the Italians,' she said. + +'What are they doing?' + +'They are doing a play.' + +'Where?' + +She jerked her head: 'In the room at the back.' + +'Can I go and look at them?' + +'I should think so.' + +The landlord glaringly watched me go out. I went down the stone passage +and found a great, half-lighted room that might be used to hold +meetings, with forms piled at the side. At one end was raised platform +or stage. And on this stage was a table and a lamp, and the Italians +grouped round the light, gesticulating and laughing. Their beer mugs +were on the table and on the floor of the stage; the little sharp youth +was intently looking over some papers, the others were bending over the +table with him. + +They looked up as I entered from the distance, looked at me in the +distant twilight of the dusky room, as if I were an intruder, as if I +should go away when I had seen them. But I said in German: + +'May I look?' + +They were still unwilling to see or to hear me. + +'What do you say?' the small one asked in reply. + +The others stood and watched, slightly at bay, like suspicious animals. + +'If I might come and look,' I said in German; then, feeling very +uncomfortable, in Italian: 'You are doing a drama, the landlady +told me.' + +The big empty room was behind me, dark, the little company of Italians +stood above me in the light of the lamp which was on the table. They all +watched with unseeing, unwilling looks: I was merely an intrusion. + +'We are only learning it,' said the small youth. + +They wanted me to go away. But I wanted to stay. + +'May I listen?' I said. 'I don't want to stay in there.' And I +indicated, with a movement of the head, the inn-room beyond. + +'Yes,' said the young intelligent man. 'But we are only reading our +parts.' + +They had all become more friendly to me, they accepted me. + +'You are a German?' asked one youth. + +'No--English.' + +'English? But do you live in Switzerland?' + +'No--I am walking to Italy.' + +'On foot?' + +They looked with wakened eyes. + +'Yes.' + +So I told them about my journey. They were puzzled. They did not quite +understand why I wanted to walk. But they were delighted with the idea +of going to Lugano and Como and then to Milan. + +'Where do you come from?' I asked them. + +They were all from the villages between Verona and Venice. They had seen +the Garda. I told them of my living there. + +'Those peasants of the mountains,' they said at once, 'they are people +of little education. Rather wild folk.' + +And they spoke with good-humoured contempt. + +I thought of Paolo, and Il Duro, and the Signor Pietro, our padrone, and +I resented these factory-hands for criticizing them. + +So I sat on the edge of the stage whilst they rehearsed their parts. The +little thin intelligent fellow, Giuseppino, was the leader. The others +read their parts in the laborious, disjointed fashion of the peasant, +who can only see one word at a time, and has then to put the words +together, afterwards, to make sense. The play was an amateur melodrama, +printed in little penny booklets, for carnival production. This was only +the second reading they had given it, and the handsome, dark fellow, who +was roused and displaying himself before the girl, a hard, erect piece +of callousness, laughed and flushed and stumbled, and understood nothing +till it was transferred into him direct through Giuseppino. The fat, +fair, slow man was more conscientious. He laboured through his part. The +other two men were in the background more or less. + +The most confidential was the fat, fair, slow man, who was called +Alberto. His part was not very important, so he could sit by me and +talk to me. + +He said they were all workers in the factory--silk, I think it was--in +the village. They were a whole colony of Italians, thirty or more +families. They had all come at different times. + +Giuseppino had been longest in the village. He had come when he was +eleven, with his parents, and had attended the Swiss school. So he spoke +perfect German. He was a clever man, was married, and had two children. + +He himself, Alberto, had been seven years in the valley; the girl, la +Maddelena, had been here ten years; the dark man, Alfredo, who was +flushed with excitement of her, had been in the village about nine +years--he alone of all men was not married. + +The others had all married Italian wives, and they lived in the great +dwelling whose windows shone yellow by the rattling factory. They lived +entirely among themselves; none of them could speak German, more than a +few words, except the Giuseppino, who was like a native here. + +It was very strange being among these Italians exiled in Switzerland. +Alfredo, the dark one, the unmarried, was in the old tradition. Yet even +he was curiously subject to a new purpose, as if there were some greater +new will that included him, sensuous, mindless as he was. He seemed to +give his consent to something beyond himself. In this he was different +from Il Duro, in that he had put himself under the control of the +outside conception. + +It was strange to watch them on the stage, the Italians all lambent, +soft, warm, sensuous, yet moving subject round Giuseppino, who was +always quiet, always ready, always impersonal. There was a look of +purpose, almost of devotion on his face, that singled him out and made +him seem the one stable, eternal being among them. They quarrelled, and +he let them quarrel up to a certain point; then he called them back. He +let them do as they liked so long as they adhered more or less to the +central purpose, so long as they got on in some measure with the play. + +All the while they were drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. The +Alberto was barman: he went out continually with the glasses. The +Maddelena had a small glass. In the lamplight of the stage the little +party read and smoked and practised, exposed to the empty darkness of +the big room. Queer and isolated it seemed, a tiny, pathetic magicland +far away from the barrenness of Switzerland. I could believe in the old +fairy-tales where, when the rock was opened, a magic underworld +was revealed. + +The Alfredo, flushed, roused, handsome, but very soft and enveloping in +his heat, laughed and threw himself into his pose, laughed foolishly, +and then gave himself up to his part. The Alberto, slow and laborious, +yet with a spark of vividness and natural intensity flashing through, +replied and gesticulated; the Maddelena laid her head on the bosom of +Alfredo, the other men started into action, and the play proceeded +intently for half an hour. + +Quick, vivid, and sharp, the little Giuseppino was always central. But +he seemed almost invisible. When I think back, I can scarcely see him, I +can only see the others, the lamplight on their faces and on their full +gesticulating limbs. I can see--the Maddelena, rather coarse and hard +and repellent, declaiming her words in a loud, half-cynical voice, +falling on the breast of the Alfredo, who was soft and sensuous, more +like a female, flushing, with his mouth getting wet, his eyes moist, as +he was roused. I can see the Alberto, slow, laboured, yet with a kind of +pristine simplicity in all his movements, that touched his fat +commonplaceness with beauty. Then there were the two other men, shy, +inflammable, unintelligent, with their sudden Italian rushes of hot +feeling. All their faces are distinct in the lamplight, all their bodies +ate palpable and dramatic. + +But the face of the Giuseppino is like a pale luminousness, a sort of +gleam among all the ruddy glow, his body is evanescent, like a shadow. +And his being seemed to cast its influence over all the others, except +perhaps the woman, who was hard and resistant. The other men seemed all +overcast, mitigated, in part transfigured by the will of the little +leader. But they were very soft stuff, if inflammable. + +The young woman of the inn, niece of the landlady, came down and called +out across the room. + +'We will go away from here now,' said the Giuseppino to me. 'They close +at eleven. But we have another inn in the next parish that is open all +night. Come with us and drink some wine.' + +'But,' I said, 'you would rather be alone.' + +No; they pressed me to go, they wanted me to go with them, they were +eager, they wanted to entertain me. Alfredo, flushed, wet-mouthed, warm, +protested I must drink wine, the real Italian red wine, from their own +village at home. They would have no nay. + +So I told the landlady. She said I must be back by twelve o'clock. + +The night was very dark. Below the road the stream was rushing; there +was a great factory on the other side of the water, making faint +quivering lights of reflection, and one could see the working of +machinery shadowy through the lighted windows. Near by was the tall +tenement where the Italians lived. + +We went on through the straggling, raw village, deep beside the stream, +then over the small bridge, and up the steep hill down which I had come +earlier in the evening. + +So we arrived at the cafe. It was so different inside from the German +inn, yet it was not like an Italian cafe either. It was brilliantly +lighted, clean, new, and there were red-and-white cloths on the tables. +The host was in the room, and his daughter, a beautiful red-haired girl. + +Greetings were exchanged with the quick, intimate directness of Italy. +But there was another note also, a faint echo of reserve, as though they +reserved themselves from the outer world, making a special inner +community. + +Alfredo was hot: he took off his coat. We all sat freely at a long +table, whilst the red-haired girl brought a quart of red wine. At other +tables men were playing cards, with the odd Neapolitan cards. They too +were talking Italian. It was a warm, ruddy bit of Italy within the cold +darkness of Switzerland. + +'When you come to Italy,' they said to me, 'salute it from us, salute +the sun, and the earth, _l'Italia_.' + +So we drank in salute of Italy. They sent their greeting by me. + +'You know in Italy there is the sun, the sun,' said Alfredo to me, +profoundly moved, wet-mouthed, tipsy. + +I was reminded of Enrico Persevalli and his terrifying cry at the end of +_Ghosts_: + +'_Il sole, il sole!_' + +So we talked for a while of Italy. They had a pained tenderness for it, +sad, reserved. + +'Don't you want to go back?' I said, pressing them to tell me +definitely. 'Won't you go back some time?' + +'Yes,' they said, 'we will go back.' + +But they spoke reservedly, without freedom. We talked about Italy, about +songs, and Carnival; about the food, polenta, and salt. They laughed at +my pretending to cut the slabs of polenta with a string: that rejoiced +them all: it took them back to the Italian mezzo-giorno, the bells +jangling in the campanile, the eating after the heavy work on the land. + +But they laughed with the slight pain and contempt and fondness which +every man feels towards his past, when he has struggled away from that +past, from the conditions which made it. + +They loved Italy passionately; but they would not go back. All their +blood, all their senses were Italian, needed the Italian sky, the +speech, the sensuous life. They could hardly live except through the +senses. Their minds were not developed, mentally they were children, +lovable, naive, almost fragile children. But sensually they were men: +sensually they were accomplished. + +Yet a new tiny flower was struggling to open in them, the flower of a +new spirit. The substratum of Italy has always been pagan, sensuous, the +most potent symbol the sexual symbol. The child is really a +non-Christian symbol: it is the symbol of mans's triumph of eternal life +in procreation. The worship of the Cross never really held good in +Italy. The Christianity of Northern Europe has never had any +place there. + +And now, when Northern Europe is turning back on its own Christianity, +denying it all, the Italians are struggling with might and main against +the sensuous spirit which still dominates them. When Northern Europe, +whether it hates Nietzsche or not, is crying out for the Dionysic +ecstasy, practising on itself the Dionysic ecstasy, Southern Europe is +breaking free from Dionysus, from the triumphal affirmation of life over +death, immortality through procreation. + +I could see these sons of Italy would never go back. Men like Paolo and +Il Duro broke away only to return. The dominance of the old form was too +strong for them. Call it love of country or love of the village, +campanilismo, or what not, it was the dominance of the old pagan form, +the old affirmation of immortality through procreation, as opposed to +the Christian affirmation of immortality through self-death and +social love. + +But 'John' and these Italians in Switzerland were a generation younger, +and they would not go back, at least not to the old Italy. Suffer as +they might, and they did suffer, wincing in every nerve and fibre from +the cold material insentience of the northern countries and of America, +still they would endure this for the sake of something else they wanted. +They would suffer a death in the flesh, as 'John' had suffered in +fighting the street crowd, as these men suffered year after year cramped +in their black gloomy cold Swiss valley, working in the factory. But +there would come a new spirit out of it. + +Even Alfredo was submitted to the new process; though he belonged +entirely by nature to the sort of Il Duro, he was purely sensuous and +mindless. But under the influence of Giuseppino he was thrown down, as +fallow to the new spirit that would come. + +And then, when the others were all partially tipsy, the Giuseppino began +to talk to me. In him was a steady flame burning, burning, burning, a +flame of the mind, of the spirit, something new and clear, something +that held even the soft, sensuous Alfredo in submission, besides all the +others, who had some little development of mind. + +'_Sa signore_,' said the Giuseppino to me, quiet, almost invisible or +inaudible, as it seemed, like a spirit addressing me, '_l'uomo non ha +patria_--a man has no country. What has the Italian Government to do +with us. What does a Government mean? It makes us work, it takes part of +our wages away from us, it makes us soldiers--and what for? What is +government for?' + +'Have you been a soldier?' I interrupted him. + +He had not, none of them had: that was why they could not really go back +to Italy. Now this was out; this explained partly their curious +reservation in speaking about their beloved country. They had forfeited +parents as well as homeland. + +'What does the Government do? It takes taxes; it has an army and police, +and it makes roads. But we could do without an army, and we could be our +own police, and we could make our own roads. What is this Government? +Who wants it? Only those who are unjust, and want to have advantage over +somebody else. It is an instrument of injustice and of wrong. + +'Why should we have a Government? Here, in this village, there are +thirty families of Italians. There is no government for them, no Italian +Government. And we live together better than in Italy. We are richer and +freer, we have no policemen, no poor laws. We help each other, and there +are no poor. + +'Why are these Governments always doing what we don't want them to do? +We should not be fighting in the Cirenaica if we were all Italians. It +is the Government that does it. They talk and talk and do things with +us: but we don't want them.' + +The others, tipsy, sat round the table with the terrified gravity of +children who are somehow responsible for things they do not understand. +They stirred in their seats, turning aside, with gestures almost of +pain, of imprisonment. Only Alfredo, laying his hand on mine, was +laughing, loosely, floridly. He would upset all the Government with a +jerk of his well-built shoulder, and then he would have a spree--such a +spree. He laughed wetly to me. + +The Giuseppino waited patiently during this tipsy confidence, but his +pale clarity and beauty was something constant star-like in comparison +with the flushed, soft handsomeness of the other. He waited patiently, +looking at me. + +But I did not want him to go on: I did not want to answer. I could feel +a new spirit in him, something strange and pure and slightly +frightening. He wanted something which was beyond me. And my soul was +somewhere in tears, crying helplessly like an infant in the night. I +could not respond: I could not answer. He seemed to look at me, me, an +Englishman, an educated man, for corroboration. But I could not +corroborate him. I knew the purity and new struggling towards birth of a +true star-like spirit. But I could not confirm him in his utterance: my +soul could not respond. I did not believe in the perfectibility of man. +I did not believe in infinite harmony among men. And this was his star, +this belief. + +It was nearly midnight. A Swiss came in and asked for beer. The Italians +gathered round them a curious darkness of reserve. And then I must go. + +They shook hands with me warmly, truthfully, putting a sort of implicit +belief in me, as representative of some further knowledge. But there was +a fixed, calm resolve over the face of the Giuseppino, a sort of steady +faith, even in disappointment. He gave me a copy of a little Anarchist +paper published in Geneva. _L'Anarchista_, I believe it was called. I +glanced at it. It was in Italian, naive, simple, rather rhetorical. So +they were all Anarchists, these Italians. + +I ran down the hill in the thick Swiss darkness to the little bridge, +and along the uneven cobbled street. I did not want to think, I did not +want to know. I wanted to arrest my activity, to keep it confined to the +moment, to the adventure. + +When I came to the flight of stone steps which led up to the door of the +inn, at the side I saw in the darkness two figures. They said a low good +night and parted; the girl began to knock at the door, the man +disappeared. It was the niece of the landlady parting from her lover. + +We waited outside the locked door, at the top of the stone steps, in the +darkness of midnight. The stream rustled below. Then came a shouting and +an insane snarling within the passage; the bolts were not withdrawn. + +'It is the gentleman, it is the strange gentleman,' called the girl. + +Then came again the furious shouting snarls, and the landlord's mad +voice: + +'Stop out, stop out there. The door won't be opened again.' + +'The strange gentleman is here,' repeated the girl. + +Then more movement was heard, and the door was suddenly opened, and the +landlord rushed out upon us, wielding a broom. It was a strange sight, +in the half-lighted passage. I stared blankly in the doorway. The +landlord dropped the broom he was waving and collapsed as if by magic, +looking at me, though he continued to mutter madly, unintelligibly. The +girl slipped past me, and the landlord snarled. Then he picked up the +brush, at the same time crying: + +'You are late, the door was shut, it will not be opened. We shall have +the police in the house. We said twelve o'clock; at twelve o'clock the +door must be shut, and must not be opened again. If you are late you +stay out--' + +So he went snarling, his voice rising higher and higher, away into the +kitchen. + +'You are coming to your room?' the landlady said to me coldly. And she +led me upstairs. + +The room was over the road, clean, but rather ugly, with a large tin, +that had once contained lard or Swiss-milk, to wash in. But the bed was +good enough, which was all that mattered. + +I heard the landlord yelling, and there was a long and systematic +thumping somewhere, thump, thump, thump, and banging. I wondered where +it was. I could not locate it at all, because my room lay beyond another +large room: I had to go through a large room, by the foot of two beds, +to get to my door; so I could not quite tell where anything was. + +But I went to sleep whilst I was wondering. + +I woke in the morning and washed in the tin. I could see a few people in +the street, walking in the Sunday morning leisure. It felt like Sunday +in England, and I shrank from it. I could see none of the Italians. The +factory stood there, raw and large and sombre, by the stream, and the +drab-coloured stone tenements were close by. Otherwise the village was a +straggling Swiss street, almost untouched. + +The landlord was quiet and reasonable, even friendly, in the morning. He +wanted to talk to me: where had I bought my boots, was his first +question. I told him in Munich. And how much had they cost? I told him +twenty-eight marks. He was much impressed by them: such good boots, of +such soft, strong, beautiful leather; he had not seen such boots for a +long time. + +Then I knew it was he who had cleaned my boots. I could see him +fingering them and wondering over them. I rather liked him. I could see +he had had imagination once, and a certain fineness of nature. Now he +was corrupted with drink, too far gone to be even a human being. I hated +the village. + +They set bread and butter and a piece of cheese weighing about five +pounds, and large, fresh, sweet cakes for breakfast. I ate and was +thankful: the food was good. + +A couple of village youths came in, in their Sunday clothes. They had +the Sunday stiffness. It reminded me of the stiffness and curious +self-consciousness that comes over life in England on a Sunday. But the +Landlord sat with his waistcoat hanging open over his shirt, +pot-bellied, his ruined face leaning forward, talking, always talking, +wanting to know. + +So in a few minutes I was out on the road again, thanking God for the +blessing of a road that belongs to no man, and travels away from +all men. + +I did not want to see the Italians. Something had got tied up in me, and +I could not bear to see them again. I liked them so much; but, for some +reason or other, my mind stopped like clockwork if I wanted to think of +them and of what their lives would be, their future. It was as if some +curious negative magnetism arrested my mind, prevented it from working, +the moment I turned it towards these Italians. + +I do not know why it was. But I could never write to them, or think of +them, or even read the paper they gave me though it lay in my drawer for +months, in Italy, and I often glanced over six lines of it. And often, +often my mind went back to the group, the play they were rehearsing, the +wine in the pleasant cafe, and the night. But the moment my memory +touched them, my whole soul stopped and was null; I could not go on. +Even now I cannot really consider them in thought. + +I shrink involuntarily away. I do not know why this is. + + + + +_The Return Journey_ + + +When one walks, one must travel west or south. If one turns northward or +eastward it is like walking down a cul-de-sac, to the blind end. + +So it has been since the Crusaders came home satiated, and the +Renaissance saw the western sky as an archway into the future. So it is +still. We must go westwards and southwards. + +It is a sad and gloomy thing to travel even from Italy into France. But +it is a joyful thing to walk south to Italy, south and west. It is so. +And there is a certain exaltation in the thought of going west, even to +Cornwall, to Ireland. It is as if the magnetic poles were south-west and +north-east, for our spirits, with the south-west, under the sunset, as +the positive pole. So whilst I walk through Switzerland, though it is a +valley of gloom and depression, a light seems to flash out under every +footstep, with the joy of progression. + +It was Sunday morning when I left the valley where the Italians lived. I +went quickly over the stream, heading for Lucerne. It was a good thing +to be out of doors, with one's pack on one's back, climbing uphill. But +the trees were thick by the roadside; I was not yet free. It was Sunday +morning, very still. + +In two hours I was at the top of the hill, looking out over the +intervening valley at the long lake of Zurich, spread there beyond with +its girdle of low hills, like a relief-map. I could not bear to look at +it, it was so small and unreal. I had a feeling as if it were false, a +large relief-map that I was looking down upon, and which I wanted to +smash. It seemed to intervene between me and some reality. I could not +believe that that was the real world. It was a figment, a fabrication, +like a dull landscape painted on a wall, to hide the real landscape. + +So I went on, over to the other side of the hill, and I looked out +again. Again there were the smoky-looking hills and the lake like a +piece of looking-glass. But the hills were higher: that big one was the +Rigi. I set off down the hill. + +There was fat agricultural land and several villages. And church was +over. The churchgoers were all coming home: men in black broadcloth and +old chimney-pot silk hats, carrying their umbrellas; women in ugly +dresses, carrying books and umbrellas. The streets were dotted with +these black-clothed men and stiff women, all reduced to a Sunday +nullity. I hated it. It reminded me of that which I knew in my boyhood, +that stiff, null 'propriety' which used to come over us, like a sort of +deliberate and self-inflicted cramp, on Sundays. I hated these elders in +black broadcloth, with their neutral faces, going home piously to their +Sunday dinners. I hated the feeling of these villages, comfortable, +well-to-do, clean, and proper. + +And my boot was chafing two of my toes. That always happens. I had come +down to a wide, shallow valley-bed, marshy. So about a mile out of the +village I sat down by a stone bridge, by a stream, and tore up my +handkerchief, and bound up the toes. And as I sat binding my toes, two +of the elders in black, with umbrellas under their arms, approached from +the direction of the village. + +They made me so furious, I had to hasten to fasten my boot, to hurry on +again, before they should come near me. I could not bear the way they +walked and talked, so crambling and material and mealy-mouthed. + +Then it did actually begin to rain. I was just going down a short hill. +So I sat under a bush and watched the trees drip. I was so glad to be +there, homeless, without place or belonging, crouching under the leaves +in the copse by the road, that I felt I had, like the meek, inherited +the earth. Some men went by, with their coat-collars turned up, and the +rain making still blacker their black broadcloth shoulders. They did not +see me. I was as safe and separate as a ghost. So I ate the remains of +my food that I had bought in Zurich, and waited for the rain. + +Later, in the wet Sunday afternoon, I went on to the little lake, past +many inert, neutral, material people, down an ugly road where trams ran. +The blight of Sunday was almost intolerable near the town. + +So on I went, by the side of the steamy, reedy lake, walking the length +of it. Then suddenly I went in to a little villa by the water for tea. +In Switzerland every house is a villa. + +But this villa, was kept by two old ladies and a delicate dog, who must +not get his feet wet. I was very happy there. I had good jam and strange +honey-cakes for tea, that I liked, and the little old ladies pattered +round in a great stir, always whirling like two dry leaves after the +restless dog. + +'Why must he not go out?' I said. + +'Because it is wet,' they answered, 'and he coughs and sneezes.' + +'Without a handkerchief, that is not _angenehm_' I said. + +So we became bosom friends. + +'You are Austrian?' they said to me. + +I said I was from Graz; that my father was a doctor in Graz, and that I +was walking for my pleasure through the countries of Europe. + +I said this because I knew a doctor from Graz who was always wandering +about, and because I did not want to be myself, an Englishman, to these +two old ladies. I wanted to be something else. So we exchanged +confidences. + +They told me, in their queer, old, toothless fashion, about their +visitors, a man who used to fish all day, every day for three weeks, +fish every hour of the day, though many a day he caught nothing--nothing +at all--still he fished from the boat; and so on, such trivialities. +Then they told me of a third sister who had died, a third little old +lady. One could feel the gap in the house. They cried; and I, being an +Austrian from Graz, to my astonishment felt my tears slip over on to the +table. I also _was_ sorry, and I would have kissed the little old ladies +to comfort them. + +'Only in heaven it is warm, and it doesn't rain, and no one dies,' I +said, looking at the wet leaves. + +Then I went away. I would have stayed the night at this house: I wanted +to. But I had developed my Austrian character too far. + +So I went on to a detestable brutal inn in the town. And the next day I +climbed over the back of the detestable Rigi, with its vile hotel, to +come to Lucerne. There, on the Rigi, I met a lost young Frenchman who +could speak no German, and who said he could not find people to speak +French. So we sat on a stone and became close friends, and I promised +faithfully to go and visit him in his barracks in Algiers: I was to sail +from Naples to Algiers. He wrote me the address on his card, and told me +he had friends in the regiment, to whom I should be introduced, and we +could have a good time, if I would stay a week or two, down there +in Algiers. + +How much more real Algiers was than the rock on the Rigi where we sat, +or the lake beneath, or the mountains beyond. Algiers is very real, +though I have never seen it, and my friend is my friend for ever, though +I have lost his card and forgotten his name. He was a Government clerk +from Lyons, making this his first foreign tour before he began his +military service. He showed me his 'circular excursion ticket'. Then at +last we parted, for he must get to the top of the Rigi, and I must get +to the bottom. + +Lucerne and its lake were as irritating as ever--like the wrapper round +milk chocolate. I could not sleep even one night there: I took the +steamer down the lake, to the very last station. There I found a good +German inn, and was happy. + +There was a tall thin young man, whose face was red and inflamed from +the sun. I thought he was a German tourist. He had just come in; and he +was eating bread and milk. He and I were alone in the eating-room. He +was looking at an illustrated paper. + +'Does the steamer stop here all night?' I asked him in German, hearing +the boat bustling and blowing her steam on the water outside, and +glancing round at her lights, red and white, in the pitch darkness. + +He only shook his head over his bread and milk, and did not lift his +face. + +'Are you English, then?' I said. + +No one but an Englishman would have hidden his face in a bowl of milk, +and have shaken his red ears in such painful confusion. + +'Yes,' he said, 'I am.' + +And I started almost out of my skin at the unexpected London accent. It +was as if one suddenly found oneself in the Tube. + +'So am I,' I said. 'Where have you come from?' + +Then he began, like a general explaining his plans, to tell me. He had +walked round over the Furka Pass, had been on foot four or five days. He +had walked tremendously. Knowing no German, and nothing of the +mountains, he had set off alone on this tour: he had a fortnight's +holiday. So he had come over the Rhone Glacier across the Furka and down +from Andermatt to the Lake. On this last day he had walked about thirty +mountain miles. + +'But weren't you tired?' I said, aghast. + +He was. Under the inflamed redness of his sun- and wind- and snow-burned +face he was sick with fatigue. He had done over a hundred miles in the +last four days. + +'Did you enjoy it?' I asked. + +'Oh yes. I wanted to do it all.' He wanted to do it, and he _had_ done +it. But God knows what he wanted to do it for. He had now one day at +Lucerne, one day at Interlaken and Berne, then London. + +I was sorry for him in my soul, he was so cruelly tired, so perishingly +victorious. + +'Why did you do so much?' I said. 'Why did you come on foot all down the +valley when you could have taken the train? Was it worth it?' + +'I think so,' he said. + +Yet he was sick with fatigue and over-exhaustion. His eyes were quite +dark, sightless: he seemed to have lost the power of seeing, to be +virtually blind. He hung his head forward when he had to write a post +card, as if he felt his way. But he turned his post card so that I +should not see to whom it was addressed; not that I was interested; only +I noticed his little, cautious, English movement of privacy. + +'What time will you be going on?' I asked. + +'When is the first steamer?' he said, and he turned out a guide-book +with a time-table. He would leave at about seven. + +'But why so early?' I said to him. + +He must be in Lucerne at a certain hour, and at Interlaken in the +evening. + +'I suppose you will rest when you get to London?' I said. + +He looked at me quickly, reservedly. + +I was drinking beer: I asked him wouldn't he have something. He thought +a moment, then said he would have another glass of hot milk. The +landlord came--'And bread?' he asked. + +The Englishman refused. He could not eat, really. Also he was poor; he +had to husband his money. The landlord brought the milk and asked me, +when would the gentleman want to go away. So I made arrangements between +the landlord and the stranger. But the Englishman was slightly +uncomfortable at my intervention. He did not like me to know what he +would have for breakfast. + +I could feel so well the machine that had him in its grip. He slaved for +a year, mechanically, in London, riding in the Tube, working in the +office. Then for a fortnight he was let free. So he rushed to +Switzerland, with a tour planned out, and with just enough money to see +him through, and to buy presents at Interlaken: bits of the edelweiss +pottery: I could see him going home with them. + +So he arrived, and with amazing, pathetic courage set forth on foot in a +strange land, to face strange landlords, with no language but English at +his command, and his purse definitely limited. Yet he wanted to go among +the mountains, to cross a glacier. So he had walked on and on, like one +possessed, ever forward. His name might have been Excelsior, indeed. + +But then, when he reached his Furka, only to walk along the ridge and to +descend on the same side! My God, it was killing to the soul. And here +he was, down again from the mountains, beginning his journey home again: +steamer and train and steamer and train and Tube, till he was back in +the machine. + +It hadn't let him go, and he knew it. Hence his cruel self-torture of +fatigue, his cruel exercise of courage. He who hung his head in his milk +in torment when I asked him a question in German, what courage had he +not needed to take this his very first trip out of England, alone, +on foot! + +His eyes were dark and deep with unfathomable courage. Yet he was going +back in the morning. He was going back. All he had courage for was to go +back. He would go back, though he died by inches. Why not? It was +killing him, it was like living loaded with irons. But he had the +courage to submit, to die that way, since it was the way allotted +to him. + +The way he sank on the table in exhaustion, drinking his milk, his will, +nevertheless, so perfect and unblemished, triumphant, though his body +was broken and in anguish, was almost too much to bear. My heart was +wrung for my countryman, wrung till it bled. + +I could not bear to understand my countryman, a man who worked for his +living, as I had worked, as nearly all my countrymen work. He would not +give in. On his holiday he would walk, to fulfil his purpose, walk on; +no matter how cruel the effort were, he would not rest, he would not +relinquish his purpose nor abate his will, not by one jot or tittle. His +body must pay whatever his will demanded, though it were torture. + +It all seemed to me so foolish. I was almost in tears. He went to bed. I +walked by the dark lake, and talked to the girl in the inn. She was a +pleasant girl: it was a pleasant inn, a homely place. One could be +happy there. + +In the morning it was sunny, the lake was blue. By night I should be +nearly at the crest of my journey. I was glad. + +The Englishman had gone. I looked for his name in the book. It was +written in a fair, clerkly hand. He lived at Streatham. Suddenly I hated +him. The dogged fool, to keep his nose on the grindstone like that. What +was all his courage but the very tip-top of cowardice? What a vile +nature--almost Sadish, proud, like the infamous Red Indians, of being +able to stand torture. + +The landlord came to talk to me. He was fat and comfortable and too +respectful. But I had to tell him all the Englishman had done, in the +way of a holiday, just to shame his own fat, ponderous, inn-keeper's +luxuriousness that was too gross. Then all I got out of his enormous +comfortableness was: + +'Yes, that's a _very_ long step to take.' + +So I set off myself, up the valley between the close, snow-topped +mountains, whose white gleamed above me as I crawled, small as an +insect, along the dark, cold valley below. + +There had been a cattle fair earlier in the morning, so troops of cattle +were roving down the road, some with bells tang-tanging, all with soft +faces and startled eyes and a sudden swerving of horns. The grass was +very green by the roads and by the streams; the shadows of the mountain +slopes were very dark on either hand overhead, and the sky with snowy +flanks and tips was high up. + +Here, away from the world, the villages were quiet and obscure--left +behind. They had the same fascinating atmosphere of being forgotten, +left out of the world, that old English villages have. And buying apples +and cheese and bread in a little shop that sold everything and smelled +of everything, I felt at home again. + +But climbing gradually higher, mile after mile, always between the +shadows of the high mountains, I was glad I did not live in the Alps. +The villages on the slopes, the people there, seemed, as if they _must_ +gradually, bit by bit, slide down and tumble to the water-course, and be +rolled on away, away to the sea. Straggling, haphazard little villages +ledged on the slope, high up, beside their wet, green, hanging meadows, +with pine trees behind and the valley bottom far below, and rocks right +above, on both sides, seemed like little temporary squattings of outcast +people. It seemed impossible that they should persist there, with great +shadows wielded over them, like a menace, and gleams of brief sunshine, +like a window. There was a sense of momentariness and expectation. It +seemed as though some dramatic upheaval must take place, the mountains +fall down into their own shadows. The valley beds were like deep graves, +the sides of the mountains like the collapsing walls of a grave. The +very mountain-tops above, bright with transcendent snow, seemed like +death, eternal death. + +There, it seemed, in the glamorous snow, was the source of death, which +fell down in great waves of shadow and rock, rushing to the level earth. +And all the people of the mountains, on the slopes, in the valleys, +seemed to live upon this great, rushing wave of death, of breaking-down, +of destruction. + +The very pure source of breaking-down, decomposition, the very quick of +cold death, is the snowy mountain-peak above. There, eternally, goes on +the white foregathering of the crystals, out of the deathly cold of the +heavens; this is the static nucleus where death meets life in its +elementality. And thence, from their white, radiant nucleus of death in +life, flows the great flux downwards, towards life and warmth. And we +below, we cannot think of the flux upwards, that flows from the +needle-point of snow to the unutterable cold and death. + +The people under the mountains, they seem to live in the flux of death, +the last, strange, overshadowed units of life. Big shadows wave over +them, there is the eternal noise of water falling icily downwards from +the source of death overhead. + +And the people under the shadows, dwelling in the tang of snow and the +noise of icy water, seem dark, almost sordid, brutal. There is no +flowering or coming to flower, only this persistence, in the ice-touched +air, of reproductive life. + +But it is difficult to get a sense of a native population. Everywhere +are the hotels and the foreigners, the parasitism. Yet there is, unseen, +this overshadowed, overhung, sordid mountain population, ledged on the +slopes and in the crevices. In the wider valleys there is still a sense +of cowering among the people. But they catch a new tone from their +contact with the foreigners. And in the towns are nothing but +tradespeople. + +So I climbed slowly up, for a whole day, first along the highroad, +sometimes above and sometimes below the twisting, serpentine railway, +then afterwards along a path on the side of the hill--a path that went +through the crew-yards of isolated farms and even through the garden of +a village priest. The priest was decorating an archway. He stood on a +chair in the sunshine, reaching up with a garland, whilst the +serving-woman stood below, talking loudly. + +The valley here seemed wider, the great flanks of the mountains gave +place, the peaks above were further back. So one was happier. I was +pleased as I sat by the thin track of single flat stones that dropped +swiftly downhill. + +At the bottom was a little town with a factory or quarry, or a foundry, +some place with long, smoking chimneys; which made me feel quite at home +among the mountains. + +It is the hideous rawness of the world of men, the horrible, desolating +harshness of the advance of the industrial world upon the world of +nature, that is so painful. It looks as though the industrial spread of +mankind were a sort of dry disintegration advancing and advancing, a +process of dry disintegration. If only we could learn to take thought +for the whole world instead of for merely tiny bits of it. + +I went through the little, hideous, crude factory-settlement in the high +valley, where the eternal snows gleamed, past the enormous +advertisements for chocolate and hotels, up the last steep slope of the +pass to where the tunnel begins. Goeschenen, the village at the mouth of +the tunnel, is all railway sidings and haphazard villas for tourists, +post cards, and touts and weedy carriages; disorder and sterile chaos, +high up. How should any one stay there! + +I went on up the pass itself. There were various parties of visitors on +the roads and tracks, people from towns incongruously walking and +driving. It was drawing on to evening. I climbed slowly, between the +great cleft in the rock where are the big iron gates, through which the +road winds, winds half-way down the narrow gulley of solid, living rock, +the very throat of the path, where hangs a tablet in memory of many +Russians killed. + +Emerging through the dark rocky throat of the pass I came to the upper +world, the level upper world. It was evening, livid, cold. On either +side spread the sort of moorland of the wide pass-head. I drew near +along the high-road, to Andermatt. + +Everywhere were soldiers moving about the livid, desolate waste of this +upper world. I passed the barracks and the first villas for visitors. +Darkness was coming on; the straggling, inconclusive street of Andermatt +looked as if it were some accident--houses, hotels, barracks, +lodging-places tumbled at random as the caravan of civilization crossed +this high, cold, arid bridge of the European world. + +I bought two post cards and wrote them out of doors in the cold, livid +twilight. Then I asked a soldier where was the post-office. He directed +me. It was something like sending post cards from Skegness or Bognor, +there in the post-office. + +I was trying to make myself agree to stay in Andermatt for the night. +But I could not. The whole place was so terribly raw and flat and +accidental, as if great pieces of furniture had tumbled out of a +pantechnicon and lay discarded by the road. I hovered in the street, in +the twilight, trying to make myself stay. I looked at the announcements +of lodgings and boarding for visitors. It was no good. I could not go +into one of these houses. + +So I passed on, through the old, low, broad-eaved houses that cringe +down to the very street, out into the open again. The air was fierce and +savage. On one side was a moorland, level; on the other a sweep of naked +hill, curved concave, and sprinkled with snow. I could see how wonderful +it would all be, under five or six feet of winter snow, skiing and +tobogganing at Christmas. But it needed the snow. In the summer there is +to be seen nothing but the winter's broken detritus. + +The twilight deepened, though there was still the strange, glassy +translucency of the snow-lit air. A fragment of moon was in the sky. A +carriage-load of French tourists passed me. There was the loud noise of +water, as ever, something eternal and maddening in its sound, like the +sound of Time itself, rustling and rushing and wavering, but never for a +second ceasing. The rushing of Time that continues throughout eternity, +this is the sound of the icy streams of Switzerland, something that +mocks and destroys our warm being. + +So I came, in the early darkness, to the little village with the broken +castle that stands for ever frozen at the point where the track parts, +one way continuing along the ridge, to the Furka Pass, the other +swerving over the hill to the left, over the Gotthardt. + +In this village I must stay. I saw a woman looking hastily, furtively +from a doorway. I knew she was looking for visitors. I went on up the +hilly street. There were only a few wooden houses and a gaily lighted +wooden inn, where men were laughing, and strangers, men, standing +talking loudly in the doorway. + +It was very difficult to go to a house this night. I did not want to +approach any of them. I turned back to the house of the peering woman. +She had looked hen-like and anxious. She would be glad of a visitor to +help her pay her rent. + +It was a clean, pleasant wooden house, made to keep out the cold. That +seemed its one function: to defend the inmates from the cold. It was +furnished like a hut, just tables and chairs and bare wooden walls. One +felt very close and secure in the room, as in a hut, shut away from the +outer world. + +The hen-like woman came. + +'Can I have a bed,' I said, 'for the night?' + +'_Abendessen, ja!_' she replied. 'Will you have soup and boiled beef and +vegetables?' + +I said I would, so I sat down to wait, in the utter silence. I could +scarcely hear the ice-stream, the silence seemed frozen, the house +empty. The woman seemed to be flitting aimlessly, scurriedly, in reflex +against the silence. One could almost touch the stillness as one could +touch the walls, or the stove, or the table with white American +oil-cloth. + +Suddenly she appeared again. + +'What will you drink?' + +She watched my face anxiously, and her voice was pathetic, slightly +pleading in its quickness. + +'Wine or beer?' she said. + +I would not trust the coldness of beer. + +'A half of red wine,' I said. + +I knew she was going to keep me an indefinite time. + +She appeared with the wine and bread. + +'Would you like omelette after the beef?' she asked. 'Omelette with +cognac--I can make it _very_ good.' + +I knew I should be spending too much, but I said yes. After all, why +should I not eat, after the long walk? + +So she left me again, whilst I sat in the utter isolation and stillness, +eating bread and drinking the wine, which was good. And I listened for +any sound: only the faint noise of the stream. And I wondered, Why am I +here, on this ridge of the Alps, in the lamp-lit, wooden, close-shut +room, alone? Why am I here? + +Yet somehow I was glad, I was happy even: such splendid silence and +coldness and clean isolation. It was something eternal, unbroachable: I +was free, in this heavy, ice-cold air, this upper world, alone. London, +far away below, beyond, England, Germany, France--they were all so +unreal in the night. It was a sort of grief that this continent all +beneath was so unreal, false, non-existent in its activity. Out of the +silence one looked down on it, and it seemed to have lost all +importance, all significance. It was so big, yet it had no significance. +The kingdom of the world had no significance: what could one do but +wander about? + +The woman came with my soup. I asked her, did not many people come in +the summer. But she was scared away, she did not answer, she went like a +leaf in the wind. However, the soup was good and plentiful. + +She was a long time before she came with the next course. Then she put +the tray on the table, and looking at me, then looking away, +shrinking, she said: + +'You must excuse me if I don't answer you--I don't hear well--I am +rather deaf.' + +I looked at her, and I winced also. She shrank in such simple pain from +the fact of her defect. I wondered if she were bullied because of it, or +only afraid lest visitors would dislike it. + +She put the dishes in order, set me my plate, quickly, nervously, and +was gone again, like a scared chicken. Being tired, I wanted to weep +over her, the nervous, timid hen, so frightened by her own deafness. The +house was silent of her, empty. It was perhaps her deafness which +created this empty soundlessness. + +When she came with the omelette, I said to her loudly: + +'That was very good, the soup and meat.' So she quivered nervously, and +said, 'Thank you,' and I managed to talk to her. She was like most deaf +people, in that her terror of not hearing made her six times worse than +she actually was. + +She spoke with a soft, strange accent, so I thought she was perhaps a +foreigner. But when I asked her she misunderstood, and I had not the +heart to correct her. I can only remember she said her house was always +full in the winter, about Christmas-time. People came for the winter +sport. There were two young English ladies who always came to her. + +She spoke of them warmly. Then, suddenly afraid, she drifted off again. +I ate the omelette with cognac, which was very good, then I looked in +the street. It was very dark, with bright stars, and smelled of snow. +Two village men went by. I was tired, I did not want to go to the inn. + +So I went to bed, in the silent, wooden house. I had a small bedroom, +clean and wooden and very cold. Outside, the stream was rushing. I +covered myself with a great depth of featherbed, and looked at the +stars, and the shadowy upper world, and went to sleep. + +In the morning I washed in the ice-cold water, and was glad to set out. +An icy mist was over the noisy stream, there were a few meagre, shredded +pine-trees. I had breakfast and paid my bill: it was seven francs--more +than I could afford; but that did not matter, once I was out in the air. + +The sky was blue and perfect, it was a ringing morning, the village was +very still. I went up the hill till I came to the signpost. I looked +down the direction of the Furka, and thought of my tired Englishman from +Streatham, who would be on his way home. Thank God I need not go home: +never, perhaps. I turned up the track to the left, to the Gothard. + +Standing looking round at the mountain-tops, at the village and the +broken castle below me, at the scattered debris of Andermatt on the moor +in the distance, I was jumping in my soul with delight. Should one ever +go down to the lower world? + +Then I saw another figure striding along, a youth with knee-breeches and +Alpine hat and braces over his shirt, walking manfully, his coat slung +in his rucksack behind. I laughed, and waited. He came my way. + +'Are you going over the Gothard?' I said. + +'Yes,' he replied. 'Are you also?' + +'Yes' I said. 'We will go together.' + +So we set off, climbing a track up the heathy rocks. + +He was a pale, freckled town youth from Basel, seventeen years old. He +was a clerk in a baggage-transport firm--Gondrand Freres, I believe. He +had a week's holiday, in which time he was going to make a big circular +walk, something like the Englishman's. But he was accustomed to this +mountain walking: he belonged to a Sportverein. Manfully he marched in +his thick hob-nailed boots, earnestly he scrambled up the rocks. + +We were in the crest of the pass. Broad snow-patched slopes came down +from the pure sky; the defile was full of stones, all bare stones, +enormous ones as big as a house, and small ones, pebbles. Through these +the road wound in silence, through this upper, transcendent desolation, +wherein was only the sound of the stream. Sky and snow-patched slopes, +then the stony, rocky bed of the defile, full of morning sunshine: this +was all. We were crossing in silence from the northern world to +the southern. + +But he, Emil, was going to take the train back, through the tunnel, in +the evening, to resume his circular walk at Goeschenen. + +I, however, was going on, over the ridge of the world, from the north +into the south. So I was glad. + +We climbed up the gradual incline for a long time. The slopes above +became lower, they began to recede. The sky was very near, we were +walking under the sky. + +Then the defile widened out, there was an open place before us, the very +top of the pass. Also there were low barracks, and soldiers. We heard +firing. Standing still, we saw on the slopes of snow, under the radiant +blue heaven, tiny puffs of smoke, then some small black figures crossing +the snow patch, then another rattle of rifle-fire, rattling dry and +unnatural in the upper, skyey air, between the rocks. + +'_Das ist schoen_,' said my companion, in his simple admiration. + +'_Huebsch_,' I said. + +'But that would be splendid, to be firing up there, manoeuvring up in +the snow.' + +And he began to tell me how hard a soldier's life was, how hard the +soldier was drilled. + +'You don't look forward to it?' I said. + +'Oh yes, I do. I want to be a soldier, I want to serve my time.' + +'Why?'I said. + +'For the exercise, the life, the drilling. One becomes strong.' + +'Do all the Swiss want to serve their time in the army?' I asked. + +'Yes--they all want to. It is good for every man, and it keeps us all +together. Besides, it is only for a year. For a year it is very good. +The Germans have three years--that is too long, that is bad.' + +I told him how the soldiers in Bavaria hated the military service. + +'Yes,' he said, 'that is true of Germans. The system is different. Ours +is much better; in Switzerland a man enjoys his time as a soldier. I +want to go.' + +So we watched the black dots of soldiers crawling over the high snow, +listened to the unnatural dry rattle of guns, up there. + +Then we were aware of somebody whistling, of soldiers yelling down the +road. We were to come on, along the level, over the bridge. So we +marched quickly forward, away from the slopes, towards the hotel, once a +monastery, that stood in the distance. The light was blue and clear on +the reedy lakes of this upper place; it was a strange desolation of +water and bog and rocks and road, hedged by the snowy slopes round the +rim, under the very sky. + +The soldier was yelling again. I could not tell what he said. + +'He says if we don't run we can't come at all,' said Emil. + +'I won't run,' I said. + +So we hurried forwards, over the bridge, where the soldier on guard was +standing. + +'Do you want to be shot?' he said angrily, as we came up. + +'No, thanks,' I said. + +Emil was very serious. + +'How long should we have had to wait if we hadn't got through now?' he +asked the soldier, when we were safely out of danger. + +'Till one o'clock,' was the reply. + +'Two hours!' said Emil, strangely elated. 'We should have had to wait +two hours before we could come on. He was riled that we didn't run,' and +he laughed with glee. + +So we marched over the level to the hotel. We called in for a glass of +hot milk. I asked in German. But the maid, a pert hussy, elegant and +superior, was French. She served us with great contempt, as two +worthless creatures, poverty-stricken. It abashed poor Emil, but we +managed to laugh at her. This made her very angry. In the smoking-room +she raised up her voice in French: + +'_Du lait chaud pour les chameaux._' + +'Some hot milk for the camels, she says,' I translated for Emil. He was +covered with confusion and youthful anger. + +But I called to her, tapped the table and called: + +'_Mademoiselle!_' + +She appeared flouncingly in the doorway. + +'_Encore du lait pour les chameaux_,' I said. + +And she whisked our glasses off the table, and flounced out without a +word. + +But she would not come in again with the milk. A German girl brought it. +We laughed, and she smiled primly. + +When we set forth again, Emil rolled up his sleeves and turned back his +shirt from his neck and breast, to do the thing thoroughly. Besides, it +was midday, and the sun was hot; and, with his bulky pack on his back, +he suggested the camel of the French maid more than ever. + +We were on the downward slope. Only a short way from the hotel, and +there was the drop, the great cleft in the mountains running down from +this shallow pot among the peaks. + +The descent on the south side is much more precipitous and wonderful +than the ascent from the north. On the south, the rocks are craggy and +stupendous; the little river falls headlong down; it is not a stream, it +is one broken, panting cascade far away in the gulley below, in +the darkness. + +But on the slopes the sun pours in, the road winds down with its tail in +its mouth, always in endless loops returning on itself. The mules that +travel upward seem to be treading in a mill. + +Emil took the narrow tracks, and, like the water, we cascaded down, +leaping from level to level, leaping, running, leaping, descending +headlong, only resting now and again when we came down on to another +level of the high-road. + +Having begun, we could not help ourselves, we were like two stones +bouncing down. Emil was highly elated. He waved his thin, bare, white +arms as he leapt, his chest grew pink with the exercise. Now he felt he +was doing something that became a member of his Sportverein. Down we +went, jumping, running, britching. + +It was wonderful on this south side, so sunny, with feathery trees and +deep black shadows. It reminded me of Goethe, of the romantic period: + + _Kennst du das Land, wo die Citronen bluehen?_ + +So we went tumbling down into the south, very swiftly, along with the +tumbling stream. But it was very tiring. We went at a great pace down +the gully, between the sheer rocks. Trees grew in the ledges high over +our heads, trees grew down below. And ever we descended. + +Till gradually the gully opened, then opened into a wide valley-head, +and we saw Airolo away below us, the railway emerging from its hole, the +whole valley like a cornucopia full of sunshine. + +Poor Emil was tired, more tired than I was. And his big boots had hurt +his feet in the descent. So, having come to the open valley-head, we +went more gently. He had become rather quiet. + +The head of the valley had that half-tamed, ancient aspect that reminded +me of the Romans. I could only expect the Roman legions to be encamped +down there; and the white goats feeding on the bushes belonged to a +Roman camp. + +But no, we saw again the barracks of the Swiss soldiery, and again we +were in the midst of rifle-fire and manoeuvres. But we went evenly, +tired now, and hungry. We had nothing to eat. + +It is strange how different the sun-dried, ancient, southern slopes of +the world are, from the northern slopes. It is as if the god Pan really +had his home among these sun-bleached stones and tough, sun-dark trees. +And one knows it all in one's blood, it is pure, sun-dried memory. So I +was content, coming down into Airolo. + +We found the streets were Italian, the houses sunny outside and dark +within, like Italy, there were laurels in the road. Poor Emil was a +foreigner all at once. He rolled down his shirt sleeves and fastened his +shirt-neck, put on his coat and collar, and became a foreigner in his +soul, pale and strange. + +I saw a shop with vegetables and grapes, a real Italian shop, a dark +cave. + +'_Quanto costa l'uva?_' were my first words in the south. + +'_Sessanta al chilo_,' said the girl. + +And it was as pleasant as a drink of wine, the Italian. + +So Emil and I ate the sweet black grapes as we went to the station. + +He was very poor. We went into the third-class restaurant at the +station. He ordered beer and bread and sausage; I ordered soup and +boiled beef and vegetables. + +They brought me a great quantity, so, whilst the girl was serving +coffee-with-rum to the men at the bar, I took another spoon and knife +and fork and plates for Emil, and we had two dinners from my one. When +the girl--she was a woman of thirty-five--came back, she looked at us +sharply. I smiled at her coaxingly; so she gave a small, kindly smile +in reply. + +'_Ja, dies ist reizend_,' said Emil, _sotto voce_, exulting. He was very +shy. But we were curiously happy, in that railway restaurant. + +Then we sat very still, on the platform, and waited for the train. It +was like Italy, pleasant and social to wait in the railway station, all +the world easy and warm in its activity, with the sun shining. + +I decided to take a franc's worth of train-journey. So I chose my +station. It was one franc twenty, third class. Then my train came, and +Emil and I parted, he waving to me till I was out of sight. I was sorry +he had to go back, he did so want to venture forth. + +So I slid for a dozen miles or more, sleepily, down the Ticino valley, +sitting opposite two fat priests in their feminine black. + +When I got out at my station I felt for the first time ill at ease. Why +was I getting out at this wayside place, on to the great, raw high-road? +I did not know. But I set off walking. It was nearly tea-time. + +Nothing in the world is more ghastly than these Italian roads, new, +mechanical, belonging to a machine life. The old roads are wonderful, +skilfully aiming their way. But these new great roads are desolating, +more desolating than all the ruins in the world. + +I walked on and on, down the Ticino valley, towards Bellinzona. The +valley was perhaps beautiful: I don't know. I can only remember the +road. It was broad and new, and it ran very often beside the railway. It +ran also by quarries and by occasional factories, also through villages. +And the quality of its sordidness is something that does not bear +thinking of, a quality that has entered Italian life now, if it was not +there before. + +Here and there, where there were quarries or industries, great +lodging-houses stood naked by the road, great, grey, desolate places; +and squalid children were playing round the steps, and dirty men +slouched in. Everything seemed under a weight. + +Down the road of the Ticino valley I felt again my terror of this new +world which is coming into being on top of us. One always feels it in a +suburb, on the edge of a town, where the land is being broken under the +advance of houses. But this is nothing, in England, to the terror one +feels on the new Italian roads, where these great blind cubes of +dwellings rise stark from the destroyed earth, swarming with a sort of +verminous life, really verminous, purely destructive. + +It seems to happen when the peasant suddenly leaves his home and becomes +a workman. Then an entire change comes over everywhere. Life is now a +matter of selling oneself to slave-work, building roads or labouring in +quarries or mines or on the railways, purposeless, meaningless, really +slave-work, each integer doing his mere labour, and all for no purpose, +except to have money, and to get away from the old system. + +These Italian navvies work all day long, their whole life is engaged in +the mere brute labour. And they are the navvies of the world. And whilst +they are navvying, they are almost shockingly indifferent to their +circumstances, merely callous to the dirt and foulness. + +It is as if the whole social form were breaking down, and the human +element swarmed within the disintegration, like maggots in cheese. The +roads, the railways are built, the mines and quarries are excavated, but +the whole organism of life, the social organism, is slowly crumbling and +caving in, in a kind of process of dry rot, most terrifying to see. So +that it seems as though we should be left at last with a great system of +roads and railways and industries, and a world of utter chaos seething +upon these fabrications: as if we had created a steel framework, and the +whole body of society were crumbling and rotting in between. It is most +terrifying to realize; and I have always felt this terror upon a new +Italian high-road--more there than anywhere. + +The remembrance of the Ticino valley is a sort of nightmare to me. But +it was better when at last, in the darkness of night, I got into +Bellinzona. In the midst of the town one felt the old organism still +living. It is only at its extremities that it is falling to pieces, as +in dry rot. + +In the morning, leaving Bellinzona, again I went in terror of the new, +evil high-road, with its skirting of huge cubical houses and its +seething navvy population. Only the peasants driving in with fruit were +consoling. But I was afraid of them: the same spirit had set in in them. + +I was no longer happy in Switzerland, not even when I was eating great +blackberries and looking down at the Lago Maggiore, at Locarno, lying by +the lake; the terror of the callous, disintegrating process was too +strong in me. + +At a little inn a man was very good to me. He went into his garden and +fetched me the first grapes and apples and peaches, bringing them in +amongst leaves, and heaping them before me. He was Italian-Swiss; he had +been in a bank in Bern; now he had retired, had bought his paternal +home, and was a free man. He was about fifty years old; he spent all his +time in his garden; his daughter attended to the inn. + +He talked to me, as long as I stayed, about Italy and Switzerland and +work and life. He was retired, he was free. But he was only nominally +free. He had only achieved freedom from labour. He knew that the system +he had escaped at last, persisted, and would consume his sons and his +grandchildren. He himself had more or less escaped back to the old form; +but as he came with me on to the hillside, looking down the high-road at +Lugano in the distance, he knew that his old order was collapsing by a +slow process of disintegration. + +Why did he talk to me as if I had any hope, as if I represented any +positive truth as against this great negative truth that was advancing +up the hill-side. Again I was afraid. I hastened down the high-road, +past the houses, the grey, raw crystals of corruption. + +I saw a girl with handsome bare legs, ankles shining like brass in the +sun. She was working in a field, on the edge of a vineyard. I stopped to +look at her, suddenly fascinated by her handsome naked flesh that shone +like brass. + +Then she called out to me, in a jargon I could not understand, something +mocking and challenging. And her voice was raucous and challenging; I +went on, afraid. + +In Lugano I stayed at a German hotel. I remember sitting on a seat in +the darkness by the lake, watching the stream of promenaders patrolling +the edge of the water, under the trees and the lamps. I can still see +many of their faces: English, German, Italian, French. And it seemed +here, here in this holiday-place, was the quick of the disintegration, +the dry-rot, in this dry, friable flux of people backwards and forwards +on the edge of the lake, men and women from the big hotels, in evening +dress, curiously sinister, and ordinary visitors, and tourists, and +workmen, youths, men of the town, laughing, jeering. It was curiously +and painfully sinister, almost obscene. + +I sat a long time among them, thinking of the girl with her limbs of +glowing brass. Then at last I went up to the hotel, and sat in the +lounge looking at the papers. It was the same here as down below, though +not so intense, the feeling of horror. + +So I went to bed. The hotel was on the edge of a steep declivity. I +wondered why the whole hills did not slide down, in some great natural +catastrophe. + +In the morning I walked along the side of the Lake of Lugano, to where I +could take a steamer to ferry me down to the end. The lake is not +beautiful, only picturesque. I liked most to think of the Romans +coming to it. + +So I steamed down to the lower end of the water. When I landed and went +along by a sort of railway I saw a group of men. Suddenly they began to +whoop and shout. They were hanging on to an immense pale bullock, which +was slung up to be shod; and it was lunging and kicking with terrible +energy. It was strange to see that mass of pale, soft-looking flesh +working with such violent frenzy, convulsed with violent, active frenzy, +whilst men and women hung on to it with ropes, hung on and weighed it +down. But again it scattered some of them in its terrible convulsion. +Human beings scattered into the road, the whole place was covered with +hot dung. And when the bullock began to lunge again, the men set up a +howl, half of triumph, half of derision. + +I went on, not wanting to see. I went along a very dusty road. But it +was not so terrifying, this road. Perhaps it was older. + +In dreary little Chiasso I drank coffee, and watched the come and go +through the Customs. The Swiss and the Italian Customs officials had +their offices within a few yards of each other, and everybody must stop. +I went in and showed my rucksack to the Italian, then I mounted a tram, +and went to the Lake of Como. + +In the tram were dressed-up women, fashionable, but business-like. They +had come by train to Chiasso, or else had been shopping in the town. + +When we came to the terminus a young miss, dismounting before me, left +behind her parasol. I had been conscious of my dusty, grimy appearance +as I sat in the tram, I knew they thought me a workman on the roads. +However, I forgot that when it was time to dismount. + +'_Pardon, Mademoiselle_,' I said to the young miss. She turned and +withered me with a rather overdone contempt--'_bourgeoise_,' I said to +myself, as I looked at her--'_Vous avez laisse votre parasol_.' + +She turned, and with a rapacious movement darted upon her parasol. How +her soul was in her possessions! I stood and watched her. Then she went +into the road and under the trees, haughty, a demoiselle. She had on +white kid boots. + +I thought of the Lake of Como what I had thought of Lugano: it must have +been wonderful when the Romans came there. Now it is all villas. I think +only the sunrise is still wonderful, sometimes. + +I took the steamer down to Como, and slept in a vast old stone cavern of +an inn, a remarkable place, with rather nice people. In the morning I +went out. The peace and the bygone beauty of the cathedral created the +glow of the great past. And in the market-place they were selling +chestnuts wholesale, great heaps of bright, brown chestnuts, and sacks +of chestnuts, and peasants very eager selling and buying. I thought of +Como, it must have been wonderful even a hundred years ago. Now it is +cosmopolitan, the cathedral is like a relic, a museum object, everywhere +stinks of mechanical money-pleasure. I dared not risk walking to Milan: +I took a train. And there, in Milan, sitting in the Cathedral Square, on +Saturday afternoon, drinking Bitter Campari and watching the swarm of +Italian city-men drink and talk vivaciously, I saw that here the life +was still vivid, here the process of disintegration was vigorous, and +centred in a multiplicity of mechanical activities that engage the human +mind as well as the body. But always there was the same purpose stinking +in it all, the mechanizing, the perfect mechanizing of human life. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Twilight in Italy, by D.H. Lawrence + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT IN ITALY *** + +This file should be named 7twit10.txt or 7twit10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7twit11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7twit10a.txt + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Twilight in Italy + +Author: D.H. Lawrence + +Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9497] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 6, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT IN ITALY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +TWILIGHT IN ITALY + + +By D. H. Lawrence + +1916 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE CRUCIFIX ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS + +ON THE LAGO DI GARDA + 1 _The Spinner and the Monks_ + 2 _The Lemon Gardens_ + 3 _The Theatre_ + 4 _San Gaudenzio_ + 5 _The Dance_ + 6 _Il Duro_ + 7 _John_ + +ITALIANS IN EXILE + +THE RETURN JOURNEY + + + + +_The Crucifix Across the Mountains_ + + +The imperial road to Italy goes from Munich across the Tyrol, through +Innsbruck and Bozen to Verona, over the mountains. Here the great +processions passed as the emperors went South, or came home again from +rosy Italy to their own Germany. + +And how much has that old imperial vanity clung to the German soul? Did +not the German kings inherit the empire of bygone Rome? It was not a +very real empire, perhaps, but the sound was high and splendid. + +Maybe a certain Grössenwahn is inherent in the German nature. If only +nations would realize that they have certain natural characteristics, if +only they could understand and agree to each other's particular nature, +how much simpler it would all be. + +The imperial procession no longer crosses the mountains, going South. +That is almost forgotten, the road has almost passed out of mind. But +still it is there, and its signs are standing. + +The crucifixes are there, not mere attributes of the road, yet still +having something to do with it. The imperial processions, blessed by the +Pope and accompanied by the great bishops, must have planted the holy +idol like a new plant among the mountains, there where it multiplied and +grew according to the soil, and the race that received it. + +As one goes among the Bavarian uplands and foothills, soon one realizes +here is another land, a strange religion. It is a strange country, +remote, out of contact. Perhaps it belongs to the forgotten, imperial +processions. + +Coming along the clear, open roads that lead to the mountains, one +scarcely notices the crucifixes and the shrines. Perhaps one's interest +is dead. The crucifix itself is nothing, a factory-made piece of +sentimentalism. The soul ignores it. + +But gradually, one after another looming shadowily under their hoods, +the crucifixes seem to create a new atmosphere over the whole of the +countryside, a darkness, a weight in the air that is so unnaturally +bright and rare with the reflection from the snows above, a darkness +hovering just over the earth. So rare and unearthly the light is, from +the mountains, full of strange radiance. Then every now and again recurs +the crucifix, at the turning of an open, grassy road, holding a shadow +and a mystery under its pointed hood. + +I was startled into consciousness one evening, going alone over a marshy +place at the foot of the mountains, when the sky was pale and unearthly, +invisible, and the hills were nearly black. At a meeting of the tracks +was a crucifix, and between the feet of the Christ a handful of withered +poppies. It was the poppies I saw, then the Christ. + +It was an old shrine, the wood-sculpture of a Bavarian peasant. The +Christ was a peasant of the foot of the Alps. He had broad cheekbones +and sturdy limbs. His plain, rudimentary face stared fixedly at the +hills, his neck was stiffened, as if in resistance to the fact of the +nails and the cross, which he could not escape. It was a man nailed down +in spirit, but set stubbornly against the bondage and the disgrace. He +was a man of middle age, plain, crude, with some of the meanness of the +peasant, but also with a kind of dogged nobility that does not yield its +soul to the circumstance. Plain, almost blank in his soul, the +middle-aged peasant of the crucifix resisted unmoving the misery of his +position. He did not yield. His soul was set, his will was fixed. He was +himself, let his circumstances be what they would, his life fixed down. + +Across the marsh was a tiny square of orange-coloured light, from the +farm-house with the low, spreading roof. I remembered how the man and +his wife and the children worked on till dark, silent and intent, +carrying the hay in their arms out of the streaming thunder-rain into +the shed, working silent in the soaking rain. + +The body bent forward towards the earth, closing round on itself; the +arms clasped full of hay, clasped round the hay that presses soft and +close to the breast and the body, that pricks heat into the arms and the +skin of the breast, and fills the lungs with the sleepy scent of dried +herbs: the rain that falls heavily and wets the shoulders, so that the +shirt clings to the hot, firm skin and the rain comes with heavy, +pleasant coldness on the active flesh, running in a trickle down towards +the loins, secretly; this is the peasant, this hot welter of physical +sensation. And it is all intoxicating. It is intoxicating almost like a +soporific, like a sensuous drug, to gather the burden to one's body in +the rain, to stumble across the living grass to the shed, to relieve +one's arms of the weight, to throw down the hay on to the heap, to feel +light and free in the dry shed, then to return again into the chill, +hard rain, to stoop again under the rain, and rise to return again with +the burden. + +It is this, this endless heat and rousedness of physical sensation which +keeps the body full and potent, and flushes the mind with a blood heat, +a blood sleep. And this sleep, this heat of physical experience, becomes +at length a bondage, at last a crucifixion. It is the life and the +fulfilment of the peasant, this flow of sensuous experience. But at last +it drives him almost mad, because he cannot escape. + +For overhead there is always the strange radiance of the mountains, +there is the mystery of the icy river rushing through its pink shoals +into the darkness of the pine-woods, there is always the faint tang of +ice on the air, and the rush of hoarse-sounding water. + +And the ice and the upper radiance of snow are brilliant with timeless +immunity from the flux and the warmth of life. Overhead they transcend +all life, all the soft, moist fire of the blood. So that a man must +needs live under the radiance of his own negation. + +There is a strange, clear beauty of form about the men of the Bavarian +highlands, about both men and women. They are large and clear and +handsome in form, with blue eyes very keen, the pupil small, tightened, +the iris keen, like sharp light shining on blue ice. Their large, +full-moulded limbs and erect bodies are distinct, separate, as if they +were perfectly chiselled out of the stuff of life, static, cut off. +Where they are everything is set back, as in a clear frosty air. + +Their beauty is almost this, this strange, clean-cut isolation, as if +each one of them would isolate himself still further and for ever from +the rest of his fellows. + +Yet they are convivial, they are almost the only race with the souls of +artists. Still they act the mystery plays with instinctive fullness of +interpretation, they sing strangely in the mountain fields, they love +make-belief and mummery, their processions and religious festivals are +profoundly impressive, solemn, and rapt. + +It is a race that moves on the poles of mystic sensual delight. Every +gesture is a gesture from the blood, every expression is a symbolic +utterance. + +For learning there is sensuous experience, for thought there is myth and +drama and dancing and singing. Everything is of the blood, of the +senses. There is no mind. The mind is a suffusion of physical heat, it +is not separated, it is kept submerged. + +At the same time, always, overhead, there is the eternal, negative +radiance of the snows. Beneath is life, the hot jet of the blood playing +elaborately. But above is the radiance of changeless not-being. And life +passes away into this changeless radiance. Summer and the prolific +blue-and-white flowering of the earth goes by, with the labour and the +ecstasy of man, disappears, and is gone into brilliance that hovers +overhead, the radiant cold which waits to receive back again all that +which has passed for the moment into being. + +The issue is too much revealed. It leaves the peasant no choice. The +fate gleams transcendent above him, the brightness of eternal, +unthinkable not-being. And this our life, this admixture of labour and +of warm experience in the flesh, all the time it is steaming up to the +changeless brilliance above, the light of the everlasting snows. This is +the eternal issue. + +Whether it is singing or dancing or play-acting or physical transport of +love, or vengeance or cruelty, or whether it is work or sorrow or +religion, the issue is always the same at last, into the radiant +negation of eternity. Hence the beauty and completeness, the finality of +the highland peasant. His figure, his limbs, his face, his motion, it is +all formed in beauty, and it is all completed. There is no flux nor hope +nor becoming, all is, once and for all. The issue is eternal, timeless, +and changeless. All being and all passing away is part of the issue, +which is eternal and changeless. Therefore there is no becoming and no +passing away. Everything is, now and for ever. Hence the strange beauty +and finality and isolation of the Bavarian peasant. + +It is plain in the crucifixes. Here is the essence rendered in sculpture +of wood. The face is blank and stiff, almost expressionless. One +realizes with a start how unchanging and conventionalized is the face of +the living man and woman of these parts, handsome, but motionless as +pure form. There is also an underlying meanness, secretive, cruel. It is +all part of the beauty, the pure, plastic beauty. The body also of the +Christus is stiff and conventionalized, yet curiously beautiful in +proportion, and in the static tension which makes it unified into one +clear thing. There is no movement, no possible movement. The being is +fixed, finally. The whole body is locked in one knowledge, beautiful, +complete. It is one with the nails. Not that it is languishing or dead. +It is stubborn, knowing its own undeniable being, sure of the absolute +reality of the sensuous experience. Though he is nailed down upon an +irrevocable fate, yet, within that fate he has the power and the delight +of all sensuous experience. So he accepts the fate and the mystic +delight of the senses with one will, he is complete and final. His +sensuous experience is supreme, a consummation of life and death +at once. + +It is the same at all times, whether it is moving with the scythe on the +hill-slopes, or hewing the timber, or steering the raft down the river +which is all effervescent with ice; whether it is drinking in the +Gasthaus, or making love, or playing some mummer's part, or hating +steadily and cruelly, or whether it is kneeling in spellbound subjection +in the incense-filled church, or walking in the strange, dark, +subject-procession to bless the fields, or cutting the young birch-trees +for the feast of Frohenleichnam, it is always the same, the dark, +powerful mystic, sensuous experience is the whole of him, he is mindless +and bound within the absoluteness of the issue, the unchangeability of +the great icy not-being which holds good for ever, and is supreme. + +Passing further away, towards Austria, travelling up the Isar, till the +stream becomes smaller and whiter and the air is colder, the full +glamour of the northern hills, which are so marvellously luminous and +gleaming with flowers, wanes and gives way to a darkness, a sense of +ominousness. Up there I saw another little Christ, who seemed the very +soul of the place. The road went beside the river, that was seething +with snowy ice-bubbles, under the rocks and the high, wolf-like +pine-trees, between the pinkish shoals. The air was cold and hard and +high, everything was cold and separate. And in a little glass case +beside the road sat a small, hewn Christ, the head resting on the hand; +and he meditates, half-wearily, doggedly, the eyebrows lifted in strange +abstraction, the elbow resting on the knee. Detached, he sits and dreams +and broods, wearing his little golden crown of thorns, and his little +cloak of red flannel that some peasant woman has stitched for him. + +No doubt he still sits there, the small, blank-faced Christ in the cloak +of red flannel, dreaming, brooding, enduring, persisting. There is a +wistfulness about him, as if he knew that the whole of things was too +much for him. There was no solution, either, in death. Death did not +give the answer to the soul's anxiety. That which is, is. It does not +cease to be when it is cut. Death cannot create nor destroy. What +is, is. + +The little brooding Christ knows this. What is he brooding, then? His +static patience and endurance is wistful. What is it that he secretly +yearns for, amid all the placidity of fate? 'To be, or not to be,' this +may be the question, but is it not a question for death to answer. It is +not a question of living or not-living. It is a question of being--to be +or not to be. To persist or not to persist, that is not the question; +neither is it to endure or not to endure. The issue, is it eternal +not-being? If not, what, then, is being? For overhead the eternal +radiance of the snow gleams unfailing, it receives the efflorescence of +all life and is unchanged, the issue is bright and immortal, the snowy +not-being. What, then, is being? + +As one draws nearer to the turning-point of the Alps, towards the +culmination and the southern slope, the influence of the educated world +is felt once more. Bavaria is remote in spirit, as yet unattached. Its +crucifixes are old and grey and abstract, small like the kernel of the +truth. Further into Austria they become new, they are painted white, +they are larger, more obtrusive. They are the expressions of a later, +newer phase, more introspective and self-conscious. But still they are +genuine expressions of the people's soul. + +Often one can distinguish the work of a particular artist here and there +in a district. In the Zemm valley, in the heart of the Tyrol, behind +Innsbruck, there are five or six crucifixes by one sculptor. He is no +longer a peasant working out an idea, conveying a dogma. He is an +artist, trained and conscious, probably working in Vienna. He is +consciously trying to convey a _feeling_, he is no longer striving +awkwardly to render a truth, a religious fact. + +The chief of his crucifixes stands deep in the Klamm, in the dank gorge +where it is always half-night. The road runs under the rock and the +trees, half-way up the one side of the pass. Below, the stream rushes +ceaselessly, embroiled among great stones, making an endless loud noise. +The rock face opposite rises high overhead, with the sky far up. So that +one is walking in a half-night, an underworld. And just below the path, +where the pack-horses go climbing to the remote, infolded villages, in +the cold gloom of the pass hangs the large, pale Christ. He is larger +than life-size. He has fallen forward, just dead, and the weight of the +full-grown, mature body hangs on the nails of the hands. So the dead, +heavy body drops forward, sags, as if it would tear away and fall under +its own weight. + +It is the end. The face is barren with a dead expression of weariness, +and brutalized with pain and bitterness. The rather ugly, passionate +mouth is set for ever in the disillusionment of death. Death is the +complete disillusionment, set like a seal over the whole body and being, +over the suffering and weariness and the bodily passion. + +The pass is gloomy and damp, the water roars unceasingly, till it is +almost like a constant pain. The driver of the pack-horses, as he comes +up the narrow path in the side of the gorge, cringes his sturdy +cheerfulness as if to obliterate himself, drawing near to the large, +pale Christ, and he takes his hat off as he passes, though he does not +look up, but keeps his face averted from the crucifix. He hurries by in +the gloom, climbing the steep path after his horses, and the large white +Christ hangs extended above. + +The driver of the pack-horses is afraid. The fear is always there in +him, in spite of his sturdy, healthy robustness. His soul is not sturdy. +It is blenched and whitened with fear. The mountains are dark overhead, +the water roars in the gloom below. His heart is ground between the +mill-stones of dread. When he passes the extended body of the dead +Christ he takes off his hat to the Lord of Death. Christ is the Deathly +One, He is Death incarnate. + +And the driver of the pack-horses acknowledges this deathly Christ as +supreme Lord. The mountain peasant seems grounded upon fear, the fear of +death, of physical death. Beyond this he knows nothing. His supreme +sensation is in physical pain, and in its culmination. His great climax, +his consummation, is death. Therefore he worships it, bows down before +it, and is fascinated by it all the while. It is his fulfilment, death, +and his approach to fulfilment is through physical pain. + +And so these monuments to physical death are found everywhere in the +valleys. By the same hand that carved the big Christ, a little further +on, at the end of a bridge, was another crucifix, a small one. This +Christ had a fair beard, and was thin, and his body was hanging almost +lightly, whereas the other Christ was large and dark and handsome. But +in this, as well as in the other, was the same neutral triumph of death, +complete, negative death, so complete as to be abstract, beyond cynicism +in its completeness of leaving off. + +Everywhere is the same obsession with the fact of physical pain, +accident, and sudden death. Wherever a misfortune has befallen a man, +there is nailed up a little memorial of the event, in propitiation of +the God of hurt and death. A man is standing up to his waist in water, +drowning in full stream, his arms in the air. The little painting in its +wooden frame is nailed to the tree, the spot is sacred to the accident. +Again, another little crude picture fastened to a rock: a tree, falling +on a man's leg, smashes it like a stalk, while the blood flies up. +Always there is the strange ejaculation of anguish and fear, perpetuated +in the little paintings nailed up in the place of the disaster. + +This is the worship, then, the worship of death and the approaches to +death, physical violence, and pain. There is something crude and +sinister about it, almost like depravity, a form of reverting, turning +back along the course of blood by which we have come. + +Turning the ridge on the great road to the south, the imperial road to +Rome, a decisive change takes place. The Christs have been taking on +various different characters, all of them more or less realistically +conveyed. One Christus is very elegant, combed and brushed and foppish +on his cross, as Gabriele D'Annunzio's son posing as a martyred saint. +The martyrdom of this Christ is according to the most polite convention. +The elegance is very important, and very Austrian. One might almost +imagine the young man had taken up this striking and original position +to create a delightful sensation among the ladies. It is quite in the +Viennese spirit. There is something brave and keen in it, too. The +individual pride of body triumphs over every difficulty in the +situation. The pride and satisfaction in the clean, elegant form, the +perfectly trimmed hair, the exquisite bearing, are more important than +the fact of death or pain. This may be foolish, it is at the same time +admirable. + +But the tendency of the crucifix, as it nears the ridge to the south, is +to become weak and sentimental. The carved Christs turn up their faces +and roll back their eyes very piteously, in the approved Guido Reni +fashion. They are overdoing the pathetic turn. They are looking to +heaven and thinking about themselves, in self-commiseration. Others +again are beautiful as elegies. It is dead Hyacinth lifted and extended +to view, in all his beautiful, dead youth. The young, male body droops +forward on the cross, like a dead flower. It looks as if its only true +nature were to be dead. How lovely is death, how poignant, real, +satisfying! It is the true elegiac spirit. + +Then there are the ordinary, factory-made Christs, which are not very +significant. They are as null as the Christs we see represented in +England, just vulgar nothingness. But these figures have gashes of red, +a red paint of blood, which is sensational. + +Beyond the Brenner, I have only seen vulgar or sensational crucifixes. +There are great gashes on the breast and the knees of the Christ-figure, +and the scarlet flows out and trickles down, till the crucified body has +become a ghastly striped thing of red and white, just a sickly thing of +striped red. + +They paint the rocks at the corners of the tracks, among the mountains; +a blue and white ring for the road to Ginzling, a red smear for the way +to St Jakob. So one follows the blue and white ring, or the three +stripes of blue and white, or the red smear, as the case may be. And the +red on the rocks, the dabs of red paint, are of just the same colour as +the red upon the crucifixes; so that the red upon the crucifixes is +paint, and the signs on the rocks are sensational, like blood. + +I remember the little brooding Christ of the Isar, in his little cloak +of red flannel and his crown of gilded thorns, and he remains real and +dear to me, among all this violence of representation. + +'_Couvre-toi de gloire, Tartarin--couvre-toi de flanelle._' Why should +it please me so that his cloak is of red flannel? + +In a valley near St Jakob, just over the ridge, a long way from the +railway, there is a very big, important shrine by the roadside. It is a +chapel built in the baroque manner, florid pink and cream outside, with +opulent small arches. And inside is the most startling sensational +Christus I have ever seen. He is a big, powerful man, seated after the +crucifixion, perhaps after the resurrection, sitting by the grave. He +sits sideways, as if the extremity were over, finished, the agitation +done with, only the result of the experience remaining. There is some +blood on his powerful, naked, defeated body, that sits rather hulked. +But it is the face which is so terrifying. It is slightly turned over +the hulked, crucified shoulder, to look. And the look of this face, of +which the body has been killed, is beyond all expectation horrible. The +eyes look at one, yet have no seeing in them, they seem to see only +their own blood. For they are bloodshot till the whites are scarlet, the +iris is purpled. These red, bloody eyes with their stained pupils, +glancing awfully at all who enter the shrine, looking as if to see +through the blood of the late brutal death, are terrible. The naked, +strong body has known death, and sits in utter dejection, finished, +hulked, a weight of shame. And what remains of life is in the face, +whose expression is sinister and gruesome, like that of an unrelenting +criminal violated by torture. The criminal look of misery and hatred on +the fixed, violated face and in the bloodshot eyes is almost impossible. +He is conquered, beaten, broken, his body is a mass of torture, an +unthinkable shame. Yet his will remains obstinate and ugly, integral +with utter hatred. + +It is a great shock to find this figure sitting in a handsome, baroque, +pink-washed shrine in one of those Alpine valleys which to our thinking +are all flowers and romance, like the picture in the Tate Gallery. +'Spring in the Austrian Tyrol' is to our minds a vision of pristine +loveliness. It contains also this Christ of the heavy body defiled by +torture and death, the strong, virile life overcome by physical +violence, the eyes still looking back bloodshot in consummate hate +and misery. + +The shrine was well kept and evidently much used. It was hung with +ex-voto limbs and with many gifts. It was a centre of worship, of a sort +of almost obscene worship. Afterwards the black pine-trees and the river +of that valley seemed unclean, as if an unclean spirit lived there. The +very flowers seemed unnatural, and the white gleam on the mountain-tops +was a glisten of supreme, cynical horror. + +After this, in the populous valleys, all the crucifixes were more or +less tainted and vulgar. Only high up, where the crucifix becomes +smaller and smaller, is there left any of the old beauty and religion. +Higher and higher, the monument becomes smaller and smaller, till in the +snows it stands out like a post, or a thick arrow stuck barb upwards. +The crucifix itself is a small thing under the pointed hood, the barb of +the arrow. The snow blows under the tiny shed, upon the little, exposed +Christ. All round is the solid whiteness of snow, the awful curves and +concaves of pure whiteness of the mountain top, the hollow whiteness +between the peaks, where the path crosses the high, extreme ridge of the +pass. And here stands the last crucifix, half buried, small and tufted +with snow. The guides tramp slowly, heavily past, not observing the +presence of the symbol, making no salute. Further down, every mountain +peasant lifted his hat. But the guide tramps by without concern. His is +a professional importance now. + +On a small mountain track on the Jaufen, not far from Meran, was a +fallen Christus. I was hurrying downhill to escape from an icy wind +which almost took away my consciousness, and I was looking up at the +gleaming, unchanging snow-peaks all round. They seemed like blades +immortal in the sky. So I almost ran into a very old Martertafel. It +leaned on the cold, stony hillside surrounded by the white peaks in the +upper air. + +The wooden hood was silver-grey with age, and covered, on the top, with +a thicket of lichen, which stuck up in hoary tufts. But on the rock at +the foot of the post was the fallen Christ, armless, who had tumbled +down and lay in an unnatural posture, the naked, ancient wooden +sculpture of the body on the naked, living rock. It was one of the old +uncouth Christs hewn out of bare wood, having the long, wedge-shaped +limbs and thin flat legs that are significant of the true spirit, the +desire to convey a religious truth, not a sensational experience. + +The arms of the fallen Christ had broken off at the shoulders, and they +hung on their nails, as ex-voto limbs hang in the shrines. But these +arms dangled from the palms, one at each end of the cross, the muscles, +carved sparely in the old wood, looking all wrong, upside down. And the +icy wind blew them backwards and forwards, so that they gave a painful +impression, there in the stark, sterile place of rock and cold. Yet I +dared not touch the fallen body of the Christ, that lay on its back in +so grotesque a posture at the foot of the post. I wondered who would +come and take the broken thing away, and for what purpose. + + + + +_On the Lago di Garda_ + + + +_1_ + +THE SPINNER AND THE MONKS + + +The Holy Spirit is a Dove, or an Eagle. In the Old Testament it was an +Eagle; in the New Testament it is a Dove. + +And there are, standing over the Christian world, the Churches of the +Dove and the Churches of the Eagle. There are, moreover, the Churches +which do not belong to the Holy Spirit at all, but which are built to +pure fancy and logic; such as the Wren Churches in London. + +The Churches of the Dove are shy and hidden: they nestle among trees, +and their bells sound in the mellowness of Sunday; or they are gathered +into a silence of their own in the very midst of the town, so that one +passes them by without observing them; they are as if invisible, +offering no resistance to the storming of the traffic. + +But the Churches of the Eagle stand high, with their heads to the skies, +as if they challenged the world below. They are the Churches of the +Spirit of David, and their bells ring passionately, imperiously, falling +on the subservient world below. + +The Church of San Francesco was a Church of the Dove. I passed it +several times in the dark, silent little square, without knowing it was +a church. Its pink walls were blind, windowless, unnoticeable, it gave +no sign, unless one caught sight of the tan curtain hanging in the door, +and the slit of darkness beneath. Yet it was the chief church of +the village. + +But the Church of San Tommaso perched over the village. Coming down the +cobbled, submerged street, many a time I looked up between the houses +and saw the thin old church standing above in the light, as if it +perched on the house-roofs. Its thin grey neck was held up stiffly, +beyond was a vision of dark foliage, and the high hillside. + +I saw it often, and yet for a long time it never occurred to me that it +actually existed. It was like a vision, a thing one does not expect to +come close to. It was there standing away upon the house-tops, against a +glamour of foliaged hillside. I was submerged in the village, on the +uneven, cobbled street, between old high walls and cavernous shops and +the houses with flights of steps. + +For a long time I knew how the day went, by the imperious clangour of +midday and evening bells striking down upon the houses and the edge of +the lake. Yet it did not occur to me to ask where these bells rang. Till +at last my everyday trance was broken in upon, and I knew the ringing of +the Church of San Tommaso. The church became a living connexion with me. + +So I set out to find it, I wanted to go to it. It was very near. I could +see it from the piazza by the lake. And the village itself had only a +few hundreds of inhabitants. The church must be within a stone's throw. + +Yet I could not find it. I went out of the back door of the house, into +the narrow gully of the back street. Women glanced down at me from the +top of the flights of steps, old men stood, half-turning, half-crouching +under the dark shadow of the walls, to stare. It was as if the strange +creatures of the under-shadow were looking at me. I was of +another element. + +The Italian people are called 'Children of the Sun'. They might better +be called 'Children of the Shadow'. Their souls are dark and nocturnal. +If they are to be easy, they must be able to hide, to be hidden in lairs +and caves of darkness. Going through these tiny chaotic backways of the +village was like venturing through the labyrinth made by furtive +creatures, who watched from out of another element. And I was pale, and +clear, and evanescent, like the light, and they were dark, and close, +and constant, like the shadow. + +So I was quite baffled by the tortuous, tiny, deep passages of the +village. I could not find my way. I hurried towards the broken end of a +street, where the sunshine and the olive trees looked like a mirage +before me. And there above me I saw the thin, stiff neck of old San +Tommaso, grey and pale in the sun. Yet I could not get up to the church, +I found myself again on the piazza. + +Another day, however, I found a broken staircase, where weeds grew in +the gaps the steps had made in falling, and maidenhair hung on the +darker side of the wall. I went up unwillingly, because the Italians +used this old staircase as a privy, as they will any deep side-passage. + +But I ran up the broken stairway, and came out suddenly, as by a +miracle, clean on the platform of my San Tommaso, in the +tremendous sunshine. + +It was another world, the world of the eagle, the world of fierce +abstraction. It was all clear, overwhelming sunshine, a platform hung in +the light. Just below were the confused, tiled roofs of the village, and +beyond them the pale blue water, down below; and opposite, opposite my +face and breast, the clear, luminous snow of the mountain across the +lake, level with me apparently, though really much above. + +I was in the skies now, looking down from my square terrace of cobbled +pavement, that was worn like the threshold of the ancient church. Round +the terrace ran a low, broad wall, the coping of the upper heaven where +I had climbed. + +There was a blood-red sail like a butterfly breathing down on the blue +water, whilst the earth on the near side gave off a green-silver smoke +of olive trees, coming up and around the earth-coloured roofs. + +It always remains to me that San Tommaso and its terrace hang suspended +above the village, like the lowest step of heaven, of Jacob's ladder. +Behind, the land rises in a high sweep. But the terrace of San Tommaso +is let down from heaven, and does not touch the earth. + +I went into the church. It was very dark, and impregnated with centuries +of incense. It affected me like the lair of some enormous creature. My +senses were roused, they sprang awake in the hot, spiced darkness. My +skin was expectant, as if it expected some contact, some embrace, as if +it were aware of the contiguity of the physical world, the physical +contact with the darkness and the heavy, suggestive substance of the +enclosure. It was a thick, fierce darkness of the senses. But my +soul shrank. + +I went out again. The pavemented threshold was clear as a jewel, the +marvellous clarity of sunshine that becomes blue in the height seemed to +distil me into itself. + +Across, the heavy mountain crouched along the side of the lake, the +upper half brilliantly white, belonging to the sky, the lower half dark +and grim. So, then, that is where heaven and earth are divided. From +behind me, on the left, the headland swept down out of a great, +pale-grey, arid height, through a rush of russet and crimson, to the +olive smoke and the water of the level earth. And between, like a blade +of the sky cleaving the earth asunder, went the pale-blue lake, cleaving +mountain from mountain with the triumph of the sky. + +Then I noticed that a big, blue-checked cloth was spread on the parapet +before me, over the parapet of heaven. I wondered why it hung there. + +Turning round, on the other side of the terrace, under a caper-bush that +hung like a blood-stain from the grey wall above her, stood a little +grey woman whose fingers were busy. Like the grey church, she made me +feel as if I were not in existence. I was wandering by the parapet of +heaven, looking down. But she stood back against the solid wall, under +the caper-bush, unobserved and unobserving. She was like a fragment of +earth, she was a living stone of the terrace, sun-bleached. She took no +notice of me, who was hesitating looking down at the earth beneath. She +stood back under the sun-bleached solid wall, like a stone rolled down +and stayed in a crevice. + +Her head was tied in a dark-red kerchief, but pieces of hair, like dirty +snow, quite short, stuck out over her ears. And she was spinning. I +wondered so much, that I could not cross towards her. She was grey, and +her apron, and her dress, and her kerchief, and her hands and her face +were all sun-bleached and sun-stained, greyey, bluey, browny, like +stones and half-coloured leaves, sunny in their colourlessness. In my +black coat, I felt myself wrong, false, an outsider. + +She was spinning, spontaneously, like a little wind. Under her arm she +held a distaff of dark, ripe wood, just a straight stick with a clutch +at the end, like a grasp of brown fingers full of a fluff of blackish, +rusty fleece, held up near her shoulder. And her fingers were plucking +spontaneously at the strands of wool drawn down from it. And hanging +near her feet, spinning round upon a black thread, spinning busily, like +a thing in a gay wind, was her shuttle, her bobbin wound fat with the +coarse, blackish worsted she was making. + +All the time, like motion without thought, her fingers teased out the +fleece, drawing it down to a fairly uniform thickness: brown, old, +natural fingers that worked as in a sleep, the thumb having a long grey +nail; and from moment to moment there was a quick, downward rub, between +thumb and forefinger, of the thread that hung in front of her apron, the +heavy bobbin spun more briskly, and she felt again at the fleece as she +drew it down, and she gave a twist to the thread that issued, and the +bobbin spun swiftly. + +Her eyes were clear as the sky, blue, empyrean, transcendent. They were +dear, but they had no looking in them. Her face was like a +sun-worn stone. + +'You are spinning,' I said to her. + +Her eyes glanced over me, making no effort of attention. + +'Yes,' she said. + +She saw merely a man's figure, a stranger standing near. I was a bit of +the outside, negligible. She remained as she was, clear and sustained +like an old stone upon the hillside. She stood short and sturdy, looking +for the most part straight in front, unseeing, but glancing from time to +time, with a little, unconscious attention, at the thread. She was +slightly more animated than the sunshine and the stone and the +motionless caper-bush above her. Still her fingers went along the strand +of fleece near her breast. + +'That is an old way of spinning,' I said. + +'What?' + +She looked up at me with eyes clear and transcendent as the heavens. But +she was slightly roused. There was the slight motion of the eagle in her +turning to look at me, a faint gleam of rapt light in her eyes. It was +my unaccustomed Italian. + +'That is an old way of spinning,' I repeated. + +'Yes--an old way,' she repeated, as if to say the words so that they +should be natural to her. And I became to her merely a transient +circumstance, a man, part of the surroundings. We divided the gift of +speech, that was all. + +She glanced at me again, with her wonderful, unchanging eyes, that were +like the visible heavens, unthinking, or like two flowers that are open +in pure clear unconsciousness. To her I was a piece of the environment. +That was all. Her world was clear and absolute, without consciousness of +self. She was not self-conscious, because she was not aware that there +was anything in the universe except _her_ universe. In her universe I +was a stranger, a foreign _signore_. That I had a world of my own, other +than her own, was not conceived by her. She did not care. + +So we conceive the stars. We are told that they are other worlds. But +the stars are the clustered and single gleaming lights in the night-sky +of our world. When I come home at night, there are the stars. When I +cease to exist as the microcosm, when I begin to think of the cosmos, +then the stars are other worlds. Then the macrocosm absorbs me. But the +macrocosm is not me. It is something which I, the microcosm, am not. + +So that there is something which is unknown to me and which nevertheless +exists. I am finite, and my understanding has limits. The universe is +bigger than I shall ever see, in mind or spirit. There is that which +is not me. + +If I say 'The planet Mars is inhabited,' I do not know what I mean by +'inhabited', with reference to the planet Mars. I can only mean that +that world is not my world. I can only know there is that which is not +me. I am the microcosm, but the macrocosm is that also which I am not. + +The old woman on the terrace in the sun did not know this. She was +herself the core and centre to the world, the sun, and the single +firmament. She knew that I was an inhabitant of lands which she had +never seen. But what of that! There were parts of her own body which she +had never seen, which physiologically she could never see. They were +none the less her own because she had never seen them. The lands she had +not seen were corporate parts of her own living body, the knowledge she +had not attained was only the hidden knowledge of her own self. She +_was_ the substance of the knowledge, whether she had the knowledge in +her mind or not. There was nothing which was not herself, ultimately. +Even the man, the male, was part of herself. He was the mobile, separate +part, but he was none the less herself because he was sometimes severed +from her. If every apple in the world were cut in two, the apple would +not be changed. The reality is the apple, which is just the same in the +half-apple as in the whole. + +And she, the old spinning-woman, was the apple, eternal, unchangeable, +whole even in her partiality. It was this which gave the wonderful clear +unconsciousness to her eyes. How could she be conscious of herself when +all was herself? + +She was talking to me of a sheep that had died, but I could not +understand because of her dialect. It never occurred to her that I could +not understand. She only thought me different, stupid. And she talked +on. The ewes had lived under the house, and a part was divided off for +the he-goat, because the other people brought their she-goats to be +covered by the he-goat. But how the ewe came to die I could not +make out. + +Her fingers worked away all the time in a little, half-fretful movement, +yet spontaneous as butterflies leaping here and there. She chattered +rapidly on in her Italian that I could not understand, looking meanwhile +into my face, because the story roused her somewhat. Yet not a feature +moved. Her eyes remained candid and open and unconscious as the skies. +Only a sharp will in them now and then seemed to gleam at me, as if to +dominate me. + +Her shuttle had caught in a dead chicory plant, and spun no more. She +did not notice. I stooped and broke off the twigs. There was a glint of +blue on them yet. Seeing what I was doing, she merely withdrew a few +inches from the plant. Her bobbin hung free. + +She went on with her tale, looking at me wonderfully. She seemed like +the Creation, like the beginning of the world, the first morning. Her +eyes were like the first morning of the world, so ageless. + +Her thread broke. She seemed to take no notice, but mechanically picked +up the shuttle, wound up a length of worsted, connected the ends from +her wool strand, set the bobbin spinning again, and went on talking, in +her half-intimate, half-unconscious fashion, as if she were talking to +her own world in me. + +So she stood in the sunshine on the little platform, old and yet like +the morning, erect and solitary, sun-coloured, sun-discoloured, whilst I +at her elbow, like a piece of night and moonshine, stood smiling into +her eyes, afraid lest she should deny me existence. + +Which she did. She had stopped talking, did not look at me any more, but +went on with her spinning, the brown shuttle twisting gaily. So she +stood, belonging to the sunshine and the weather, taking no more notice +of me than of the dark-stained caper-bush which hung from the wall above +her head, whilst I, waiting at her side, was like the moon in the +daytime sky, overshone, obliterated, in spite of my black clothes. + +'How long has it taken you to do that much?' I asked. + +She waited a minute, glanced at her bobbin. + +'This much? I don't know. A day or two.' + +'But you do it quickly.' + +She looked at me, as if suspiciously and derisively. Then, quite +suddenly, she started forward and went across the terrace to the great +blue-and-white checked cloth that was drying on the wall. I hesitated. +She had cut off her consciousness from me. So I turned and ran away, +taking the steps two at a time, to get away from her. In a moment I was +between the walls, climbing upwards, hidden. + +The schoolmistress had told me I should find snowdrops behind San +Tommaso. If she had not asserted such confident knowledge I should have +doubted her translation of _perce-neige_. She meant Christmas roses all +the while. + +However, I went looking for snowdrops. The walls broke down suddenly, +and I was out in a grassy olive orchard, following a track beside pieces +of fallen overgrown masonry. So I came to skirt the brink of a steep +little gorge, at the bottom of which a stream was rushing down its steep +slant to the lake. Here I stood to look for my snowdrops. The grassy, +rocky bank went down steep from my feet. I heard water tittle-tattling +away in deep shadow below. There were pale flecks in the dimness, but +these, I knew, were primroses. So I scrambled down. + +Looking up, out of the heavy shadow that lay in the cleft, I could see, +right in the sky, grey rocks shining transcendent in the pure empyrean. +'Are they so far up?' I thought. I did not dare to say, 'Am I so far +down?' But I was uneasy. Nevertheless it was a lovely place, in the cold +shadow, complete; when one forgot the shining rocks far above, it was a +complete, shadowless world of shadow. Primroses were everywhere in nests +of pale bloom upon the dark, steep face of the cleft, and tongues of +fern hanging out, and here and there under the rods and twigs of bushes +were tufts of wrecked Christmas roses, nearly over, but still, in the +coldest corners, the lovely buds like handfuls of snow. There had been +such crowded sumptuous tufts of Christmas roses everywhere in the +stream-gullies, during the shadow of winter, that these few remaining +flowers were hardly noticeable. + +I gathered instead the primroses, that smelled of earth and of the +weather. There were no snowdrops. I had found the day before a bank of +crocuses, pale, fragile, lilac-coloured flowers with dark veins, +pricking up keenly like myriad little lilac-coloured flames among the +grass, under the olive trees. And I wanted very much to find the +snowdrops hanging in the gloom. But there were not any. + +I gathered a handful of primroses, then I climbed suddenly, quickly out +of the deep watercourse, anxious to get back to the sunshine before the +evening fell. Up above I saw the olive trees in the sunny golden grass, +and sunlit grey rocks immensely high up. I was afraid lest the evening +would fall whilst I was groping about like an otter in the damp and the +darkness, that the day of sunshine would be over. + +Soon I was up in the sunshine again, on the turf under the olive trees, +reassured. It was the upper world of glowing light, and I was +safe again. + +All the olives were gathered, and the mills were going night and day, +making a great, acrid scent of olive oil in preparation, by the lake. +The little stream rattled down. A mule driver 'Hued!' to his mules on +the Strada Vecchia. High up, on the Strada Nuova, the beautiful, new, +military high-road, which winds with beautiful curves up the +mountain-side, crossing the same stream several times in clear-leaping +bridges, travelling cut out of sheer slope high above the lake, winding +beautifully and gracefully forward to the Austrian frontier, where it +ends: high up on the lovely swinging road, in the strong evening +sunshine, I saw a bullock wagon moving like a vision, though the +clanking of the wagon and the crack of the bullock whip responded close +in my ears. + +Everything was clear and sun-coloured up there, clear-grey rocks +partaking of the sky, tawny grass and scrub, browny-green spires of +cypresses, and then the mist of grey-green olives fuming down to the +lake-side. There was no shadow, only clear sun-substance built up to the +sky, a bullock wagon moving slowly in the high sunlight, along the +uppermost terrace of the military road. It sat in the warm stillness of +the transcendent afternoon. + +The four o'clock steamer was creeping down the lake from the Austrian +end, creeping under the cliffs. Far away, the Verona side, beyond the +Island, lay fused in dim gold. The mountain opposite was so still, that +my heart seemed to fade in its beating as if it too would be still. All +was perfectly still, pure substance. The little steamer on the floor of +the world below, the mules down the road cast no shadow. They too were +pure sun-substance travelling on the surface of the sun-made world. + +A cricket hopped near me. Then I remembered that it was Saturday +afternoon, when a strange suspension comes over the world. And then, +just below me, I saw two monks walking in their garden between the +naked, bony vines, walking in their wintry garden of bony vines and +olive trees, their brown cassocks passing between the brown vine-stocks, +their heads bare to the sunshine, sometimes a glint of light as their +feet strode from under their skirts. + +It was so still, everything so perfectly suspended, that I felt them +talking. They marched with the peculiar march of monks, a long, loping +stride, their heads together, their skirts swaying slowly, two brown +monks with hidden hands, sliding under the bony vines and beside the +cabbages, their heads always together in hidden converse. It was as if I +were attending with my dark soul to their inaudible undertone. All the +time I sat still in silence, I was one with them, a partaker, though I +could hear no sound of their voices. I went with the long stride of +their skirted feet, that slid springless and noiseless from end to end +of the garden, and back again. Their hands were kept down at their +sides, hidden in the long sleeves, and the skirts of their robes. They +did not touch each other, nor gesticulate as they walked. There was no +motion save the long, furtive stride and the heads leaning together. Yet +there was an eagerness in their conversation. Almost like +shadow-creatures ventured out of their cold, obscure element, they went +backwards and forwards in their wintry garden, thinking nobody could +see them. + +Across, above them, was the faint, rousing dazzle of snow. They never +looked up. But the dazzle of snow began to glow as they walked, the +wonderful, faint, ethereal flush of the long range of snow in the +heavens, at evening, began to kindle. Another world was coming to pass, +the cold, rare night. It was dawning in exquisite, icy rose upon the +long mountain-summit opposite. The monks walked backwards and forwards, +talking, in the first undershadow. + +And I noticed that up above the snow, frail in the bluish sky, a frail +moon had put forth, like a thin, scalloped film of ice floated out on +the slow current of the coming night. And a bell sounded. + +And still the monks were pacing backwards and forwards, backwards and +forwards, with a strange, neutral regularity. + +The shadows were coming across everything, because of the mountains in +the west. Already the olive wood where I sat was extinguished. This was +the world of the monks, the rim of pallor between night and day. Here +they paced, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, in the +neutral, shadowless light of shadow. + +Neither the flare of day nor the completeness of night reached them, +they paced the narrow path of the twilight, treading in the neutrality +of the law. Neither the blood nor the spirit spoke in them, only the +law, the abstraction of the average. The infinite is positive and +negative. But the average is only neutral. And the monks trod backward +and forward down the line of neutrality. + +Meanwhile, on the length of mountain-ridge, the snow grew +rosy-incandescent, like heaven breaking into blossom. After all, eternal +not-being and eternal being are the same. In the rosy snow that shone in +heaven over a darkened earth was the ecstasy of consummation. Night and +day are one, light and dark are one, both the same in the origin and in +the issue, both the same in the moment, of ecstasy, light fused in +darkness and darkness fused in light, as in the rosy snow above +the twilight. + +But in the monks it was not ecstasy, in them it was neutrality, the +under earth. Transcendent, above the shadowed, twilit earth was the rosy +snow of ecstasy. But spreading far over us, down below, was the +neutrality of the twilight, of the monks. The flesh neutralizing the +spirit, the spirit neutralizing the flesh, the law of the average +asserted, this was the monks as they paced backward and forward. + +The moon climbed higher, away from the snowy, fading ridge, she became +gradually herself. Between the roots of the olive tree was a rosy-tipped +daisy just going to sleep. I gathered it and put it among the frail, +moony little bunch of primroses, so that its sleep should warm the rest. +Also I put in some little periwinkles, that were very blue, reminding me +of the eyes of the old woman. + +The day was gone, the twilight was gone, and the snow was invisible as I +came down to the side of the lake. Only the moon, white and shining, was +in the sky, like a woman glorying in her own loveliness as she loiters +superbly to the gaze of all the world, looking sometimes through the +fringe of dark olive leaves, sometimes looking at her own superb, +quivering body, wholly naked in the water of the lake. + +My little old woman was gone. She, all day-sunshine, would have none of +the moon. Always she must live like a bird, looking down on all the +world at once, so that it lay all subsidiary to herself, herself the +wakeful consciousness hovering over the world like a hawk, like a sleep +of wakefulness. And, like a bird, she went to sleep as the shadows came. + +She did not know the yielding up of the senses and the possession of the +unknown, through the senses, which happens under a superb moon. The +all-glorious sun knows none of these yieldings up. He takes his way. And +the daisies at once go to sleep. And the soul of the old spinning-woman +also closed up at sunset, the rest was a sleep, a cessation. + +It is all so strange and varied: the dark-skinned Italians ecstatic in +the night and the moon, the blue-eyed old woman ecstatic in the busy +sunshine, the monks in the garden below, who are supposed to unite both, +passing only in the neutrality of the average. Where, then, is the +meeting-point: where in mankind is the ecstasy of light and dark +together, the supreme transcendence of the afterglow, day hovering in +the embrace of the coming night like two angels embracing in the +heavens, like Eurydice in the arms of Orpheus, or Persephone embraced +by Pluto? + +Where is the supreme ecstasy in mankind, which makes day a delight and +night a delight, purpose an ecstasy and a concourse in ecstasy, and +single abandon of the single body and soul also an ecstasy under the +moon? Where is the transcendent knowledge in our hearts, uniting sun and +darkness, day and night, spirit and senses? Why do we not know that the +two in consummation are one; that each is only part; partial and alone +for ever; but that the two in consummation are perfect, beyond the range +of loneliness or solitude? + + + +_2_ + +THE LEMON GARDENS + + +The padrone came just as we were drinking coffee after dinner. It was +two o'clock, because the steamer going down the lake to Desenzano had +bustled through the sunshine, and the rocking of the water still made +lights that danced up and down upon the wall among the shadows by +the piano. + +The signore was very apologetic. I found him bowing in the hall, cap in +one hand, a slip of paper in the other, protesting eagerly, in broken +French, against disturbing me. + +He is a little, shrivelled man, with close-cropped grey hair on his +skull, and a protruding jaw, which, with his gesticulations, always +makes me think of an ancient, aristocratic monkey. The signore is a +gentleman, and the last, shrivelled representative of his race. His only +outstanding quality, according to the villagers, is his avarice. + +_'Mais--mais, monsieur--je crains que--que--que je vous dérange--'_ + +He spreads wide his hands and bows, looking up at me with implicit brown +eyes, so ageless in his wrinkled, monkey's face, like onyx. He loves to +speak French, because then he feels grand. He has a queer, naïve, +ancient passion to be grand. As the remains of an impoverished family, +he is not much better than a well-to-do peasant. But the old spirit is +eager and pathetic in him. + +He loves to speak French to me. He holds his chin and waits, in his +anxiety for the phrase to come. Then it stammers forth, a little rush, +ending in Italian. But his pride is all on edge: we must continue +in French. + +The hall is cold, yet he will not come into the large room. This is not +a courtesy visit. He is not here in his quality of gentleman. He is only +an anxious villager. + +'_Voyez, monsieur--cet--cet--qu'est-ce que--qu'est-ce que veut dire +cet--cela?_' + +He shows me the paper. It is an old scrap of print, the picture of an +American patent door-spring, with directions: 'Fasten the spring either +end up. Wind it up. Never unwind.' + +It is laconic and American. The signore watches me anxiously, waiting, +holding his chin. He is afraid he ought to understand my English. I +stutter off into French, confounded by the laconic phrases of the +directions. Nevertheless, I make it clear what the paper says. + +He cannot believe me. It must say something else as well. He has not +done anything contrary to these directions. He is most distressed. + +'_Mais, monsieur, la porte--la porte--elle ferme_ pas--_elle s'ouvre_--' + +He skipped to the door and showed me the whole tragic mystery. The door, +it is shut--_ecco_! He releases the catch, and pouf!--she flies open. +She flies _open_. It is quite final. + +The brown, expressionless, ageless eyes, that remind me of a monkey's, +or of onyx, wait for me. I feel the responsibility devolve upon me. I +am anxious. + +'Allow me,' I said, 'to come and look at the door.' + +I feel uncomfortably like Sherlock Holmes. The padrone protests--_non, +monsieur, non, cela vous dérange_--that he only wanted me to translate +the words, he does not want to disturb me. Nevertheless, we go. I feel I +have the honour of mechanical England in my hands. + +The Casa di Paoli is quite a splendid place. It is large, pink and +cream, rising up to a square tower in the centre, throwing off a painted +loggia at either extreme of the façade. It stands a little way back from +the road, just above the lake, and grass grows on the bay of cobbled +pavement in front. When at night the moon shines full on this pale +façade, the theatre is far outdone in staginess. + +The hall is spacious and beautiful, with great glass doors at either +end, through which shine the courtyards where bamboos fray the sunlight +and geraniums glare red. The floor is of soft red tiles, oiled and +polished like glass, the walls are washed grey-white, the ceiling is +painted with pink roses and birds. This is half-way between the outer +world and the interior world, it partakes of both. + +The other rooms are dark and ugly. There is no mistake about their being +interior. They are like furnished vaults. The red-tiled, polished floor +in the drawing-room seems cold and clammy, the carved, cold furniture +stands in its tomb, the air has been darkened and starved to death, it +is perished. + +Outside, the sunshine runs like birds singing. Up above, the grey rocks +build the sun-substance in heaven, San Tommaso guards the terrace. But +inside here is the immemorial shadow. + +Again I had to think of the Italian soul, how it is dark, cleaving to +the eternal night. It seems to have become so, at the Renaissance, after +the Renaissance. + +In the Middle Ages Christian Europe seems to have been striving, out of +a strong, primitive, animal nature, towards the self-abnegation and the +abstraction of Christ. This brought about by itself a great sense of +completeness. The two halves were joined by the effort towards the one +as yet unrealized. There was a triumphant joy in the Whole. + +But the movement all the time was in one direction, towards the +elimination of the flesh. Man wanted more and more to become purely free +and abstract. Pure freedom was in pure abstraction. The Word was +absolute. When man became as the Word, a pure law, then he was free. + +But when this conclusion was reached, the movement broke. Already +Botticelli painted Aphrodite, queen of the senses, supreme along with +Mary, Queen of Heaven. And Michelangelo suddenly turned back on the +whole Christian movement, back to the flesh. The flesh was supreme and +god-like, in the oneness of the flesh, in the oneness of our physical +being, we are one with God, with the Father. God the Father created man +in the flesh, in His own image. Michelangelo swung right back to the old +Mosaic position. Christ did not exist. To Michelangelo there was no +salvation in the spirit. There was God the Father, the Begetter, the +Author of all flesh. And there was the inexorable law of the flesh, the +Last Judgement, the fall of the immortal flesh into Hell. + +This has been the Italian position ever since. The mind, that is the +Light; the senses, they are the Darkness. Aphrodite, the queen of the +senses, she, born of the sea-foam, is the luminousness of the gleaming +senses, the phosphorescence of the sea, the senses become a conscious +aim unto themselves; she is the gleaming darkness, she is the luminous +night, she is goddess of destruction, her white, cold fire consumes and +does not create. + +This is the soul of the Italian since the Renaissance. In the sunshine +he basks asleep, gathering up a vintage into his veins which in the +night-time he will distil into ecstatic sensual delight, the intense, +white-cold ecstasy of darkness and moonlight, the raucous, cat-like, +destructive enjoyment, the senses conscious and crying out in their +consciousness in the pangs of the enjoyment, which has consumed the +southern nation, perhaps all the Latin races, since the Renaissance. + +It is a lapse back, back to the original position, the Mosaic position, +of the divinity of the flesh, and the absoluteness of its laws. But also +there is the Aphrodite-worship. The flesh, the senses, are now +self-conscious. They know their aim. Their aim is in supreme sensation. +They seek the maximum of sensation. They seek the reduction of the +flesh, the flesh reacting upon itself, to a crisis, an ecstasy, a +phosphorescent transfiguration in ecstasy. + +The mind, all the time, subserves the senses. As in a cat, there is +subtlety and beauty and the dignity of the darkness. But the fire is +cold, as in the eyes of a cat, it is a green fire. It is fluid, +electric. At its maximum it is the white ecstasy of phosphorescence, in +the darkness, always amid the darkness, as under the black fur of a cat. +Like the feline fire, it is destructive, always consuming and reducing +to the ecstasy of sensation, which is the end in itself. + +There is the I, always the I. And the mind is submerged, overcome. But +the senses are superbly arrogant. The senses are the absolute, the +god-like. For I can never have another man's senses. These are me, my +senses absolutely me. And all that is can only come to me through my +senses. So that all is me, and is administered unto me. The rest, that +is not me, is nothing, it is something which is nothing. So the Italian, +through centuries, has avoided our Northern purposive industry, because +it has seemed to him a form of nothingness. + +It is the spirit of the tiger. The tiger is the supreme manifestation of +the senses made absolute. This is the + + Tiger, tiger burning bright, + In the forests of the night + +of Blake. It does indeed burn within the darkness. But the +_essential_ fate, of the tiger is cold and white, a white ecstasy. +It is seen in the white eyes of the blazing cat. This is the supremacy +of the flesh, which devours all, and becomes transfigured into a +magnificent brindled flame, a burning bush indeed. + +This is one way of transfiguration into the eternal flame, the +transfiguration through ecstasy in the flesh. Like the tiger in the +night, I devour all flesh, I drink all blood, until this fuel blazes up +in me to the consummate fire of the Infinite. In the ecstacy I am +Infinite, I become again the great Whole, I am a flame of the One White +Flame which is the Infinite, the Eternal, the Originator, the Creator, +the Everlasting God. In the sensual ecstasy, having drunk all blood and +devoured all flesh, I am become again the eternal Fire, I am infinite. + +This is the way of the tiger; the tiger is supreme. His head is +flattened as if there were some great weight on the hard skull, +pressing, pressing, pressing the mind into a stone, pressing it down +under the blood, to serve the blood. It is the subjugate instrument of +the blood. The will lies above the loins, as it were at the base of the +spinal column, there is the living will, the living mind of the tiger, +there in the slender loins. That is the node, there in the spinal cord. + +So the Italian, so the soldier. This is the spirit of the soldier. He, +too, walks with his consciousness concentrated at the base of the spine, +his mind subjugated, submerged. The will of the soldier is the will of +the great cats, the will to ecstasy in destruction, in absorbing life +into his own life, always his own life supreme, till the ecstasy burst +into the white, eternal flame, the Infinite, the Flame of the Infinite. +Then he is satisfied, he has been consummated in the Infinite. + +This is the true soldier, this is the immortal climax of the senses. +This is the acme of the flesh, the one superb tiger who has devoured all +living flesh, and now paces backwards and forwards in the cage of its +own infinite, glaring with blind, fierce, absorbed eyes at that which is +nothingness to it. + +The eyes of the tiger cannot see, except with the light from within +itself, by the light of its own desire. Its own white, cold light is so +fierce that the other warm light of day is outshone, it is not, it does +not exist. So the white eyes of the tiger gleam to a point of +concentrated vision, upon that which does not exist. Hence its +terrifying sightlessness. The something which I know I am is hollow +space to its vision, offers no resistance to the tiger's looking. It can +only see of me that which it knows I am, a scent, a resistance, a +voluptuous solid, a struggling warm violence that it holds overcome, a +running of hot blood between its Jaws, a delicious pang of live flesh in +the mouth. This it sees. The rest is not. + +And what is the rest, that which is-not the tiger, that which the tiger +is-not? What is this? + +What is that which parted ways with the terrific eagle-like angel of the +senses at the Renaissance? The Italians said, 'We are one in the Father: +we will go back.' The Northern races said, 'We are one in Christ: we +will go on.' + +What _is_ the consummation in Christ? Man knows satisfaction when he +surpasses all conditions and becomes, to himself, consummate in the +Infinite, when he reaches a state of infinity. In the supreme ecstasy +of the flesh, the Dionysic ecstasy, he reaches this state. But how does +it come to pass in Christ? + +It is not the mystic ecstasy. The mystic ecstasy is a special sensual +ecstasy, it is the senses satisfying themselves with a self-created +object. It is self-projection into the self, the sensuous self satisfied +in a projected self. + + Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. + + Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for + theirs is the kingdom of heaven. + +The kingdom of heaven is this Infinite into which we may be consummated, +then, if we are poor in spirit or persecuted for righteousness' sake. + + Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other + also. + + Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that + hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and + persecute you. + + Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is + perfect. + +To be perfect, to be one with God, to be infinite and eternal, what +shall we do? We must turn the other cheek, and love our enemies. + +Christ is the lamb which the eagle swoops down upon, the dove taken by +the hawk, the deer which the tiger devours. + +What then, if a man come to me with a sword, to kill me, and I do not +resist him, but suffer his sword and the death from his sword, what am +I? Am I greater than he, am I stronger than he? Do I know a consummation +in the Infinite, I, the prey, beyond the tiger who devours me? By my +non-resistance I have robbed him of his consummation. For a tiger knows +no consummation unless he kill a violated and struggling prey. There is +no consummation merely for the butcher, nor for a hyena. I can rob the +tiger of his ecstasy, his consummation, his very __my non-resistance. In +my non-resistance the tiger is infinitely destroyed. + +But I, what am I? 'Be ye therefore perfect.' Wherein am I perfect in +this submission? Is there an affirmation, behind my negation, other than +the tiger's affirmation of his own glorious infinity? + +What is the Oneness to which I subscribe, I who offer no resistance in +the flesh? + +Have I only the negative ecstasy of being devoured, of becoming thus +part of the Lord, the Great Moloch, the superb and terrible God? I have +this also, this subject ecstasy of consummation. But is there +nothing else? + +The Word of the tiger is: my senses are supremely Me, and my senses are +God in me. But Christ said: God is in the others, who are not-me. In all +the multitude of the others is God, and this is the great God, greater +than the God which is Me. God is that which is Not-Me. + +And this is the Christian truth, a truth complementary to the pagan +affirmation: 'God is that which is Me.' + +God is that which is Not-Me. In realizing the Not-Me I am consummated, I +become infinite. In turning the other cheek I submit to God who is +greater than I am, other than I am, who is in that which is not me. This +is the supreme consummation. To achieve this consummation I love my +neighbour as myself. My neighbour is all that is not me. And if I love +all this, have I not become one with the Whole, is not my consummation +complete, am I not one with God, have I not achieved the Infinite? + +After the Renaissance the Northern races continued forward to put into +practice this religious belief in the God which is Not-Me. Even the idea +of the saving of the soul was really negative: it was a question of +escaping damnation. The Puritans made the last great attack on the God +who is Me. When they beheaded Charles the First, the king by Divine +Right, they destroyed, symbolically, for ever, the supremacy of the Me +who am the image of God, the Me of the flesh, of the senses, Me, the +tiger burning bright, me the king, the Lord, the aristocrat, me who am +divine because I am the body of God. + +After the Puritans, we have been gathering data for the God who is +not-me. When Pope said 'Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The +proper study of mankind is Man,' he was stating the proposition: A man +is right, he is consummated, when he is seeking to know Man, the great +abstract; and the method of knowledge is by the analysis, which is the +destruction, of the Self. The proposition up to that time was, a man is +the epitome of the universe. He has only to express himself, to fulfil +his desires, to satisfy his supreme senses. + +Now the change has come to pass. The individual man is a limited being, +finite in himself. Yet he is capable of apprehending that which is not +himself. 'The proper study of mankind is Man.' This is another way of +saying, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' Which means, a man +is consummated in his knowledge of that which is not himself, the +abstract Man. Therefore the consummation lies in seeking that other, in +knowing that other. Whereas the Stuart proposition was: 'A man is +consummated in expressing his own Self.' + +The new spirit developed into the empirical and ideal systems of +philosophy. Everything that is, is consciousness. And in every man's +consciousness, Man is great and illimitable, whilst the individual is +small and fragmentary. Therefore the individual must sink himself in the +great whole of Mankind. + +This is the spirituality of Shelley, the perfectibility of man. This is +the way in which we fulfil the commandment, 'Be ye therefore perfect, +even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.' This is Saint +Paul's, 'Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am known.' + +When a man knows everything and understands everything, then he will be +perfect, and life will be blessed. He is capable of knowing everything +and understanding everything. Hence he is justified in his hope of +infinite freedom and blessedness. + +The great inspiration of the new religion was the inspiration of +freedom. When I have submerged or distilled away my concrete body and my +limited desires, when I am like the skylark dissolved in the sky yet +filling heaven and earth with song, then I am perfect, consummated in +the Infinite. When I am all that is not-me, then I have perfect liberty, +I know no limitation. Only I must eliminate the Self. + +It was this religious belief which expressed itself in science. Science +was the analysis of the outer self, the elementary substance of the +self, the outer world. And the machine is the great reconstructed +selfless power. Hence the active worship to which we were given at the +end of the last century, the worship of mechanized force. + +Still we continue to worship that which is not-me, the Selfless world, +though we would fain bring in the Self to help us. We are shouting the +Shakespearean advice to warriors: 'Then simulate the action of the +tiger.' We are trying to become again the tiger, the supreme, imperial, +warlike Self. At the same time our ideal is the selfless world +of equity. + +We continue to give service to the Selfless God, we worship the great +selfless oneness in the spirit, oneness in service of the great +humanity, that which is Not-Me. This selfless God is He who works for +all alike, without consideration. And His image is the machine which +dominates and cows us, we cower before it, we run to serve it. For it +works for all humanity alike. + +At the same time, we want to be warlike tigers. That is the horror: the +confusing of the two ends. We warlike tigers fit ourselves out with +machinery, and our blazing tiger wrath is emitted through a machine. It +is a horrible thing to see machines hauled about by tigers, at the mercy +of tigers, forced to express the tiger. It is a still more horrible +thing to see tigers caught up and entangled and torn in machinery. It is +horrible, a chaos beyond chaos, an unthinkable hell. + +The tiger is not wrong, the machine is not wrong, but we, liars, +lip-servers, duplicate fools, we are unforgivably wrong. We say: 'I will +be a tiger because I love mankind; out of love for other people, out of +selfless service to that which is not me, I will even become a tiger.' +Which is absurd. A tiger devours because it is consummated in devouring, +it achieves its absolute self in devouring. It does not devour because +its unselfish conscience bids it do so, for the sake of the other deer +and doves, or the other tigers. + +Having arrived at the one extreme of mechanical selflessness, we +immediately embrace the other extreme of the transcendent Self. But we +try to be both at once. We do not cease to be the one before we become +the other. We do not even play the roles in turn. We want to be the +tiger and the deer both in one. Which is just ghastly nothingness. We +try to say, 'The tiger is the lamb and the lamb is the tiger.' Which is +nil, nihil, nought. + +The padrone took me into a small room almost contained in the thickness +of the wall. There the Signora's dark eyes glared with surprise and +agitation, seeing me intrude. She is younger than the Signore, a mere +village tradesman's daughter, and, alas, childless. + +It was quite true, the door stood open. Madame put down the screw-driver +and drew herself erect. Her eyes were a flame of excitement. This +question of a door-spring that made the door fly open when it should +make it close roused a vivid spark in her soul. It was she who was +wrestling with the angel of mechanism. + +She was about forty years old, and flame-like and fierily sad. I think +she did not know she was sad. But her heart was eaten by some impotence +in her life. + +She subdued her flame of life to the little padrone. He was strange and +static, scarcely human, ageless, like a monkey. She supported him with +her flame, supported his static, ancient, beautiful form, kept it +intact. But she did not believe in him. + +Now, the Signora Gemma held her husband together whilst he undid the +screw that fixed the spring. If they had been alone, she would have done +it, pretending to be under his direction. But since I was there, he did +it himself; a grey, shaky, highly-bred little gentleman, standing on a +chair with a long screw-driver, whilst his wife stood behind him, her +hands half-raised to catch him if he should fall. Yet he was strangely +absolute, with a strange, intact force in his breeding. + +They had merely adjusted the strong spring to the shut door, and +stretched it slightly in fastening it to the door-jamb, so that it drew +together the moment the latch was released, and the door flew open. + +We soon made it right. There was a moment of anxiety, the screw was +fixed. And the door swung to. They were delighted. The Signora Gemma, +who roused in me an electric kind of melancholy, clasped her hands +together in ecstasy as the door swiftly shut itself. + +'_Ecco!_' she cried, in her vibrating, almost warlike woman's voice: +'_Ecco!_' + +Her eyes were aflame as they looked at the door. She ran forward to try +it herself. She opened the door expectantly, eagerly. Pouf!--it shut +with a bang. + +'_Ecco!_' she cried, her voice quivering like bronze, overwrought but +triumphant. + +I must try also. I opened the door. Pouf! It shut with a bang. We all +exclaimed with joy. + +Then the Signor di Paoli turned to me, with a gracious, bland, formal +grin. He turned his back slightly on the woman, and stood holding his +chin, his strange horse-mouth grinning almost pompously at me. It was an +affair of gentlemen. His wife disappeared as if dismissed. Then the +padrone broke into cordial motion. We must drink. + +He would show me the estate. I had already seen the house. We went out +by the glass doors on the left, into the domestic courtyard. + +It was lower than the gardens round it, and the sunshine came through +the trellised arches on to the flagstones, where the grass grew fine and +green in the cracks, and all was deserted and spacious and still. There +were one or two orange-tubs in the light. + +Then I heard a noise, and there in the corner, among all the pink +geraniums and the sunshine, the Signora Gemma sat laughing with a baby. +It was a fair, bonny thing of eighteen months. The Signora was +concentrated upon the child as he sat, stolid and handsome, in his +little white cap, perched on a bench picking at the pink geraniums. + +She laughed, bent forward her dark face out of the shadow, swift into a +glitter of sunshine near the sunny baby, laughing again excitedly, +making mother-noises. The child took no notice of her. She caught him +swiftly into the shadow, and they were obscured; her dark head was +against the baby's wool jacket, she was kissing his neck, avidly, under +the creeper leaves. The pink geraniums still frilled joyously in +the sunshine. + +I had forgotten the padrone. Suddenly I turned to him inquiringly. + +'The Signora's nephew,' he explained, briefly, curtly, in a small voice. +It was as if he were ashamed, or too deeply chagrined. + +The woman had seen us watching, so she came across the sunshine with the +child, laughing, talking to the baby, not coming out of her own world to +us, not acknowledging us, except formally. + +The Signor Pietro, queer old horse, began to laugh and neigh at the +child, with strange, rancorous envy. The child twisted its face to cry. +The Signora caught it away, dancing back a few yards from her +old husband. + +'I am a stranger,' I said to her across the distance. 'He is afraid of a +stranger.' + +'No, no,' she cried back, her eyes flaring up. 'It is the man. He always +cries at the men.' + +She advanced again, laughing and roused, with the child in her arms. Her +husband stood as if overcast, obliterated. She and I and the baby, in +the sunshine, laughed a moment. Then I heard the neighing, forced laugh +of the old man. He would not be left out. He seemed to force himself +forward. He was bitter, acrid with chagrin and obliteration, struggling +as if to assert his own existence. He was nullified. + +The woman also was uncomfortable. I could see she wanted to go away with +the child, to enjoy him alone, with palpitating, pained enjoyment. It +was her brother's boy. And the old padrone was as if nullified by her +ecstasy over the baby. He held his chin, gloomy, fretful, unimportant. + +He was annulled. I was startled when I realized it. It was as though his +reality were not attested till he had a child. It was as if his _raison +d'être_ had been to have a son. And he had no children. Therefore he had +no _raison d'être_. He was nothing, a shadow that vanishes into nothing. +And he was ashamed, consumed by his own nothingness. + +I was startled. This, then, is the secret of Italy's attraction for us, +this phallic worship. To the Italian the phallus is the symbol of +individual creative immortality, to each man his own Godhead. The child +is but the evidence of the Godhead. + +And this is why the Italian is attractive, supple, and beautiful, +because he worships the Godhead in the flesh. We envy him, we feel pale +and insignificant beside him. Yet at the same time we feel superior to +him, as if he were a child and we adult. + +Wherein are we superior? Only because we went beyond the phallus in the +search of the Godhead, the creative origin. And we found the physical +forces and the secrets of science. + +We have exalted Man far above the man who is in each one of us. Our aim +is a perfect humanity, a perfect and equable human consciousness, +selfless. And we obtain it in the subjection, reduction, analysis, and +destruction of the Self. So on we go, active in science and mechanics, +and social reform. + +But we have exhausted ourselves in the process. We have found great +treasures, and we are now impotent to use them. So we have said: 'What +good are these treasures, they are vulgar nothings.' We have said: 'Let +us go back from this adventuring, let us enjoy our own flesh, like the +Italian.' But our habit of life, our very constitution, prevents our +being quite like the Italian. The phallus will never serve us as a +Godhead, because we do not believe in it: no Northern race does. +Therefore, either we set ourselves to serve our children, calling them +'the future', or else we turn perverse and destructive, give ourselves +joy in the destruction of the flesh. + +The children are not the future. The living truth is the future. Time +and people do not make the future. Retrogression is not the future. +Fifty million children growing up purposeless, with no purpose save the +attainment of their own individual desires, these are not the future, +they are only a disintegration of the past. The future is in living, +growing truth, in advancing fulfilment. + +But it is no good. Whatever we do, it is within the greater will towards +self-reduction and a perfect society, analysis on the one hand, and +mechanical construction on the other. This will dominates us as a whole, +and until the whole breaks down, the will must persist. So that now, +continuing in the old, splendid will for a perfect selfless humanity, we +have become inhuman and unable to help ourselves, we are but attributes +of the great mechanized society we have created on our way to +perfection. And this great mechanized society, being selfless, is +pitiless. It works on mechanically and destroys us, it is our master +and our God. + +It is past the time to leave off, to cease entirely from what we are +doing, and from what we have been doing for hundreds of years. It is +past the time to cease seeking one Infinite, ignoring, striving to +eliminate the other. The Infinite is twofold, the Father and the Son, +the Dark and the Light, the Senses and the Mind, the Soul and the +Spirit, the self and the not-self, the Eagle and the Dove, the Tiger and +the Lamb. The consummation of man is twofold, in the Self and in +Selflessness. By great retrogression back to the source of darkness in +me, the Self, deep in the senses, I arrive at the Original, Creative +Infinite. By projection forth from myself, by the elimination of my +absolute sensual self, I arrive at the Ultimate Infinite, Oneness in the +Spirit. They are two Infinites, twofold approach to God. And man must +know both. + +But he must never confuse them. They are eternally separate. The lion +shall never lie down with the lamb. The lion eternally shall devour the +lamb, the lamb eternally shall be devoured. Man knows the great +consummation in the flesh, the sensual ecstasy, and that is eternal. +Also the spiritual ecstasy of unanimity, that is eternal. But the two +are separate and never to be confused. To neutralize the one with the +other is unthinkable, an abomination. Confusion is horror and +nothingness. + +The two Infinites, negative and positive, they are always related, but +they are never identical. They are always opposite, but there exists a +relation between them. This is the Holy Ghost of the Christian Trinity. +And it is this, the relation which is established between the two +Infinites, the two natures of God, which we have transgressed, +forgotten, sinned against. The Father is the Father, and the Son is the +Son. I may know the Son and deny the Father, or know the Father and deny +the Son. But that which I may never deny, and which I have denied, is +the Holy Ghost which relates the dual Infinites into One Whole, which +relates and keeps distinct the dual natures of God. To say that the two +are one, this is the inadmissible lie. The two are related, by the +intervention of the Third, into a Oneness. + +There are two ways, there is not only One. There are two opposite ways +to consummation. But that which relates them, like the base of the +triangle, this is the constant, the Absolute, this makes the Ultimate +Whole. And in the Holy Spirit I know the Two Ways, the Two Infinites, +the Two Consummations. And knowing the Two, I admit the Whole. But +excluding One, I exclude the Whole. And confusing the two, I make +nullity nihil. + +'_Mais_,' said the Signore, starting from his scene of ignominy, where +his wife played with another man's child, '_mais--voulez-vous vous +promener dans mes petites terres?_' + +It came out fluently, he was so much roused in self-defence and +self-assertion. + +We walked under the pergola of bony vine-stocks, secure in the sunshine +within the walls, only the long mountain, parallel with us, looking in. + +I said how I liked the big vine-garden, I asked when it ended. The pride +of the padrone came back with a click. He pointed me to the terrace, to +the great shut lemon-houses above. They were all his. But--he shrugged +his Italian shoulders--it was nothing, just a little garden, _vous +savez, monsieur_. I protested it was beautiful, that I loved it, and +that it seemed to me _very_ large indeed. He admitted that today, +perhaps, it was beautiful. + +'_Perchè--parce que--il fait un tempo--così--très bell'--très beau, +ecco!_' + +He alighted on the word _beau_ hurriedly, like a bird coming to ground +with a little bounce. + +The terraces of the garden are held up to the sun, the sun falls full +upon them, they are like a vessel slanted up, to catch the superb, heavy +light. Within the walls we are remote, perfect, moving in heavy spring +sunshine, under the bony avenue of vines. The padrone makes little +exclamatory noises that mean nothing, and teaches me the names of +vegetables. The land is rich and black. + +Opposite us, looking down on our security, is the long, arched mountain +of snow. We climbed one flight of steps, and we could see the little +villages on the opposite side of the lake. We climbed again, and could +see the water rippling. + +We came to a great stone building that I had thought was a storehouse, +for open-air storage, because the walls are open halfway up, showing the +darkness inside and the corner pillar very white and square and distinct +in front of it. + +Entering carelessly into the dimness, I started, for at my feet was a +great floor of water, clear and green in its obscurity, going down +between the walls, a reservoir in the gloom. The Signore laughed at my +surprise. It was for irrigating the land, he said. It stank, slightly, +with a raw smell; otherwise, I said, what a wonderful bath it would +make. The old Signore gave his little neighing laugh at the idea. + +Then we climbed into a great loft of leaves, ruddy brown, stored in a +great bank under the roof, seeming to give off a little red heat, as +they gave off the lovely perfume of the hills. We passed through, and +stood at the foot of the lemon-house. The big, blind building rose high +in the sunshine before us. + +All summer long, upon the mountain slopes steep by the lake, stands the +rows of naked pillars rising out of the green foliage like ruins of +temples: white, square pillars of masonry, standing forlorn in their +colonnades and squares, rising up the mountain-sides here and there, as +if they remained from some great race that had once worshipped here. And +still, in the winter, some are seen, standing away in lonely places +where the sun streams full, grey rows of pillars rising out of a broken +wall, tier above tier, naked to the sky, forsaken. + +They are the lemon plantations, and the pillars are to support the heavy +branches of the trees, but finally to act as scaffolding of the great +wooden houses that stand blind and ugly, covering the lemon trees in +the winter. + +In November, when cold winds came down and snow had fallen on the +mountains, from out of the storehouses the men were carrying timber, and +we heard the clang of falling planks. Then, as we walked along the +military road on the mountain-side, we saw below, on the top of the +lemon gardens, long, thin poles laid from pillar to pillar, and we heard +the two men talking and singing as they walked across perilously, +placing the poles. In their clumsy zoccoli they strode easily across, +though they had twenty or thirty feet to fall if they slipped. But the +mountain-side, rising steeply, seemed near, and above their heads the +rocks glowed high into the sky, so that the sense of elevation must have +been taken away. At any rate, they went easily from pillar-summit to +pillar-summit, with a great cave of space below. Then again was the +rattle and clang of planks being laid in order, ringing from the +mountain-side over the blue lake, till a platform of timber, old and +brown, projected from the mountain-side, a floor when seen from above, a +hanging roof when seen from below. And we, on the road above, saw the +men sitting easily on this flimsy hanging platform, hammering the +planks. And all day long the sound of hammering echoed among the rocks +and olive woods, and came, a faint, quick concussion, to the men on the +boats far out. When the roofs were on they put in the fronts, blocked in +between the white pillars withhold, dark wood, in roughly made panels. +And here and there, at irregular intervals, was a panel of glass, pane +overlapping pane in the long strip of narrow window. So that now these +enormous, unsightly buildings bulge out on the mountain-sides, rising in +two or three receding tiers, blind, dark, sordid-looking places. + +In the morning I often lie in bed and watch the sunrise. The lake lies +dim and milky, the mountains are dark blue at the back, while over them +the sky gushes and glistens with light. At a certain place on the +mountain ridge the light burns gold, seems to fuse a little groove on +the hill's rim. It fuses and fuses at this point, till of a sudden it +comes, the intense, molten, living light. The mountains melt suddenly, +the light steps down, there is a glitter, a spangle, a clutch of +spangles, a great unbearable sun-track flashing across the milky lake, +and the light falls on my face. Then, looking aside, I hear the little +slotting noise which tells me they are opening the lemon gardens, a long +panel here and there, a long slot of darkness at irregular intervals +between the brown wood and the glass stripes. + +'_Voulez-vous_'--the Signore bows me in with outstretched +hand--'_voulez-vous entrer, monsieur?_' + +I went into the lemon-house, where the poor threes seem to mope in the +darkness. It is an immense, dark, cold place. Tall lemon trees, heavy +with half-visible fruit, crowd together, and rise in the gloom. They +look like ghosts in the darkness of the underworld, stately, and as if +in life, but only grand shadows of themselves. And lurking here and +there, I see one of the pillars, But he, too, seems a shadow, not one of +the dazzling white fellows I knew. Here we are trees, men, pillars, the +dark earth, the sad black paths, shut in in this enormous box. It is +true, there are long strips of window and slots of space, so that the +front is striped, and an occasional beam of light fingers the leaves of +an enclosed tree and the sickly round lemons. But it is nevertheless +very gloomy. + +'But it is much colder in here than outside,' I said. + +'Yes,' replied the Signore, 'now. But at night--I _think_--' + +I almost wished it were night to try. I wanted to imagine the trees +cosy. They seemed now in the underworld. Between the lemon trees, beside +the path, were little orange trees, and dozens of oranges hanging like +hot coals in the twilight. When I warm my hands at them the Signore +breaks me off one twig after another, till I have a bunch of burning +oranges among dark leaves, a heavy bouquet. Looking down the Hades of +the lemon-house, the many ruddy-clustered oranges beside the path remind +me of the lights of a village along the lake at night, while the pale +lemons above are the stars. There is a subtle, exquisite scent of lemon +flowers. Then I notice a citron. He hangs heavy and bloated upon so +small a tree, that he seems a dark green enormity. There is a great host +of lemons overhead, half-visible, a swarm of ruddy oranges by the paths, +and here and there a fat citron. It is almost like being under the sea. + +At the corners of the path were round little patches of ash and stumps +of charred wood, where fires had been kindled inside the house on cold +nights. For during the second and third weeks in January the snow came +down so low on the mountains that, after climbing for an hour, I found +myself in a snow lane, and saw olive orchards on lawns of snow. + +The padrone says that all lemons and sweet oranges are grafted on a +bitter-orange stock. The plants raised from seed, lemon and sweet +orange, fell prey to disease, so the cultivators found it safe only to +raise the native bitter orange, and then graft upon it. + +And the maestra--she is the schoolmistress, who wears black gloves while +she teaches us Italian--says that the lemon was brought by St Francis of +Assisi, who came to the Garda here and founded a church and a monastery. +Certainly the church of San Francesco is very old and dilapidated, and +its cloisters have some beautiful and original carvings of leaves and +fruit upon the pillars, which seem to connect San Francesco with the +lemon. I imagine him wandering here with a lemon in his pocket. Perhaps +he made lemonade in the hot summer. But Bacchus had been before him in +the drink trade. + +Looking at his lemons, the Signore sighed. I think he hates them. They +are leaving him in the lurch. They are sold retail at a halfpenny each +all the year round. 'But that is as dear, or dearer, than in England,' I +say. 'Ah, but,' says the maestra, 'that is because your lemons are +outdoor fruit from Sicily. _Però_--one of our lemons is as good as _two_ +from elsewhere.' + +It is true these lemons have an exquisite fragrance and perfume, but +whether their force as lemons is double that of an ordinary fruit is a +question. Oranges are sold at fourpence halfpenny the kilo--it comes +about five for twopence, small ones. The citrons are sold also by weight +in Salò for the making of that liqueur known as 'Cedro'. One citron +fetches sometimes a shilling or more, but then the demand is necessarily +small. So that it is evident, from these figures, the Lago di Garda +cannot afford to grow its lemons much longer. The gardens are already +many of them in ruins, and still more 'Da Vendere'. + +We went out of the shadow of the lemon-house on to the roof of the +section below us. When we came to the brink of the roof I sat down. The +padrone stood behind me, a shabby, shaky little figure on his roof in +the sky, a little figure of dilapidation, dilapidated as the +lemon-houses themselves. + +We were always level with the mountain-snow opposite. A film of pure +blue was on the hills to the right and the left. There had been a wind, +but it was still now. The water breathed an iridescent dust on the far +shore, where the villages were groups of specks. + +On the low level of the world, on the lake, an orange-sailed boat leaned +slim to the dark-blue water, which had flecks of foam. A woman went +down-hill quickly, with two goats and a sheep. Among the olives a man +was whistling. + +'_Voyez_,' said the padrone, with distant, perfect melancholy. 'There +was once a lemon garden also there--you see the short pillars, cut off +to make a pergola for the vine. Once there were twice as many lemons as +now. Now we must have vine instead. From that piece of land I had two +hundred lire a year, in lemons. From the vine I have only eighty.' + +'But wine is a valuable crop,' I said. + +'Ah--_così-così_! For a man who grows much. For me--_poco, poco--peu_.' + +Suddenly his face broke into a smile of profound melancholy, almost a +grin, like a gargoyle. It was the real Italian melancholy, very +deep, static. + +'_Vous voyez, monsieur_--the lemon, it is all the year, all the year. +But the vine--one crop--?' + +He lifts his shoulders and spreads his hands with that gesture of +finality and fatality, while his face takes the blank, ageless look of +misery, like a monkey's. There is no hope. There is the present. Either +that is enough, the present, or there is nothing. + +I sat and looked at the lake. It was beautiful as paradise, as the first +creation. On the shores were the ruined lemon-pillars standing out in +melancholy, the clumsy, enclosed lemon-houses seemed ramshackle, bulging +among vine stocks and olive trees. The villages, too, clustered upon +their churches, seemed to belong to the past. They seemed to be +lingering in bygone centuries. + +'But it is very beautiful,' I protested. 'In England--' + +'Ah, in England,' exclaimed the padrone, the same ageless, monkey-like +grin of fatality, tempered by cunning, coming on his face, 'in England +you have the wealth--_les richesses_--you have the mineral coal and the +machines, _vous savez_. Here we have the sun--' + +He lifted his withered hand to the sky, to the wonderful source of that +blue day, and he smiled, in histrionic triumph. But his triumph was only +histrionic. The machines were more to his soul than the sun. He did not +know these mechanisms, their great, human-contrived, inhuman power, and +he wanted to know them. As for the sun, that is common property, and no +man is distinguished by it. He wanted machines, machine production, +money, and human power. He wanted to know the joy of man who has got the +earth in his grip, bound it up with railways, burrowed it with iron +fingers, subdued it. He wanted this last triumph of the ego, this last +reduction. He wanted to go where the English have gone, beyond the Self, +into the great inhuman Not Self, to create the great unliving creators, +the machines, out of the active forces of nature that existed +before flesh. + +But he is too old. It remains for the young Italian to embrace his +mistress, the machine. + +I sat on the roof of the lemon-house, with the lake below and the snowy +mountain opposite, and looked at the ruins on the old, olive-fuming +shores, at all the peace of the ancient world still covered in sunshine, +and the past seemed to me so lovely that one must look towards it, +backwards, only backwards, where there is peace and beauty and no more +dissonance. + +I thought of England, the great mass of London, and the black, fuming, +laborious Midlands and north-country. It seemed horrible. And yet, it +was better than the padrone, this old, monkey-like cunning of fatality. +It is better to go forward into error than to stay fixed inextricably +in the past. + +Yet what should become of the world? There was London and the industrial +counties spreading like a blackness over all the world, horrible, in the +end destructive. And the Garda was so lovely under the sky of sunshine, +it was intolerable. For away, beyond, beyond all the snowy Alps, with +the iridescence of eternal ice above them, was this England, black and +foul and dry, with her soul worn down, almost worn away. And England was +conquering the world with her machines and her horrible destruction of +natural life. She was conquering the whole world. + +And yet, was she not herself finished in this work? She had had enough. +She had conquered the natural life to the end: she was replete with the +conquest of the outer world, satisfied with the destruction of the Self. +She would cease, she would turn round; or else expire. + +If she still lived, she would begin to build her knowledge into a great +structure of truth. There it lay, vast masses of rough-hewn knowledge, +vast masses of machines and appliances, vast masses of ideas and +methods, and nothing done with it, only teeming swarms of disintegrated +human beings seething and perishing rapidly away amongst it, till it +seems as if a world will be left covered with huge ruins, and scored by +strange devices of industry, and quite dead, the people disappeared, +swallowed up in the last efforts towards a perfect, selfless society. + + + +_3_ + +THE THEATRE + + +During carnival a company is playing in the theatre. On Christmas Day +the padrone came in with the key of his box, and would we care to see +the drama? The theatre was small, a mere nothing, in fact; a mere affair +of peasants, you understand; and the Signor Di Paoli spread his hands +and put his head on one side, parrot-wise; but we might find a little +diversion--_un peu de divertiment_. With this he handed me the key. + +I made suitable acknowledgements, and was really impressed. To be handed +the key of a box at the theatre, so simply and pleasantly, in the large +sitting-room looking over the grey lake of Christmas Day; it seemed to +me a very graceful event. The key had a chain and a little shield of +bronze, on which was beaten out a large figure 8. + +So the next day we went to see _I Spettri_, expecting some good, crude +melodrama. The theatre is an old church. Since that triumph of the deaf +and dumb, the cinematograph, has come to give us the nervous excitement +of speed--grimace agitation, and speed, as of flying atoms, chaos--many +an old church in Italy has taken a new lease of life. + +This cast-off church made a good theatre. I realized how cleverly it had +been constructed for the dramatic presentation of religious ceremonies. +The east end is round, the walls are windowless, sound is well +distributed. Now everything is theatrical, except the stone floor and +two pillars at the back of the auditorium, and the slightly +ecclesiastical seats below. + +There are two tiers of little boxes in the theatre, some forty in all, +with fringe and red velvet, and lined with dark red paper, quite like +real boxes in a real theatre. And the padrone's is one of the best. It +just holds three people. + +We paid our threepence entrance fee in the stone hall and went upstairs. +I opened the door of Number 8, and we were shut in our little cabin, +looking down on the world. Then I found the barber, Luigi, bowing +profusely in a box opposite. It was necessary to make bows all round: +ah, the chemist, on the upper tier, near the barber; how-do-you-do to +the padrona of the hotel, who is our good friend, and who sits, wearing +a little beaver shoulder-cape, a few boxes off; very cold salutation to +the stout village magistrate with the long brown beard, who leans +forward in the box facing the stage, while a grouping of faces look out +from behind him; a warm smile to the family of the Signora Gemma, across +next to the stage. Then we are settled. + +I cannot tell why I hate the village magistrate. He looks like a family +portrait by a Flemish artist, he himself weighing down the front of the +picture with his portliness and his long brown beard, whilst the faces +of his family are arranged in two groups for the background. I think he +is angry at our intrusion. He is very republican and self-important. But +we eclipse him easily, with the aid of a large black velvet hat, and +black furs, and our Sunday clothes. + +Downstairs the villagers are crowding, drifting like a heavy current. +The women are seated, by church instinct, all together on the left, with +perhaps an odd man at the end of a row, beside his wife. On the right, +sprawling in the benches, are several groups of bersaglieri, in grey +uniforms and slanting cock's-feather hats; then peasants, fishermen, and +an odd couple or so of brazen girls taking their places on the +men's side. + +At the back, lounging against the pillars or standing very dark and +sombre, are the more reckless spirits of the village. Their black felt +hats are pulled down, their cloaks are thrown over their mouths, they +stand very dark and isolated in their moments of stillness, they shout +and wave to each other when anything occurs. + +The men are clean, their clothes are all clean washed. The rags of the +poorest porter are always well washed. But it is Sunday tomorrow, and +they are shaved only on a Sunday. So that they have a week's black +growth on their chins. But they have dark, soft eyes, unconscious and +vulnerable. They move and balance with loose, heedless motion upon their +clattering zoccoli, they lounge with wonderful ease against the wall at +the back, or against the two pillars, unconscious of the patches on +their clothes or of their bare throats, that are knotted perhaps with a +scarlet rag. Loose and abandoned, they lounge and talk, or they watch +with wistful absorption the play that is going on. + +They are strangely isolated in their own atmosphere, and as if revealed. +It is as if their vulnerable being was exposed and they have not the wit +to cover it. There is a pathos of physical sensibility and mental +inadequacy. Their mind is not sufficiently alert to run with their +quick, warm senses. + +The men keep together, as if to support each other, the women also are +together; in a hard, strong herd. It is as if the power, the hardness, +the triumph, even in this Italian village, were with the women in their +relentless, vindictive unity. + +That which drives men and women together, the indomitable necessity, is +like a bondage upon the people. They submit as under compulsion, under +constraint. They come together mostly in anger and in violence of +destructive passion. There is no comradeship between men and women, none +whatsoever, but rather a condition of battle, reserve, hostility. + +On Sundays the uncomfortable, excited, unwilling youth walks for an hour +with his sweetheart, at a little distance from her, on the public +highway in the afternoon. This is a concession to the necessity for +marriage. There is no real courting, no happiness of being together, +only the roused excitement which is based on a fundamental hostility. +There is very little flirting, and what there is is of the subtle, cruel +kind, like a sex duel. On the whole, the men and women avoid each other, +almost shun each other. Husband and wife are brought together in a +child, which they both worship. But in each of them there is only the +great reverence for the infant, and the reverence for fatherhood or +motherhood, as the case may be; there is no spiritual love. + +In marriage, husband and wife wage the subtle, satisfying war of sex +upon each other. It gives a profound satisfaction, a profound intimacy. +But it destroys all joy, all unanimity in action. + +On Sunday afternoons the uncomfortable youth walks by the side of his +maiden for an hour in the public highway. Then he escapes; as from a +bondage he goes back to his men companions. On Sunday afternoons and +evenings the married woman, accompanied by a friend or by a child--she +dare not go alone, afraid of the strange, terrible sex-war between her +and the drunken man--is seen leading home the wine-drunken, liberated +husband. Sometimes she is beaten when she gets home. It is part of the +process. But there is no synthetic love between men and women, there is +only passion, and passion is fundamental hatred, the act of love is +a fight. + +The child, the outcome, is divine. Here the union, the oneness, is +manifest. Though spirit strove with spirit, in mortal conflict, during +the sex-passion, yet the flesh united with flesh in oneness. The phallus +is still divine. But the spirit, the mind of man, this has +become nothing. + +So the women triumph. They sit down below in the theatre, their +perfectly dressed hair gleaming, their backs very straight, their heads +carried tensely. They are not very noticeable. They seem held in +reserve. They are just as tense and stiff as the men are slack and +abandoned. Some strange will holds the women taut. They seem like +weapons, dangerous. There is nothing charming nor winning about them; at +the best a full, prolific maternity, at the worst a yellow poisonous +bitterness of the flesh that is like a narcotic. But they are too strong +for the men. The male spirit, which would subdue the immediate flesh to +some conscious or social purpose, is overthrown. The woman in her +maternity is the law-giver, the supreme authority. The authority of the +man, in work, in public affairs, is something trivial in comparison. The +pathetic ignominy of the village male is complete on Sunday afternoon, +on his great day of liberation, when he is accompanied home, drunk but +sinister, by the erect, unswerving, slightly cowed woman. His drunken +terrorizing is only pitiable, she is so obviously the more +constant power. + +And this is why the men must go away to America. It is not the money. It +is the profound desire to rehabilitate themselves, to recover some +dignity as men, as producers, as workers, as creators from the spirit, +not only from the flesh. It is a profound desire to get away from women +altogether, the terrible subjugation to sex, the phallic worship. + +The company of actors in the little theatre was from a small town away +on the plain, beyond Brescia. The curtain rose, everybody was still, +with that profound, naïve attention which children give. And after a few +minutes I realized that _I Spettri_ was Ibsen's _Ghosts_. The peasants +and fishermen of the Garda, even the rows of ungovernable children, sat +absorbed in watching as the Norwegian drama unfolded itself. + +The actors are peasants. The leader is the son of a peasant proprietor. +He is qualified as a chemist, but is unsettled, vagrant, prefers +play-acting. The Signer Pietro di Paoli shrugs his shoulders and +apologizes for their vulgar accent. It is all the same to me. I am +trying to get myself to rights with the play, which I have just lately +seen in Munich, perfectly produced and detestable. + +It was such a change from the hard, ethical, slightly mechanized +characters in the German play, which was as perfect an interpretation as +I can imagine, to the rather pathetic notion of the Italian peasants, +that I had to wait to adjust myself. + +The mother was a pleasant, comfortable woman harassed by something, she +did not quite know what. The pastor was a ginger-haired caricature +imitated from the northern stage, quite a lay figure. The peasants never +laughed, they watched solemnly and absorbedly like children. The servant +was just a slim, pert, forward hussy, much too flagrant. And then the +son, the actor-manager: he was a dark, ruddy man, broad and thick-set, +evidently of peasant origin, but with some education now; he was the +important figure, the play was his. + +And he was strangely disturbing. Dark, ruddy, and powerful, he could not +be the blighted son of 'Ghosts', the hectic, unsound, northern issue of +a diseased father. His flashy Italian passion for his half-sister was +real enough to make one uncomfortable: something he wanted and would +have in spite of his own soul, something which fundamentally he did +not want. + +It was this contradiction within the man that made the play so +interesting. A robust, vigorous man of thirty-eight, flaunting and +florid as a rather successful Italian can be, there was yet a secret +sickness which oppressed him. But it was no taint in the blood, it was +rather a kind of debility in the soul. That which he wanted and would +have, the sensual excitement, in his soul he did not want it, no, not at +all. And yet he must act from his physical desires, his physical will. + +His true being, his real self, was impotent. In his soul he was +dependent, forlorn. He was childish and dependent on the mother. To hear +him say, '_Grazia, mamma!_' would have tormented the mother-soul in any +woman living. Such a child crying in the night! And for what? + +For he was hot-blooded, healthy, almost in his prime, and free as a man +can be in his circumstances. He had his own way, he admitted no +thwarting. He governed his circumstances pretty much, coming to our +village with his little company, playing the plays he chose himself. And +yet, that which he would have he did not vitally want, it was only a +sort of inflamed obstinacy that made him so insistent, in the masculine +way. He was not going to be governed by women, he was not going to be +dictated to in the least by any one. And this because he was beaten by +his own flesh. + +His real man's soul, the soul that goes forth and builds up a new world +out of the void, was ineffectual. It could only revert to the senses. +His divinity was the phallic divinity. The other male divinity, which is +the spirit that fulfils in the world the new germ of an idea, this was +denied and obscured in him, unused. And it was this spirit which cried +out helplessly in him through the insistent, inflammable flesh. Even +this play-acting was a form of physical gratification for him, it had in +it neither real mind nor spirit. + +It was so different from Ibsen, and so much more moving. Ibsen is +exciting, nervously sensational. But this was really moving, a real +crying in the night. One loved the Italian nation, and wanted to help it +with all one's soul. But when one sees the perfect Ibsen, how one hates +the Norwegian and Swedish nations! They are detestable. + +They seem to be fingering with the mind the secret places and sources of +the blood, impertinent, irreverent, nasty. There is a certain +intolerable nastiness about the real Ibsen: the same thing is in +Strindberg and in most of the Norwegian and Swedish writings. It is with +them a sort of phallic worship also, but now the worship is mental and +perverted: the phallus is the real fetish, but it is the source of +uncleanliness and corruption and death, it is the Moloch, worshipped in +obscenity. + +Which is unbearable. The phallus is a symbol of creative divinity. But +it represents only part of creative divinity. The Italian has made it +represent the whole. Which is now his misery, for he has to destroy his +symbol in himself. + +Which is why the Italian men have the enthusiasm for war, unashamed. +Partly it is the true phallic worship, for the phallic principle is to +absorb and dominate all life. But also it is a desire to expose +themselves to death, to know death, that death may destroy in them this +too strong dominion of the blood, may once more liberate the spirit of +outgoing, of uniting, of making order out of chaos, in the outer world, +as the flesh makes a new order from chaos in begetting a new life, set +them free to know and serve a greater idea. + +The peasants below sat and listened intently, like children who hear and +do not understand, yet who are spellbound. The children themselves sit +spellbound on the benches till the play is over. They do not fidget or +lose interest. They watch with wide, absorbed eyes at the mystery, held +in thrall by the sound of emotion. + +But the villagers do not really care for Ibsen. They let it go. On the +feast of Epiphany, as a special treat, was given a poetic drama by +D'Annunzio, _La Fiaccola sotto il Moggio_--_The Light under the Bushel_. + +It is a foolish romantic play of no real significance. There are several +murders and a good deal of artificial horror. But it is all a very nice +and romantic piece of make-believe, like a charade. + +So the audience loved it. After the performance of _Ghosts_ I saw the +barber, and he had the curious grey clayey look of an Italian who is +cold and depressed. The sterile cold inertia, which the so-called +passionate nations know so well, had settled on him, and he went +obliterating himself in the street, as if he were cold, dead. + +But after the D'Annunzio play he was like a man who has drunk sweet wine +and is warm. + +'_Ah, bellissimo, bellissimo_!' he said, in tones of intoxicated +reverence, when he saw me. + +'Better than _I Spettri_?' I said. + +He half-raised his hands, as if to imply the fatuity of the question. + +'Ah, but--' he said, 'it was D'Annunzio. The other....' + +'That was Ibsen--a great Norwegian,' I said, 'famous all over the +world.' + +'But you know--D'Annunzio is a poet--oh, beautiful, beautiful!' There +was no going beyond this '_bello--bellissimo_'. + +It was the language which did it. It was the Italian passion for +rhetoric, for the speech which appeals to the senses and makes no demand +on the mind. When an Englishman listens to a speech he wants at least to +imagine that he understands thoroughly and impersonally what is meant. +But an Italian only cares about the emotion. It is the movement, the +physical effect of the language upon the blood which gives him supreme +satisfaction. His mind is scarcely engaged at all. He is like a child, +hearing and feeling without understanding. It is the sensuous +gratification he asks for. Which is why D'Annunzio is a god in Italy. He +can control the current of the blood with his words, and although much +of what he says is bosh, yet his hearer is satisfied, fulfilled. + +Carnival ends on the 5th of February, so each Thursday there is a Serata +d' Onore of one of the actors. The first, and the only one for which +prices were raised--to a fourpence entrance fee instead of +threepence--was for the leading lady. The play was _The Wife of the +Doctor_, a modern piece, sufficiently uninteresting; the farce that +followed made me laugh. + +Since it was her Evening of Honour, Adelaida was the person to see. She +is very popular, though she is no longer young. In fact, she is the +mother of the young pert person of _Ghosts_. + +Nevertheless, Adelaida, stout and blonde and soft and pathetic, is the +real heroine of the theatre, the prima. She is very good at sobbing; and +afterwards the men exclaim involuntarily, out of their strong emotion, +'_bella, bella_!' The women say nothing. They sit stiffly and +dangerously as ever. But, no doubt, they quite agree this is the true +picture of ill-used, tear-stained woman, the bearer of many wrongs. +Therefore they take unto themselves the homage of the men's '_bella, +bella_!' that follows the sobs: it is due recognition of their hard +wrongs: 'the woman pays.' Nevertheless, they despise in their souls the +plump, soft Adelaida. + +Dear Adelaida, she is irreproachable. In every age, in every clime, she +is dear, at any rate to the masculine soul, this soft, tear-blenched, +blonde, ill-used thing. She must be ill-used and unfortunate. Dear +Gretchen, dear Desdemona, dear Iphigenia, dear Dame aux Camélias, dear +Lucy of Lammermoor, dear Mary Magdalene, dear, pathetic, unfortunate +soul, in all ages and lands, how we love you. In the theatre she +blossoms forth, she is the lily of the stage. Young and inexperienced as +I am, I have broken my heart over her several times. I could write a +sonnet-sequence to her, yes, the fair, pale, tear-stained thing, +white-robed, with her hair down her back; I could call her by a hundred +names, in a hundred languages, Melisande, Elizabeth, Juliet, Butterfly, +Phèdre, Minnehaha, etc. Each new time I hear her voice, with its faint +clang of tears, my heart grows big and hot, and my bones melt. I detest +her, but it is no good. My heart begins to swell like a bud under the +plangent rain. + +The last time I saw her was here, on the Garda, at Salò. She was the +chalked, thin-armed daughter of Rigoletto. I detested her, her voice had +a chalky squeak in it. And yet, by the end, my heart was overripe in my +breast, ready to burst with loving affection. I was ready to walk on to +the stage, to wipe out the odious, miscreant lover, and to offer her all +myself, saying, 'I can see it is real _love_ you want, and you shall +have it: _I_ will give it to you.' + +Of course I know the secret of the Gretchen magic; it is all in the +'Save me, Mr Hercules!' phrase. Her shyness, her timidity, her +trustfulness, her tears foster my own strength and grandeur. I am the +positive half of the universe. But so I am, if it comes to that, just as +positive as the other half. + +Adelaida is plump, and her voice has just that moist, plangent strength +which gives one a real voluptuous thrill. The moment she comes on the +stage and looks round--a bit scared--she is _she_, Electra, Isolde, +Sieglinde, Marguèrite. She wears a dress of black voile, like the lady +who weeps at the trial in the police-court. This is her modern uniform. +Her antique garment is of trailing white, with a blonde pigtail and a +flower. Realistically, it is black voile and a handkerchief. + +Adelaida always has a handkerchief. And still I cannot resist it. I say, +'There's the hanky!' Nevertheless, in two minutes it has worked its way +with me. She squeezes it in her poor, plump hand as the tears begin to +rise; Fate, or man, is inexorable, so cruel. There is a sob, a cry; she +presses the fist and the hanky to her eyes, one eye, then the other. She +weeps real tears, tears shaken from the depths of her soft, vulnerable, +victimized female self. I cannot stand it. There I sit in the padrone's +little red box and stifle my emotion, whilst I repeat in my heart: 'What +a shame, child, what a shame!' She is twice my age, but what is age in +such circumstances? 'Your poor little hanky, it's sopping. There, then, +don't cry. It'll be all right. _I'll_ see you're all right. _All_ men +are not beasts, you know.' So I cover her protectively in my arms, and +soon I shall be kissing her, for comfort, in the heat and prowess of my +compassion, kissing her soft, plump cheek and neck closely, bringing my +comfort nearer and nearer. + +It is a pleasant and exciting role for me to play. Robert Burns did the +part to perfection: + + O wert thou in the cauld blast + On yonder lea, on yonder lea. + +How many times does one recite that to all the Ophelias and Gretchens in +the world: + + Thy bield should be my bosom. + +How one admires one's bosom in that capacity! Looking down at one's +shirt-front, one is filled with strength and pride. + +Why are the women so bad at playing this part in real life, this +Ophelia-Gretchen role? Why are they so unwilling to go mad and die for +our sakes? They do it regularly on the stage. + +But perhaps, after all, we write the plays. What a villain I am, what a +black-browed, passionate, ruthless, masculine villain I am to the +leading lady on the stage; and, on the other hand, dear heart, what a +hero, what a fount of chivalrous generosity and faith! I am _anything_ +but a dull and law-abiding citizen. I am a Galahad, full of purity and +spirituality, I am the Lancelot of valour and lust; I fold my hands, or +I cock my hat in one side, as the case may be: I am _myself_. Only, I am +not a respectable citizen, not that, in this hour of my glory and +my escape. + +Dear Heaven, how Adelaida wept, her voice plashing like violin music, at +my ruthless, masculine cruelty. Dear heart, how she sighed to rest on my +sheltering bosom! And how I enjoyed my dual nature! How I +admired myself! + +Adelaida chose _La Moglie del Dottore_ for her Evening of Honour. During +the following week came a little storm of coloured bills: 'Great Evening +of Honour of Enrico Persevalli.' + +This is the leader, the actor-manager. What should he choose for his +great occasion, this broad, thick-set, ruddy descendant of the peasant +proprietors of the plain? No one knew. The title of the play was +not revealed. + +So we were staying at home, it was cold and wet. But the maestra came +inflammably on that Thursday evening, and were we not going to the +theatre, to see _Amleto_? + +Poor maestra, she is yellow and bitter-skinned, near fifty, but her dark +eyes are still corrosively inflammable. She was engaged to a lieutenant +in the cavalry, who got drowned when she was twenty-one. Since then she +has hung on the tree unripe, growing yellow and bitter-skinned, never +developing. + +'_Amleto!_' I say. '_Non lo conosco._' + +A certain fear comes into her eyes. She is schoolmistress, and has a +mortal dread of being wrong. + +'_Si_,' she cries, wavering, appealing, '_una dramma inglese_.' + +'English!' I repeated. + +'Yes, an English drama.' + +'How do you write it?' + +Anxiously, she gets a pencil from her reticule, and, with black-gloved +scrupulousness, writes _Amleto_. + +'_Hamlet_!' I exclaim wonderingly. + +'_Ecco, Amleto!_' cries the maestra, her eyes aflame with thankful +justification. + +Then I knew that Signore Enrico Persevalli was looking to me for an +audience. His Evening of Honour would be a bitter occasion to him if the +English were not there to see his performance. + +I hurried to get ready, I ran through the rain. I knew he would take it +badly that it rained on his Evening of Honour. He counted himself a man +who had fate against him. + +'_Sono un disgraziato, io._' + +I was late. The First Act was nearly over. The play was not yet alive, +neither in the bosoms of the actors nor in the audience. I closed the +door of the box softly, and came forward. The rolling Italian eyes of +Hamlet glanced up at me. There came a new impulse over the Court +of Denmark. + +Enrico looked a sad fool in his melancholy black. The doublet sat close, +making him stout and vulgar, the knee-breeches seemed to exaggerate the +commonness of his thick, rather short, strutting legs. And he carried a +long black rag, as a cloak, for histrionic purposes. And he had on his +face a portentous grimace of melancholy and philosophic importance. His +was the caricature of Hamlet's melancholy self-absorption. + +I stooped to arrange my footstool and compose my countenance. I was +trying not to grin. For the first time, attired in philosophic +melancholy of black silk, Enrico looked a boor and a fool. His +close-cropped, rather animal head was common above the effeminate +doublet, his sturdy, ordinary figure looked absurd in a +melancholic droop. + +All the actors alike were out of their element. Their Majesties of +Denmark were touching. The Queen, burly little peasant woman, was ill at +ease in her pink satin. Enrico had had no mercy. He knew she loved to be +the scolding servant or housekeeper, with her head tied up in a +handkerchief, shrill and vulgar. Yet here she was pranked out in an +expanse of satin, la Regina. Regina, indeed! + +She obediently did her best to be important. Indeed, she rather fancied +herself; she looked sideways at the audience, self-consciously, quite +ready to be accepted as an imposing and noble person, if they would +esteem her such. Her voice sounded hoarse and common, but whether it was +the pink satin in contrast, or a cold, I do not know. She was almost +childishly afraid to move. Before she began a speech she looked down and +kicked her skirt viciously, so that she was sure it was under control. +Then she let go. She was a burly, downright little body of sixty, one +rather expected her to box Hamlet on the ears. + +Only she liked being a queen when she sat on the throne. There she +perched with great satisfaction, her train splendidly displayed down the +steps. She was as proud as a child, and she looked like Queen Victoria +of the Jubilee period. + +The King, her noble consort, also had new honours thrust upon him, as +well as new garments. His body was real enough but it had nothing at all +to do with his clothes. They established a separate identity by +themselves. But wherever he went, they went with him, to the confusion +of everybody. + +He was a thin, rather frail-looking peasant, pathetic, and very gentle. +There was something pure and fine about him, he was so exceedingly +gentle and by natural breeding courteous. But he did not feel kingly, he +acted the part with beautiful, simple resignation. + +Enrico Persevalli had overshot himself in every direction, but worst of +all in his own. He had become a hulking fellow, crawling about with his +head ducked between his shoulders, pecking and poking, creeping about +after other people, sniffing at them, setting traps for them, absorbed +by his own self-important self-consciousness. His legs, in their black +knee-breeches, had a crawling, slinking look; he always carried the +black rag of a cloak, something for him to twist about as he twisted in +his own soul, overwhelmed by a sort of inverted perversity. + +I had always felt an aversion from Hamlet: a creeping, unclean thing he +seems, on the stage, whether he is Forbes Robertson or anybody else. His +nasty poking and sniffing at his mother, his setting traps for the King, +his conceited perversion with Ophelia make him always intolerable. The +character is repulsive in its conception, based on self-dislike and a +spirit of disintegration. + +There is, I think, this strain of cold dislike, or self-dislike, through +much of the Renaissance art, and through all the later Shakespeare. In +Shakespeare it is a kind of corruption in the flesh and a conscious +revolt from this. A sense of corruption in the flesh makes Hamlet +frenzied, for he will never admit that it is his own flesh. Leonardo da +Vinci is the same, but Leonardo loves the corruption maliciously. +Michelangelo rejects any feeling of corruption, he stands by the flesh, +the flesh only. It is the corresponding reaction, but in the opposite +direction. But that is all four hundred years ago. Enrico Persevalli has +just reached the position. He _is_ Hamlet, and evidently he has great +satisfaction in the part. He is the modern Italian, suspicious, +isolated, self-nauseated, labouring in a sense of physical corruption. +But he will not admit it is in himself. He creeps about in self-conceit, +transforming his own self-loathing. With what satisfaction did he reveal +corruption--corruption in his neighbours he gloated in--letting his +mother know he had discovered her incest, her uncleanness, gloated in +torturing the incestuous King. Of all the unclean ones, Hamlet was the +uncleanest. But he accused only the others. + +Except in the 'great' speeches, and there Enrico was betrayed, Hamlet +suffered the extremity of physical self-loathing, loathing of his own +flesh. The play is the statement of the most significant philosophic +position of the Renaissance. Hamlet is far more even than Orestes, his +prototype, a mental creature, anti-physical, anti-sensual. The whole +drama is the tragedy of the convulsed reaction of the mind from the +flesh, of the spirit from the self, the reaction from the great +aristocratic to the great democratic principle. + +An ordinary instinctive man, in Hamlet's position, would either have set +about murdering his uncle, by reflex action, or else would have gone +right away. There would have been no need for Hamlet to murder his +mother. It would have been sufficient blood-vengeance if he had killed +his uncle. But that is the statement according to the aristocratic +principle. + +Orestes was in the same position, but the same position two thousand +years earlier, with two thousand years of experience wanting. So that +the question was not so intricate in him as in Hamlet, he was not nearly +so conscious. The whole Greek life was based on the idea of the +supremacy of the self, and the self was always male. Orestes was his +father's child, he would be the same whatever mother he had. The mother +was but the vehicle, the soil in which the paternal seed was planted. +When Clytemnestra murdered Agamemnon, it was as if a common individual +murdered God, to the Greek. + +But Agamemnon, King and Lord, was not infallible. He was fallible. He +had sacrificed Iphigenia for the sake of glory in war, for the +fulfilment of the superb idea of self, but on the other hand he had made +cruel dissension for the sake of the concubines captured in war. The +paternal flesh was fallible, ungodlike. It lusted after meaner pursuits +than glory, war, and slaying, it was not faithful to the highest idea of +the self. Orestes was driven mad by the furies of his mother, because of +the justice that they represented. Nevertheless he was in the end +exculpated. The third play of the trilogy is almost foolish, with its +prating gods. But it means that, according to the Greek conviction, +Orestes was right and Clytemnestra entirely wrong. But for all that, the +infallible King, the infallible male Self, is dead in Orestes, killed by +the furies of Clytemnestra. He gains his peace of mind after the +revulsion from his own physical fallibility, but he will never be an +unquestioned lord, as Agamemnon was. Orestes is left at peace, +neutralized. He is the beginning of non-aristocratic Christianity. + +Hamlet's father, the King, is, like Agamemnon, a warrior-king. But, +unlike Agamemnon, he is blameless with regard to Gertrude. Yet Gertrude, +like Clytemnestra, is the potential murderer of her husband, as Lady +Macbeth is murderess, as the daughters of Lear. The women murder the +supreme male, the ideal Self, the King and Father. + +This is the tragic position Shakespeare must dwell upon. The woman +rejects, repudiates the ideal Self which the male represents to her. The +supreme representative, King and Father, is murdered by the Wife and the +Daughters. + +What is the reason? Hamlet goes mad in a revulsion of rage and nausea. +Yet the women-murderers only represent some ultimate judgement in his +own soul. At the bottom of his own soul Hamlet has decided that the Self +in its supremacy, Father and King, must die. It is a suicidal decision +for his involuntary soul to have arrived at. Yet it is inevitable. The +great religious, philosophic tide, which has been swelling all through +the Middle Ages, had brought him there. + +The question, to be or not to be, which Hamlet puts himself, does not +mean, to live or not to live. It is not the simple human being who puts +himself the question, it is the supreme I, King and Father. To be or not +to be King, Father, in the Self supreme? And the decision is, not to be. + +It is the inevitable philosophic conclusion of all the Renaissance. The +deepest impulse in man, the religious impulse, is the desire to be +immortal, or infinite, consummated. And this impulse is satisfied in +fulfilment of an idea, a steady progression. In this progression man is +satisfied, he seems to have reached his goal, this infinity, this +immortality, this eternal being, with every step nearer which he takes. + +And so, according to his idea of fulfilment, man establishes the whole +order of life. If my fulfilment is the fulfilment and establishment of +the unknown divine Self which I am, then I shall proceed in the +realizing of the greatest idea of the self, the highest conception of +the I, my order of life will be kingly, imperial, aristocratic. The body +politic also will culminate in this divinity of the flesh, this body +imbued with glory, invested with divine power and might, the King, the +Emperor. In the body politic also I shall desire a king, an emperor, a +tyrant, glorious, mighty, in whom I see myself consummated and +fulfilled. This is inevitable! + +But during the Middle Ages, struggling within this pagan, original +transport, the transport of the Ego, was a small dissatisfaction, a +small contrary desire. Amid the pomp of kings and popes was the Child +Jesus and the Madonna. Jesus the King gradually dwindled down. There was +Jesus the Child, helpless, at the mercy of all the world. And there was +Jesus crucified. + +The old transport, the old fulfilment of the Ego, the Davidian ecstasy, +the assuming of all power and glory unto the self, the becoming infinite +through the absorption of all into the Ego, this gradually became +unsatisfactory. This was not the infinite, this was not immortality. +This was eternal death, this was damnation. + +The monk rose up with his opposite ecstasy, the Christian ecstasy. There +was a death to die: the flesh, the self, must die, so that the spirit +should rise again immortal, eternal, infinite. I am dead unto myself, +but I live in the Infinite. The finite Me is no more, only the Infinite, +the Eternal, is. + +At the Renaissance this great half-truth overcame the other great +half-truth. The Christian Infinite, reached by a process of abnegation, +a process of being absorbed, dissolved, diffused into the great +Not-Self, supplanted the old pagan Infinite, wherein the self like a +root threw out branches and radicles which embraced the whole universe, +became the Whole. + +There is only one Infinite, the world now cried, there is the great +Christian Infinite of renunciation and consummation in the not-self. The +other, that old pride, is damnation. The sin of sins is Pride, it is the +way to total damnation. Whereas the pagans based their life on pride. + +And according to this new Infinite, reached through renunciation and +dissolving into the Others, the Neighbour, man must build up his actual +form of life. With Savonarola and Martin Luther the living Church +actually transformed itself, for the Roman Church was still pagan. Henry +VIII simply said: 'There is no Church, there is only the State.' But +with Shakespeare the transformation had reached the State also. The +King, the Father, the representative of the Consummate Self, the maximum +of all life, the symbol of the consummate being, the becoming Supreme, +Godlike, Infinite, he must perish and pass away. This Infinite was not +infinite, this consummation was not consummated, all this was fallible, +false. It was rotten, corrupt. It must go. But Shakespeare was also the +thing itself. Hence his horror, his frenzy, his self-loathing. + +The King, the Emperor is killed in the soul of man, the old order of +life is over, the old tree is dead at the root. So said Shakespeare. It +was finally enacted in Cromwell. Charles I took up the old position of +kingship by divine right. Like Hamlet's father, he was blameless +otherwise. But as representative of the old form of life, which mankind +now hated with frenzy, he must be cut down, removed. It was a +symbolic act. + +The world, our world of Europe, had now really turned, swung round to a +new goal, a new idea, the Infinite reached through the omission of Self. +God is all that which is Not-Me. I am consummate when my Self, the +resistant solid, is reduced and diffused into all that which is Not-Me: +my neighbour, my enemy, the great Otherness. Then I am perfect. + +And from this belief the world began gradually to form a new State, a +new body politic, in which the Self should be removed. There should be +no king, no lords, no aristocrats. The world continued in its religious +belief, beyond the French Revolution, beyond the great movement of +Shelley and Godwin. There should be no Self. That which was supreme was +that which was Not-Me, the other. The governing factor in the State was +the idea of the good of others; that is, the Common Good. And the +_vital_ governing idea in the State has been this idea since Cromwell. + +Before Cromwell the idea was 'For the King', because every man saw +himself consummated in the King. After Cromwell the idea was 'For the +good of my neighbour', or 'For the good of the people', or 'For the good +of the whole'. This has been our ruling idea, by which we have more or +less lived. + +Now this has failed. Now we say that the Christian Infinite is not +infinite. We are tempted, like Nietzsche, to return back to the old +pagan Infinite, to say that is supreme. Or we are inclined, like the +English and the Pragmatist, to say, 'There is no Infinite, there is no +Absolute. The only Absolute is expediency, the only reality is sensation +and momentariness.' But we may say this, even act on it, _à la Sanine_. +But we never believe it. + +What is really Absolute is the mystic Reason which connects both +Infinites, the Holy Ghost that relates both natures of God. If we now +wish to make a living State, we must build it up to the idea of the Holy +Spirit, the supreme Relationship. We must say, the pagan Infinite is +infinite, the Christian Infinite is infinite: these are our two +Consummations, in both of these we are consummated. But that which +relates them alone is absolute. + +This Absolute of the Holy Ghost we may call Truth or Justice or Right. +These are partial names, indefinite and unsatisfactory unless there be +kept the knowledge of the two Infinites, pagan and Christian, which they +go between. When both are there, they are like a superb bridge, on which +one can stand and know the whole world, my world, the two halves of +the universe. + +'_Essere, o non essere, è qui il punto._' + +To be or not to be was the question for Hamlet to settle. It is no +longer our question, at least, not in the same sense. When it is a +question of death, the fashionable young suicide declares that his +self-destruction is the final proof of his own incontrovertible being. +And as for not-being in our public life, we have achieved it as much as +ever we want to, as much as is necessary. Whilst in private life there +is a swing back to paltry selfishness as a creed. And in the war there +is the position of neutralization and nothingness. It is a question of +knowing how _to be_, and how _not to be_, for we must fulfil both. +Enrico Persevalli was detestable with his '_Essere, o non essere_'. He +whispered it in a hoarse whisper as if it were some melodramatic murder +he was about to commit. As a matter of fact, he knows quite well, and +has known all his life, that his pagan Infinite, his transport of the +flesh and the supremacy of the male in fatherhood, is all +unsatisfactory. All his life he has really cringed before the northern +Infinite of the Not-Self, although he has continued in the Italian habit +of Self. But it is mere habit, sham. + +How can he know anything about being and not-being when he is only a +maudlin compromise between them, and all he wants is to be a maudlin +compromise? He is neither one nor the other. He has neither being nor +riot-being. He is as equivocal as the monks. He was detestable, mouthing +Hamlet's sincere words. He has still to let go, to know what not-being +is, before he can _be_. Till he has gone through the Christian negation +of himself, and has known the Christian consummation, he is a mere +amorphous heap. + +For the soliloquies of Hamlet are as deep as the soul of man can go, in +one direction, and as sincere as the Holy Spirit itself in their +essence. But thank heaven, the bog into which Hamlet struggled is almost +surpassed. + +It is a strange thing, if a man covers his face, and speaks with his +eyes blinded, how significant and poignant he becomes. The ghost of this +Hamlet was very simple. He was wrapped down to the knees in a great +white cloth, and over his face was an open-work woollen shawl. But the +naïve blind helplessness and verity of his voice was strangely +convincing. He seemed the most real thing in the play. From the knees +downward he was Laertes, because he had on Laertes' white trousers and +patent leather slippers. Yet he was strangely real, a voice out of +the dark. + +The Ghost is really one of the play's failures, it is so trivial and +unspiritual and vulgar. And it was spoilt for me from the first. When I +was a child I went to the twopenny travelling theatre to see _Hamlet_. +The Ghost had on a helmet and a breastplate. I sat in pale transport. + +''Amblet, 'Amblet, I _am_ thy father's ghost.' + +Then came a voice from the dark, silent audience, like a cynical knife +to my fond soul: + +'Why tha arena, I can tell thy voice.' + +The peasants loved Ophelia: she was in white with her hair down her +back. Poor thing, she was pathetic, demented. And no wonder, after +Hamlet's 'O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt!' What then of +her young breasts and her womb? Hamlet with her was a very disagreeable +sight. The peasants loved her. There was a hoarse roar, half of +indignation, half of roused passion, at the end of her scene. + +The graveyard scene, too, was a great success, but I could not bear +Hamlet. And the grave-digger in Italian was a mere buffoon. The whole +scene was farcical to me because of the Italian, '_Questo cranio, +Signore_--'And Enrico, dainty fellow, took the skull in a corner of his +black cloak. As an Italian, he would not willingly touch it. It was +unclean. But he looked a fool, hulking himself in his lugubriousness. He +was as self-important as D'Annunzio. + +The close fell flat. The peasants had applauded the whole graveyard +scene wildly. But at the end of all they got up and crowded to the +doors, as if to hurry away: this in spite of Enrico's final feat: he +fell backwards, smack down three steps of the throne platform, on to the +stage. But planks and braced muscle will bounce, and Signer Amleto +bounced quite high again. + +It was the end of _Amleto_, and I was glad. But I loved the theatre, I +loved to look down on the peasants, who were so absorbed. At the end of +the scenes the men pushed back their black hats, and rubbed their hair +across their brows with a pleased, excited movement. And the women +stirred in their seats. + +Just one man was with his wife and child, and he was of the same race as +my old woman at San Tommaso. He was fair, thin, and clear, abstract, of +the mountains. He seemed to have gathered his wife and child together +into another, finer atmosphere, like the air of the mountains, and to +guard them in it. This is the real Joseph, father of the child. He has a +fierce, abstract look, wild and untamed as a hawk, but like a hawk at +its own nest, fierce with love. He goes out and buys a tiny bottle of +lemonade for a penny, and the mother and child sip it in tiny sips, +whilst he bends over, like a hawk arching its wings. + +It is the fierce spirit of the Ego come out of the primal infinite, but +detached, isolated, an aristocrat. He is not an Italian, dark-blooded. +He is fair, keen as steel, with the blood of the mountaineer in him. He +is like my old spinning woman. It is curious how, with his wife and +child, he makes a little separate world down there in the theatre, like +a hawk's nest, high and arid under the gleaming sky. + +The Bersaglieri sit close together in groups, so that there is a +strange, corporal connexion between them. They have close-cropped, dark, +slightly bestial heads, and thick shoulders, and thick brown hands on +each other's shoulders. When an act is over they pick up their cherished +hats and fling on their cloaks and go into the hall. They are rather +rich, the Bersaglieri. + +They are like young, half-wild oxen, such strong, sturdy, dark lads, +thickly built and with strange hard heads, like young male caryatides. +They keep close together, as if there were some physical instinct +connecting them. And they are quite womanless. There is a curious +inter-absorption among themselves, a sort of physical trance that holds +them all, and puts their minds to sleep. There is a strange, hypnotic +unanimity among them as they put on their plumed hats and go out +together, always very close, as if their bodies must touch. Then they +feel safe and content in this heavy, physical trance. They are in love +with one another, the young men love the young men. They shrink from the +world beyond, from the outsiders, from all who are not Bersaglieri of +their barracks. + +One man is a sort of leader. He is very straight and solid, solid like a +wall, with a dark, unblemished will. His cock-feathers slither in a +profuse, heavy stream from his black oil-cloth hat, almost to his +shoulder. He swings round. His feathers slip into a cascade. Then he +goes out to the hall, his feather tossing and falling richly. He must be +well off. The Bersaglieri buy their own black cock's-plumes, and some +pay twenty or thirty francs for the bunch, so the maestra said. The poor +ones have only poor, scraggy plumes. + +There is something very primitive about these men. They remind me really +of Agamemnon's soldiers clustered oil the seashore, men, all men, a +living, vigorous, physical host of men. But there is a pressure on these +Italian soldiers, as if they were men caryatides, with a great weight on +their heads, making their brain hard, asleep, stunned. They all look is +if their real brain were stunned, as if there were another centre of +physical consciousness from which they lived. + +Separate from them all is Pietro, the young man who lounges on the wharf +to carry things from the steamer. He starts up from sleep like a +wild-cat as somebody claps him on the shoulder. It is the start of a man +who has many enemies. He is almost an outlaw. Will he ever find himself +in prison? He is the _gamin_ of the village, well detested. + +He is twenty-four years old, thin, dark, handsome, with a cat-like +lightness and grace, and a certain repulsive, _gamin_ evil in his face. +Where everybody is so clean and tidy, he is almost ragged. His week's +beard shows very black in his slightly hollow cheeks. He hates the man +who has waked him by clapping him on the shoulder. + +Pietro is already married, yet he behaves as if he were not. He has been +carrying on with a loose woman, the wife of the citron-coloured barber, +the Siciliano. Then he seats himself on the women's side of the theatre, +behind a young person from Bogliaco, who also has no reputation, and +makes her talk to him. He leans forward, resting his arms on the seat +before him, stretching his slender, cat-like, flexible loins. The +padrona of the hotel hates him--'_ein frecher Kerl_,' she says with +contempt, and she looks away. Her eyes hate to see him. + +In the village there is the clerical party, which is the majority; +there is the anti-clerical party, and there are the ne'er-do-wells. The +clerical people are dark and pious and cold; there is a curious +stone-cold, ponderous darkness over them, moral and gloomy. Then the +anti-clerical party, with the Syndaco at the head, is bourgeois and +respectable as far as the middle-aged people are concerned, banal, +respectable, shut off as by a wall from the clerical people. The young +anti-clericals are the young bloods of the place, the men who gather +every night in the more expensive and less-respectable cafe. These young +men are all free-thinkers, great dancers, singers, players of the +guitar. They are immoral and slightly cynical. Their leader is the young +shopkeeper, who has lived in Vienna, who is a bit of a bounder, with a +veneer of sneering irony on an original good nature. He is well-to-do, +and gives dances to which only the looser women go, with these reckless +young men. He also gets up parties of pleasure, and is chiefly +responsible for the coming of the players to the theatre this carnival. +These young men are disliked, but they belong to the important class, +they are well-to-do, and they have the life of the village in their +hands. The clerical peasants are priest-ridden and good, because they +are poor and afraid and superstitious. There is, lastly, a sprinkling of +loose women, one who keeps the inn where the soldiers drink. These women +are a definite set. They know what they are, they pretend nothing else. +They are not prostitutes, but just loose women. They keep to their own +clique, among men and women, never wanting to compromise anybody else. + +And beyond all these there are the Franciscan friars in their brown +robes, so shy, so silent, so obliterated, as they stand back in the +shop, waiting to buy the bread for the monastery, waiting obscure and +neutral, till no one shall be in the shop wanting to be served. The +village women speak to them in a curious neutral, official, slightly +contemptuous voice. They answer neutral and humble, though distinctly. + +At the theatre, now the play is over, the peasants in their black hats +and cloaks crowd the hall. Only Pietro, the wharf-lounger, has no cloak, +and a bit of a cap on the side of his head instead of a black felt hat. +His clothes are thin and loose on his thin, vigorous, cat-like body, and +he is cold, but he takes no notice. His hands are always in his pockets, +his shoulders slightly raised. + +The few women slip away home. In the little theatre bar the well-to-do +young atheists are having another drink. Not that they spend much. A +tumbler of wine or a glass of vermouth costs a penny. And the wine is +horrible new stuff. Yet the little baker, Agostino, sits on a bench with +his pale baby on his knee, putting the wine to its lips. And the baby +drinks, like a blind fledgeling. + +Upstairs, the quality has paid its visits and shaken hands: the Syndaco +and the well-to-do half-Austrian owners of the woodyard, the Bertolini, +have ostentatiously shown their mutual friendship; our padrone, the +Signer Pietro Di Paoli, has visited his relatives the Graziani in the +box next the stage and has spent two intervals with us in our box; +meanwhile, his two peasants standing down below, pathetic, thin +contadini of the old school, like worn stones, have looked up at us as +if we are the angels in heaven, with a reverential, devotional eye, they +themselves far away below, standing in the bay at the back, below all. + +The chemist and the grocer and the schoolmistress pay calls. They have +all sat self-consciously posed in the front of their boxes, like framed +photographs of themselves. The second grocer and the baker visit each +other. The barber looks in on the carpenter, then drops downstairs among +the crowd. Class distinctions are cut very fine. As we pass with the +padrona of the hotel, who is a Bavarian, we stop to speak to our own +padroni, the Di Paoli. They have a warm handshake and effusive polite +conversation for us; for Maria Samuelli, a distant bow. We realize +our mistake. + +The barber--not the Siciliano, but flashy little Luigi with the big +tie-ring and the curls--knows all about the theatre. He says that Enrico +Persevalli has for his mistress Carina, the servant in _Ghosts_: that +the thin, gentle, old-looking king in _Hamlet_ is the husband of +Adelaida, and Carina is their daughter: that the old, sharp, fat little +body of a queen is Adelaida's mother: that they all like Enrico +Persevalli, because he is a very clever man: but that the 'Comic', Il +Brillante, Francesco, is unsatisfied. + +In three performances in Epiphany week, the company took two hundred and +sixty-five francs, which was phenomenal. The manager, Enrico Persevalli, +and Adelaida pay twenty-four francs for every performance, or every +evening on which a performance is given, as rent for the theatre, +including light. The company is completely satisfied with its reception +on the Lago di Garda. + +So it is all over. The Bersaglieri go running all the way home, because +it is already past half past ten. The night is very dark. About four +miles up the lake the searchlights of the Austrian border are swinging, +looking for smugglers. Otherwise the darkness is complete. + + + +_4_ + +SAN GAUDENZIO + + +In the autumn the little rosy cyclamens blossom in the shade of this +west side of the lake. They are very cold and fragrant, and their scent +seems to belong to Greece, to the Bacchae. They are real flowers of the +past. They seem to be blossoming in the landscape of Phaedra and Helen. +They bend down, they brood like little chill fires. They are little +living myths that I cannot understand. + +After the cyclamens the Christmas roses are in bud. It is at this season +that the cacchi are ripe on the trees in the garden, whole naked trees +full of lustrous, orange-yellow, paradisal fruit, gleaming against the +wintry blue sky. The monthly roses still blossom frail and pink, there +are still crimson and yellow roses. But the vines are bare and the +lemon-houses shut. And then, mid-winter, the lowest buds of the +Christmas roses appear under the hedges and rocks and by the streams. +They are very lovely, these first large, cold, pure buds, like violets, +like magnolias, but cold, lit up with the light from the snow. + +The days go by, through the brief silence of winter, when the sunshine +is so still and pure, like iced wine, and the dead leaves gleam brown, +and water sounds hoarse in the ravines. It is so still and transcendent, +the cypress trees poise like flames of forgotten darkness, that should +have been blown out at the end of the summer. For as we have candles to +light the darkness of night, so the cypresses are candles to keep the +darkness aflame in the full sunshine. + +Meanwhile, the Christmas roses become many. They rise from their budded, +intact humbleness near the ground, they rise up, they throw up their +crystal, they become handsome, they are heaps of confident, mysterious +whiteness in the shadow of a rocky stream. It is almost uncanny to see +them. They are the flowers of darkness, white and wonderful +beyond belief. + +Then their radiance becomes soiled and brown, they thaw, break, and +scatter and vanish away. Already the primroses are coming out, and the +almond is in bud. The winter is passing away. On the mountains the +fierce snow gleams apricot gold as evening approaches, golden, apricot, +but so bright that it is almost frightening. What can be so fiercely +gleaming when all is shadowy? It is something inhuman and unmitigated +between heaven and earth. + +The heavens are strange and proud all the winter, their progress goes on +without reference to the dim earth. The dawns come white and +translucent, the lake is a moonstone in the dark hills, then across the +lake there stretches a vein of fire, then a whole, orange, flashing +track over the whiteness. There is the exquisite silent passage of the +day, and then at evening the afterglow, a huge incandescence of rose, +hanging above and gleaming, as if it were the presence of a host of +angels in rapture. It gleams like a rapturous chorus, then passes away, +and the stars appear, large and flashing. + +Meanwhile, the primroses are dawning on the ground, their light is +growing stronger, spreading over the banks and under the bushes. Between +the olive roots the violets are out, large, white, grave violets, and +less serious blue ones. And looking down the bill, among the grey smoke +of olive leaves, pink puffs of smoke are rising up. It is the almond and +the apricot trees, it is the Spring. + +Soon the primroses are strong on the ground. There is a bank of small, +frail crocuses shooting the lavender into this spring. And then the +tussocks and tussocks of primroses are fully out, there is full morning +everywhere on the banks and roadsides and stream-sides, and around the +olive roots, a morning of primroses underfoot, with an invisible +threading of many violets, and then the lovely blue clusters of +hepatica, really like pieces of blue sky showing through a clarity of +primrose. The few birds are piping thinly and shyly, the streams sing +again, there is a strange flowering shrub full of incense, overturned +flowers of crimson and gold, like Bohemian glass. Between the olive +roots new grass is coming, day is leaping all clear and coloured from +the earth, it is full Spring, full first rapture. + +Does it pass away, or does it only lose its pristine quality? It deepens +and intensifies, like experience. The days seem to be darker and richer, +there is a sense of power in the strong air. On the banks by the lake +the orchids are out, many, many pale bee-orchids standing clear from the +short grass over the lake. And in the hollows are the grape hyacinths, +purple as noon, with the heavy, sensual fragrance of noon. They are +many-breasted, and full of milk, and ripe, and sun-darkened, like +many-breasted Diana. + +We could not bear to live down in the village any more, now that the +days opened large and spacious and the evenings drew out in sunshine. We +could not bear the indoors, when above us the mountains shone in clear +air. It was time to go up, to climb with the sun. + +So after Easter we went to San Gaudenzio. It was three miles away, up +the winding mule-track that climbed higher and higher along the lake. +Leaving the last house of the village, the path wound on the steep, +cliff-like side of the lake, curving into the hollow where the landslip +had tumbled the rocks in chaos, then out again on to the bluff of a +headland that hung over the lake. + +Thus we came to the tall barred gate of San Gaudenzio, on which was the +usual little fire-insurance tablet, and then the advertisements for +beer, 'Birra, Verona', which is becoming a more and more popular drink. + +Through the gate, inside the high wall, is the little Garden of Eden, a +property of three or four acres fairly level upon a headland over the +lake. The high wall girds it on the land side, and makes it perfectly +secluded. On the lake-side it is bounded by the sudden drops of the +land, in sharp banks and terraces, overgrown with ilex and with laurel +bushes, down to the brink of the cliff, so that the thicket of the first +declivities seems to safeguard the property. + +The pink farm-house stands almost in the centre of the little territory, +among the olive trees. It is a solid, six-roomed place, about fifty +years old, having been rebuilt by Paolo's uncle. Here we came to live +for a time with the Fiori, Maria and Paolo, and their three children, +Giovanni and Marco and Felicina. + +Paolo had inherited, or partly inherited, San Gaudenzio, which had been +in his family for generations. He was a peasant of fifty-three, very +grey and wrinkled and worn-looking, but at the same time robust, with +full strong limbs and a powerful chest. His face was old, but his body +was solid and powerful. His eyes were blue like upper ice, beautiful. He +had been a fair-haired man, now he was almost white. + +He, was strangely like the pictures of peasants in the northern Italian +pictures, with the same curious nobility, the same aristocratic, eternal +look of motionlessness, something statuesque. His head was hard and +fine, the bone finely constructed, though the skin of his face was loose +and furrowed with work. His temples had that fine, hard clarity which is +seen in Mantegna, an almost jewel-like quality. + +We all loved Paolo, he was so finished in his being, detached, with an +almost classic simplicity and gentleness, an eternal kind of sureness. +There was also something concluded and unalterable about him, something +inaccessible. + +Maria Fiori was different. She was from the plain, like Enrico +Persevalli and the Bersaglier from the Venetian district. She reminded +me again of oxen, broad-boned and massive in physique, dark-skinned, +slow in her soul. But, like the oxen of the plain, she knew her work, +she knew the other people engaged in the work. Her intelligence was +attentive and purposive. She had been a housekeeper, a servant, in +Venice and Verona, before her marriage. She had got the hang of this +world of commerce and activity, she wanted to master it. But she was +weighted down by her heavy animal blood. + +Paolo and she were the opposite sides of the universe, the light and the +dark. Yet they lived together now without friction, detached, each +subordinated in their common relationship. With regard to Maria, Paolo +omitted himself; Maria omitted herself with regard to Paolo. Their souls +were silent and detached, completely apart, and silent, quite silent. +They shared the physical relationship of marriage as if it were +something beyond them, a third thing. + +They had suffered very much in the earlier stages of their connexion. +Now the storm had gone by, leaving them, as it were, spent. They were +both by nature passionate, vehement. But the lines of their passion were +opposite. Hers was the primitive, crude, violent flux of the blood, +emotional and undiscriminating, but wanting to mix and mingle. His was +the hard, clear, invulnerable passion of the bones, finely tempered and +unchangeable. She was the flint and he the steel. But in continual +striking together they only destroyed each other. The fire was a third +thing, belonging to neither of them. + +She was still heavy and full of desire. She was much younger than he. + +'How long did you know your Signora before you were married?' she asked +me. + +'Six weeks,' I said. + +'_Il Paolo e me, venti giorni, tre settimane_,' she cried vehemently. +Three weeks they had known each other when they married. She still +triumphed in the fact. So did Paolo. But it was past, strangely and +rather terribly past. + +What did they want when they came together, Paolo and she? He was a man +over thirty, she was a woman of twenty-three. They were both violent in +desire and of strong will. They came together at once, like two +wrestlers almost matched in strength. Their meetings must have been +splendid. Giovanni, the eldest child, was a tall lad of sixteen, with +soft brown hair and grey eyes, and a clarity of brow, and the same calm +simplicity of bearing which made Paolo so complete; but the son had at +the same time a certain brownness of skin, a heaviness of blood, which +he had from his mother. Paolo was so clear and translucent. + +In Giovanni the fusion of the parents was perfect, he was a perfect +spark from the flint and steel. There was in Paolo a subtle intelligence +in feeling, a delicate appreciation of the other person. But the mind +was unintelligent, he could not grasp a new order. Maria Fiori was much +sharper and more adaptable to the ways of the world. Paolo had an almost +glass-like quality, fine and clear and perfectly tempered; but he was +also finished and brittle. Maria was much coarser, more vulgar, but also +she was more human, more fertile, with crude potentiality. His passion +was too fixed in its motion, hers too loose and overwhelming. + +But Giovanni was beautiful, gentle, and courtly like Paolo, but warm, +like Maria, ready to flush like a girl with anger or confusion. He stood +straight and tall, and seemed to look into the far distance with his +clear grey eyes. Yet also he could look at one and touch one with his +look, he could meet one. Paolo's blue eyes were like the eyes of the old +spinning-woman, clear and blue and belonging to the mountains, their +vision seemed to end in space, abstract. They reminded me of the eyes of +the eagle, which looks into the sun, and which teaches its young to do +the same, although they are unwilling. + +Marco, the second son, was thirteen years old. He was his mother's +favourite, Giovanni loved his father best. But Marco was his mother's +son, with the same brown-gold and red complexion, like a pomegranate, +and coarse black hair, and brown eyes like pebble, like agate, like an +animal's eyes. He had the same broad, bovine figure, though he was only +a boy. But there was some discrepancy in him. He was not unified, he had +no identity. + +He was strong and full of animal life, but always aimless, as though his +wits scarcely controlled him. But he loved his mother with a +fundamental, generous, undistinguishing love. Only he always forgot what +he was going to do. He was much more sensitive than Maria, more shy and +reluctant. But his shyness, his sensitiveness only made him more aimless +and awkward, a tiresome clown, slack and uncontrolled, witless. All day +long his mother shouted and shrilled and scolded at him, or hit him +angrily. He did not mind, he came up like a cork, warm and roguish and +curiously appealing. She loved him with a fierce protective love, +grounded on pain. There was such a split, a contrariety in his soul, one +part reacting against the other, which landed him always into trouble. + +It was when Marco was a baby that Paolo had gone to America. They were +poor on San Gaudenzio. There were the few olive trees, the grapes, and +the fruit; there was the one cow. But these scarcely made a living. +Neither was Maria content with the real peasants' lot any more, polenta +at midday and vegetable soup in the evening, and no way out, nothing to +look forward to, no future, only this eternal present. She had been in +service, and had eaten bread and drunk coffee, and known the flux and +variable chance of life. She had departed from the old static +conception. She knew what one might be, given a certain chance. The +fixture was the thing she militated against. So Paolo went to America, +to California, into the gold mines. + +Maria wanted the future, the endless possibility of life on earth. She +wanted her sons to be freer, to achieve a new plane of living. The +peasant's life was a slave's life, she said, railing against the poverty +and the drudgery. And it was quite true, Paolo and Giovanni worked +twelve and fourteen hours a day at heavy laborious work that would have +broken an Englishman. And there was nothing at the end of it. Yet Paolo +was even happy so. This was the truth to him. + +It was the mother who wanted things different. It was she who railed and +railed against the miserable life of the peasants. When we were going to +throw to the fowls a dry broken penny roll of white bread, Maria said, +with anger and shame and resentment in her voice: 'Give it to Marco, he +will eat it. It isn't too dry for him.' + +White bread was a treat for them even now, when everybody eats bread. +And Maria Fiori hated it, that bread should be a treat to her children, +when it was the meanest food of all the rest of the world. She was in +opposition to this order. She did not want her sons to be peasants, +fixed and static as posts driven in the earth. She wanted them to be in +the great flux of life in the midst of all possibilities. So she at +length sent Paolo to America to the gold-mines. Meanwhile, she covered +the wall of her parlour with picture postcards, to bring the outer world +of cities and industries into her house. + +Paolo was entirely remote from Maria's world. He had not yet even +grasped the fact of money, not thoroughly. He reckoned in land and olive +trees. So he had the old fatalistic attitude to his circumstances, even +to his food. The earth was the Lord's and the fulness thereof; also the +leanness thereof. Paolo could only do his part and leave the rest. If he +ate in plenty, having oil and wine and sausage in the house, and plenty +of maize-meal, he was glad with the Lord. If he ate meagrely, of poor +polenta, that was fate, it was the skies that ruled these things, and no +man ruled the skies. He took his fate as it fell from the skies. + +Maria was exorbitant about money. She would charge us all she could for +what we had and for what was done for us. + +Yet she was not mean in her soul. In her soul she was in a state of +anger because of her own closeness. It was a violation to her strong +animal nature. Yet her mind had wakened to the value of money. She knew +she could alter her position, the position of her children, by virtue of +money. She knew it was only money that made the difference between +master and servant. And this was all the difference she would +acknowledge. So she ruled her life according to money. Her supreme +passion was to be mistress rather than servant, her supreme aspiration +for her children was that in the end they might be masters and +not servants. + +Paolo was untouched by all this. For him there was some divinity about a +master which even America had not destroyed. If we came in for supper +whilst the family was still at table he would have the children at once +take their plates to the wall, he would have Maria at once set the table +for us, though their own meal were never finished. And this was not +servility, it was the dignity of a religious conception. Paolo regarded +us as belonging to the Signoria, those who are elect, near to God. And +this was part of his religious service. His life was a ritual. It was +very beautiful, but it made me unhappy, the purity of his spirit was so +sacred and the actual facts seemed such a sacrilege to it. Maria was +nearer to the actual truth when she said that money was the only +distinction. But Paolo had hold of an eternal truth, where hers was +temporal. Only Paolo misapplied this eternal truth. He should not have +given Giovanni the inferior status and a fat, mean Italian tradesman the +superior. That was false, a real falsity. Maria knew it and hated it. +But Paolo could not distinguish between the accident of riches and the +aristocracy of the spirit. So Maria rejected him altogether, and went to +the other extreme. We were all human beings like herself; naked, there +was no distinction between us, no higher nor lower. But we were +possessed of more money than she. And she had to steer her course +between these two conceptions. The money alone made the real +distinction, the separation; the being, the life made the common level. + +Paolo had the curious peasant's avarice also, but it was not meanness. +It was a sort of religious conservation of his own power, his own self. +Fortunately he could leave all business transactions on our account to +Maria, so that his relation with us was purely ritualistic. He would +have given me anything, trusting implicitly that I would fulfil my own +nature as Signore, one of those more godlike, nearer the light of +perfection than himself, a peasant. It was pure bliss to him to bring us +the first-fruit of the garden, it was like laying it on an altar. + +And his fulfilment was in a fine, subtle, exquisite relationship, not of +manners, but subtle interappreciation. He worshipped a finer +understanding and a subtler tact. A further fineness and dignity and +freedom in bearing was to him an approach towards the divine, so he +loved men best of all, they fulfilled his soul. A woman was always a +woman, and sex was a low level whereon he did not esteem himself. But a +man, a doer, the instrument of God, he was really godlike. + +Paolo was a Conservative. For him the world was established and divine +in its establishment. His vision grasped a small circle. A finer nature, +a higher understanding, took in a greater circle, comprehended the +whole. So that when Paolo was in relation to a man of further vision, he +himself was extended towards the whole. Thus he was fulfilled. And his +initial assumption was that every signore, every gentleman, was a man of +further, purer vision than himself. This assumption was false. But +Maria's assumption, that no one had a further vision, no one was more +elect than herself, that we are all one flesh and blood and being, was +even more false. Paolo was mistaken in actual life, but Maria was +ultimately mistaken. + +Paolo, conservative as he was, believing that a priest must be a priest +of God, yet very rarely went to church. And he used the religious oaths +that Maria hated, even _Porca-Maria_. He always used oaths, either +Bacchus or God or Mary or the Sacrament. Maria was always offended. Yet +it was she who, in her soul, jeered at the Church and at religion. She +wanted the human society as the absolute, without religious +abstractions. So Paolo's oaths enraged her, because of their profanity, +she said. But it was really because of their subscribing to another +superhuman order. She jeered at the clerical people. She made a loud +clamour of derision when the parish priest of the village above went +down to the big village on the lake, and across the piazza, the quay, +with two pigs in a sack on his shoulder. This was a real picture of the +sacred minister to her. + +One day, when a storm had blown down an olive tree in front of the +house, and Paolo and Giovanni were beginning to cut it up, this same +priest of Mugiano came to San Gaudenzio. He was an iron-grey, thin, +disreputable-looking priest, very talkative and loud and queer. He +seemed like an old ne'er-do-well in priests' black, and he talked +loudly, almost to himself, as drunken people do. At once _he_ must show +the Fiori how to cut up the tree, he must have the axe from Paolo. He +shouted to Maria for a glass of wine. She brought it out to him with a +sort of insolent deference, insolent contempt of the man and traditional +deference to the cloth. The priest drained the tumblerful of wine at one +drink, his thin throat with its Adam's apple working. And he did not pay +the penny. + +Then he stripped off his cassock and put away his hat, and, a ludicrous +figure in ill-fitting black knee-breeches and a not very clean shirt, a +red handkerchief round his neck, he proceeded to give great extravagant +blows at the tree. He was like a caricature. In the doorway Maria was +encouraging him rather jeeringly, whilst she winked at me. Marco was +stifling his hysterical amusement in his mother's apron, and prancing +with glee. Paolo and Giovanni stood by the fallen tree, very grave and +unmoved, inscrutable, abstract. Then the youth came away to the doorway, +with a flush mounting on his face and a grimace distorting its +youngness. Only Paolo, unmoved and detached, stood by the tree with +unchanging, abstract face, very strange, his eyes fixed in the ageless +stare which is so characteristic. + +Meanwhile the priest swung drunken blows at the tree, his thin buttocks +bending in the green-black broadcloth, supported on thin shanks, and +thin throat growing dull purple in the red-knotted kerchief. +Nevertheless he was doing the job. His face was wet with sweat. He +wanted another glass of wine. + +He took no notice of us. He was strangely a local, even a mountebank +figure, but entirely local, an appurtenance of the district. + +It was Maria who jeeringly told us the story of the priest, who shrugged +her shoulders to imply that he was a contemptible figure. Paolo sat with +the abstract look on his face, as of one who hears and does not hear, is +not really concerned. He never opposed or contradicted her, but stayed +apart. It was she who was violent and brutal in her ways. But sometimes +Paolo went into a rage, and then Maria, everybody, was afraid. It was a +white heavy rage, when his blue eyes shone unearthly, and his mouth +opened with a curious drawn blindness of the old Furies. There was +something of the cruelty of a falling mass of snow, heavy, horrible. +Maria drew away, there was a silence. Then the avalanche was finished. + +They must have had some cruel fights before they learned to withdraw +from each other so completely. They must have begotten Marco in hatred, +terrible disintegrated opposition and otherness. And it was after this, +after the child of their opposition was born, that Paolo went away to +California, leaving his San Gaudenzio, travelling with several +companions, like blind beasts, to Havre, and thence to New York, then to +California. He stayed five years in the gold-mines, in a wild valley, +living with a gang of Italians in a town of corrugated iron. + +All the while he had never really left San Gaudenzio. I asked him, 'Used +you to think of it, the lake, the Monte Baldo, the laurel trees down the +slope?' He tried to see what I wanted to know. Yes, he said--but +uncertainly. I could see that he had never been really homesick. It had +been very wretched on the ship going from Havre to New York. That he +told me about. And he told me about the gold-mines, the galleries, the +valley, the huts in the valley. But he had never really fretted for San +Gaudenzio whilst he was in California. + +In real truth he was at San Gaudenzio all the time, his fate was riveted +there. His going away was an excursion from reality, a kind of +sleep-walking. He left his own reality there in the soil above the lake +of Garda. That his body was in California, what did it matter? It was +merely for a time, and for the sake of his own earth, his land. He would +pay off the mortgage. But the gate at home was his gate all the time, +his hand was on the latch. + +As for Maria, he had felt his duty towards her. She was part of his +little territory, the rooted centre of the world. He sent her home the +money. But it did not occur to him, in his soul, to miss her. He wanted +her to be safe with the children, that was all. In his flesh perhaps he +missed the woman. But his spirit was even more completely isolated since +marriage. Instead of having united with each other, they had made each +other more terribly distinct and separate. He could live alone +eternally. It was his condition. His sex was functional, like eating and +drinking. To take a woman, a prostitute at the camp, or not to take her, +was no more vitally important than to get drunk or not to get drunk of a +Sunday. And fairly often on Sunday Paolo got drunk. His world remained +unaltered. + +But Maria suffered more bitterly. She was a young, powerful, passionate +woman, and she was unsatisfied body and soul. Her soul's satisfaction +became a bodily unsatisfaction. Her blood was heavy, violent, anarchic, +insisting on the equality of the blood in all, and therefore on her own +absolute right to satisfaction. + +She took a wine licence for San Gaudenzio, and she sold wine. There were +many scandals about her. Somehow it did not matter very much, outwardly. +The authorities were too divided among themselves to enforce public +opinion. Between the clerical party and the radicals and the socialists, +what canons were left that were absolute? Besides, these wild villages +had always been ungoverned. + +Yet Maria suffered. Even she, according to her conviction belonged to +Paolo. And she felt betrayed, betrayed and deserted. The iron had gone +deep into her soul. Paolo had deserted her, she had been betrayed to +other men for five years. There was something cruel and implacable in +life. She sat sullen and heavy, for all her quick activity. Her soul was +sullen and heavy. + +I could never believe Felicina was Paolo's child. She was an +unprepossessing little girl, affected, cold, selfish, foolish. Maria and +Paolo, with real Italian greatness, were warm and natural towards the +child in her. But they did not love her in their very souls, she was the +fruit of ash to them. And this must have been the reason that she was so +self-conscious and foolish and affected, small child that she was. + +Paolo had come back from America a year before she was born--a year +before she was born, Maria insisted. The husband and wife lived together +in a relationship of complete negation. In his soul he was sad for her, +and in her soul she felt annulled. He sat at evening in the +chimney-seat, smoking, always pleasant and cheerful, not for a moment +thinking he was unhappy. It had all taken place in his subconsciousness. +But his eyebrows and eyelids were lifted in a kind of vacancy, his blue +eyes were round and somehow finished, though he was so gentle and +vigorous in body. But the very quick of him was killed. He was like a +ghost in the house, with his loose throat and powerful limbs, his open, +blue extinct eyes, and his musical, slightly husky voice, that seemed to +sound out of the past. + +And Maria, stout and strong and handsome like a peasant woman, went +about as if there were a weight on her, and her voice was high and +strident. She, too, was finished in her life. But she remained unbroken, +her will was like a hammer that destroys the old form. + +Giovanni was patiently labouring to learn a little English. Paolo knew +only four or five words, the chief of which were 'a'right', 'boss', +'bread', and 'day'. The youth had these by heart, and was studying a +little more. He was very graceful and lovable, but he found it difficult +to learn. A confused light, like hot tears, would come into his eyes +when he had again forgotten the phrase. But he carried the paper about +with him, and he made steady progress. + +He would go to America, he also. Not for anything would he stay in San +Gaudenzio. His dream was to be gone. He would come back. The world was +not San Gaudenzio to Giovanni. + +The old order, the order of Paolo and of Pietro di Paoli, the +aristocratic order of the supreme God, God the Father, the Lord, was +passing away from the beautiful little territory. The household no +longer receives its food, oil and wine and maize, from out of the earth +in the motion of fate. The earth is annulled, and money takes its place. +The landowner, who is the lieutenant of God and of Fate, like Abraham, +he, too, is annulled. There is now the order of the rich, which +supersedes the order of the Signoria. + +It is passing away from Italy as it has passed from England. The peasant +is passing away, the workman is taking his place. The stability is gone. +Paolo is a ghost, Maria is the living body. And the new order means +sorrow for the Italian more even than it has meant for us. But he will +have the new order. + +San Gaudenzio is already becoming a thing of the past. Below the house, +where the land drops in sharp slips to the sheer cliff's edge, over +which it is Maria's constant fear that Felicina will tumble, there are +the deserted lemon gardens of the little territory, snug down below. +They are invisible till one descends by tiny paths, sheer down into +them. And there they stand, the pillars and walls erect, but a dead +emptiness prevailing, lemon trees all dead, gone, a few vines in their +place. It is only twenty years since the lemon trees finally perished of +a disease and were not renewed. But the deserted terrace, shut between +great walls, descending in their openness full to the south, to the lake +and the mountain opposite, seem more terrible than Pompeii in their +silence and utter seclusion. The grape hyacinths flower in the cracks, +the lizards run, this strange place hangs suspended and forgotten, +forgotten for ever, its erect pillars utterly meaningless. + +I used to sit and write in the great loft of the lemon-house, high up, +far, far from the ground, the open front giving across the lake and the +mountain snow opposite, flush with twilight. The old matting and boards, +the old disused implements of lemon culture made shadows in the deserted +place. Then there would come the call from the back, away above: +'_Venga, venga mangiare_.' + +We ate in the kitchen, where the olive and laurel wood burned in the +open fireplace. It was always soup in the evening. Then we played games +or cards, all playing; or there was singing, with the accordion, and +sometimes a rough mountain peasant with a guitar. + +But it is all passing away. Giovanni is in America, unless he has come +back to the War. He will not want to live in San Gaudenzio when he is a +man, he says. He and Marco will not spend their lives wringing a little +oil and wine out of the rocky soil, even if they are not killed in the +fighting which is going on at the end of the lake. In my loft by the +lemon-houses now I should hear the guns. And Giovanni kissed me with a +kind of supplication when I went on to the steamer, as if he were +beseeching for a soul. His eyes were bright and clear and lit up with +courage. He will make a good fight for the new soul he wants--that is, +if they do not kill him in this War. + + + +_5_ + +THE DANCE + + +Maria had no real licence for San Gaudenzio, yet the peasants always +called for wine. It is easy to arrange in Italy. The penny is paid +another time. + +The wild old road that skirts the lake-side, scrambling always higher as +the precipice becomes steeper, climbing and winding to the villages +perched high up, passes under the high boundary-wall of San Gaudenzio, +between that and the ruined church. But the road went just as much +between the vines and past the house as outside, under the wall; for the +high gates were always open, and men or women and mules come into the +property to call at the door of the homestead. There was a loud shout, +'Ah--a--a--ah--Mari--a. O--O--Oh Pa'o!' from outside, another wild, +inarticulate cry from within, and one of the Fiori appeared in the +doorway to hail the newcomer. + +It was usually a man, sometimes a peasant from Mugiano, high up, +sometimes a peasant from the wilds of the mountain, a wood-cutter, or a +charcoal-burner. He came in and sat in the house-place, his glass of +wine in his hand between his knees, or on the floor between his feet, +and he talked in a few wild phrases, very shy, like a hawk indoors, and +unintelligible in his dialect. + +Sometimes we had a dance. Then, for the wine to drink, three men came +with mandolines and guitars, and sat in a corner playing their rapid +tunes, while all danced on the dusty brick floor of the little parlour. +No strange women were invited, only men; the young bloods from the big +village on the lake, the wild men from above. They danced the slow, +trailing, lilting polka-waltz round and round the small room, the +guitars and mandolines twanging rapidly, the dust rising from the soft +bricks. There were only the two English women: so men danced with men, +as the Italians love to do. They love even better to dance with men, +with a dear blood-friend, than with women. + +'It's better like this, two men?' Giovanni says to me, his blue eyes +hot, his face curiously tender. + +The wood-cutters and peasants take off their coats, their throats are +bare. They dance with strange intentness, particularly if they have for +partner an English Signora. Their feet in thick boots are curiously +swift and significant. And it is strange to see the Englishwomen, as +they dance with the peasants transfigured with a kind of brilliant +surprise. All the while the peasants are very courteous, but quiet. They +see the women dilate and flash, they think they have found a footing, +they are certain. So the male dancers are quiet, but even grandiloquent, +their feet nimble, their bodies wild and confident. + +They are at a loss when the two English Signoras move together and laugh +excitedly at the end of the dance. + +'Isn't it fine?' + +'Fine! Their arms are like iron, carrying you round.' + +'Yes! Yes! And the muscles on their shoulders! I never knew there were +such muscles! I'm almost frightened.' + +'But it's fine, isn't it? I'm getting into the dance.' + +'Yes--yes--you've only to let them take you.' + +Then the glasses are put down, the guitars give their strange, vibrant, +almost painful summons, and the dance begins again. + +It is a strange dance, strange and lilting, and changing as the music +changed. But it had always a kind of leisurely dignity, a trailing kind +of polka-waltz, intimate, passionate, yet never hurried, never violent +in its passion, always becoming more intense. The women's faces changed +to a kind of transported wonder, they were in the very rhythm of +delight. From the soft bricks of the floor the red ochre rose in a thin +cloud of dust, making hazy the shadowy dancers; the three musicians, in +their black hats and their cloaks, sat obscurely in the corner, making a +music that came quicker and quicker, making a dance that grew swifter +and more intense, more subtle, the men seeming to fly and to implicate +other strange inter-rhythmic dance into the women, the women drifting +and palpitating as if their souls shook and resounded to a breeze that +was subtly rushing upon them, through them; the men worked their feet, +their thighs swifter, more vividly, the music came to an almost +intolerable climax, there was a moment when the dance passed into a +possession, the men caught up the women and swung them from the earth, +leapt with them for a second, and then the next phase of the dance had +begun, slower again, more subtly interwoven, taking perfect, oh, +exquisite delight in every interrelated movement, a rhythm within a +rhythm, a subtle approaching and drawing nearer to a climax, nearer, +till, oh, there was the surpassing lift and swing of the women, when the +woman's body seemed like a boat lifted over the powerful, exquisite wave +of the man's body, perfect, for a moment, and then once more the slow, +intense, nearer movement of the dance began, always nearer, nearer, +always to a more perfect climax. + +And the women waited as if in transport for the climax, when they would +be flung into a movement surpassing all movement. They were flung, borne +away, lifted like a boat on a supreme wave, into the zenith and nave of +the heavens, consummate. + +Then suddenly the dance crashed to an end, and the dancers stood +stranded, lost, bewildered, on a strange shore. The air was full of red +dust, half-lit by the lamp on the wall; the players in the corner were +putting down their instruments to take up their glasses. + +And the dancers sat round the wall, crowding in the little room, faint +with the transport of repeated ecstasy. There was a subtle smile on the +face of the men, subtle, knowing, so finely sensual that the conscious +eyes could scarcely look at it. And the women were dazed, like creatures +dazzled by too much light. The light was still on their faces, like a +blindness, a reeling, like a transfiguration. The men were bringing +wine, on a little tin tray, leaning with their proud, vivid loins, their +faces flickering with the same subtle smile. Meanwhile, Maria Fiori was +splashing water, much water, on the red floor. There was the smell of +water among the glowing, transfigured men and women who sat gleaming in +another world, round the walls. + +The peasants have chosen their women. For the dark, handsome +Englishwoman, who looks like a slightly malignant Madonna, comes Il +Duro; for the '_bella bionda_', the wood-cutter. But the peasants have +always to take their turn after the young well-to-do men from the +village below. + +Nevertheless, they are confident. They cannot understand the +middle-class diffidence of the young men who wear collars and ties and +finger-rings. + +The wood-cutter from the mountain is of medium height, dark, thin, and +hard as a hatchet, with eyes that are black like the very flaming thrust +of night. He is quite a savage. There is something strange about his +dancing, the violent way he works one shoulder. He has a wooden leg, +from the knee-joint. Yet he dances well, and is inordinately proud. He +is fierce as a bird, and hard with energy as a thunderbolt. He will +dance with the blonde signora. But he never speaks. He is like some +violent natural phenomenon rather than a person. The woman begins to +wilt a little in his possession. + +'_È bello--il ballo?_' he asked at length, one direct, flashing +question. + +'_Si--molto bello_,' cries the woman, glad to have speech again. + +The eyes of the wood-cutter flash like actual possession. He seems now +to have come into his own. With all his senses, he is dominant, sure. + +He is inconceivably vigorous in body, and his dancing is almost perfect, +with a little catch in it, owing to his lameness, which brings almost a +pure intoxication. Every muscle in his body is supple as steel, supple, +as strong as thunder, and yet so quick, so delicately swift, it is +almost unbearable. As he draws near to the swing, the climax, the +ecstasy, he seems to lie in wait, there is a sense of a great strength +crouching ready. Then it rushes forth, liquid, perfect, transcendent, +the woman swoons over in the dance, and it goes on, enjoyment, infinite, +incalculable enjoyment. He is like a god, a strange natural phenomenon, +most intimate and compelling, wonderful. + +But he is not a human being. The woman, somewhere shocked in her +independent soul, begins to fall away from him. She has another being, +which he has not touched, and which she will fall back upon. The dance +is over, she will fall back on herself. It is perfect, too perfect. + +During the next dance, while she is in the power of the educated Ettore, +a perfect and calculated voluptuary, who knows how much he can get out +of this Northern woman, and only how much, the wood-cutter stands on the +edge of the darkness, in the open doorway, and watches. He is fixed upon +her, established, perfect. And all the while she is aware of the +insistent hawk-like poising of the face of the wood-cutter, poised on +the edge of the darkness, in the doorway, in possession, +unrelinquishing. + +And she is angry. There is something stupid, absurd, in the hard, +talon-like eyes watching so fiercely and so confidently in the doorway, +sure, unmitigated. Has the creature no sense? + +The woman reacts from him. For some time she will take no notice of him. +But he waits, fixed. Then she comes near to him, and his will seems to +take hold of her. He looks at her with a strange, proud, inhuman +confidence, as if his influence with her was already accomplished. + +'_Venga--venga un po'_,' he says, jerking his head strangely to the +darkness. + +'What?' she replies, and passes shaken and dilated and brilliant, +consciously ignoring him, passes away among the others, among those +who are safe. + +There is food in the kitchen, great hunks of bread, sliced sausage that +Maria has made, wine, and a little coffee. But only the quality come to +eat. The peasants may not come in. There is eating and drinking in the +little house, the guitars are silent. It is eleven o'clock. + +Then there is singing, the strange bestial singing of these hills. +Sometimes the guitars can play an accompaniment, but usually not. Then +the men lift up their heads and send out the high, half-howling music, +astounding. The words are in dialect. They argue among themselves for a +moment: will the Signoria understand? They sing. The Signoria does not +understand in the least. So with a strange, slightly malignant triumph, +the men sing all the verses of their song, sitting round the walls of +the little parlour. Their throats move, their faces have a slight +mocking smile. The boy capers in the doorway like a faun, with glee, his +straight black hair falling over his forehead. The elder brother sits +straight and flushed, but even his eyes glitter with a kind of yellow +light of laughter. Paolo also sits quiet, with the invisible smile on +his face.' Only Maria, large and active, prospering now, keeps +collected, ready to order a shrill silence in the same way as she orders +the peasants, violently, to keep their places. + +The boy comes to me and says: + +'Do you know, Signore, what they are singing?' + +'No,' I say. + +So he capers with furious glee. The men with the watchful eyes, all +roused, sit round the wall and sing more distinctly: + + _Si verrà la primavera + Fiorann' le mandoline, + Vienn' di basso le Trentine + Coi 'taliani far' l'amor._ + +But the next verses are so improper that I pretend not to understand. +The women, with wakened, dilated faces, are listening, listening hard, +their two faces beautiful in their attention, as if listening to +something magical, a long way off. And the men sitting round the wall +sing more plainly, coming nearer to the correct Italian. The song comes +loud and vibrating and maliciously from their reedy throats, it +penetrates everybody. The foreign women can understand the sound, they +can feel the malicious, suggestive mockery. But they cannot catch the +words. The smile becomes more dangerous on the faces of the men. + +Then Maria Fiori sees that I have understood, and she cries, in her +loud, overriding voice: + +'_Basta--basta._ + +The men get up, straighten their bodies with a curious, offering +movement. The guitars and mandolines strike the vibrating strings. But +the vague Northern reserve has come over the Englishwomen. They dance +again, but without the fusion in the dance. They have had enough. + +The musicians are thanked, they rise and go into the night. The men pass +off in pairs. But the wood-cutter, whose name and whose nickname I could +never hear, still hovered on the edge of the darkness. + +Then Maria sent him also away, complaining that he was too wild, +_proprio selvatico_, and only the 'quality' remained, the well-to-do +youths from below. There was a little more coffee, and a talking, a +story of a man who had fallen over a declivity in a lonely part going +home drunk in the evening, and had lain unfound for eighteen hours. Then +a story of a donkey who had kicked a youth in the chest and killed him. + +But the women were tired, they would go to bed. Still the two young men +would not go away. We all went out to look at the night. + +The stars were very bright overhead, the mountain opposite and the +mountains behind us faintly outlined themselves on the sky. Below, the +lake was a black gulf. A little wind blew cold from the Adige. + +In the morning the visitors had gone. They had insisted on staying the +night. They had eaten eight eggs each and much bread at one o'clock in +the morning. Then they had gone to sleep, lying on the floor in the +sitting-room. + +In the early sunshine they had drunk coffee and gone down to the village +on the lake. Maria was very pleased. She would have made a good deal of +money. The young men were rich. Her cupidity seemed like her +very blossom. + + + +_6_ + +IL DURO + + +The first time I saw Il Duro was on a sunny day when there came up a +party of pleasure-makers to San Gaudenzio. They were three women and +three men. The women were in cotton frocks, one a large, dark, florid +woman in pink, the other two rather insignificant. The men I scarcely +noticed at first, except that two were young and one elderly. + +They were a queer party, even on a feast day, coming up purely for +pleasure, in the morning, strange, and slightly uncertain, advancing +between the vines. They greeted Maria and Paolo in loud, coarse voices. +There was something blowsy and uncertain and hesitating about the women +in particular, which made one at once notice them. + +Then a picnic was arranged for them out of doors, on the grass. They sat +just in front of the house, under the olive tree, beyond the well. It +should have been pretty, the women in their cotton frocks, and their +friends, sitting with wine and food in the spring sunshine. But somehow +it was not: it was hard and slightly ugly. + +But since they were picnicking out of doors, we must do so too. We were +at once envious. But Maria was a little unwilling, and then she set a +table for us. + +The strange party did not speak to us, they seemed slightly uneasy and +angry at our presence. I asked Maria who they were. She lifted her +shoulders, and, after a second's cold pause, said they were people from +down below, and then, in her rather strident, shrill, slightly bitter, +slightly derogatory voice, she added: + +'They are not people for you, signore. You don't know them.' + +She spoke slightly angrily and contemptuously of them, rather +protectively of me. So that vaguely I gathered that they were not quite +'respectable'. + +Only one man came into the house. He was very handsome, beautiful +rather, a man of thirty-two or-three, with a clear golden skin, and +perfectly turned face, something godlike. But the expression was +strange. His hair was jet black and fine and smooth, glossy as a bird's +wing, his brows were beautifully drawn, calm above his grey eyes, that +had long dark lashes. + +His eyes, however, had a sinister light in them, a pale, slightly +repelling gleam, very much like a god's pale-gleaming eyes, with the +same vivid pallor. And all his face had the slightly malignant, +suffering look of a satyr. Yet he was very beautiful. + +He walked quickly and surely, with his head rather down, passing from +his desire to his object, absorbed, yet curiously indifferent, as if the +transit were in a strange world, as if none of what he was doing were +worth the while. Yet he did it for his own pleasure, and the light on +his face, a pale, strange gleam through his clear skin, remained like a +translucent smile, unchanging as time. + +He seemed familiar with the household, he came and fetched wine at his +will. Maria was angry with him. She railed loudly and violently. He was +unchanged. He went out with the wine to the party on the grass. Maria +regarded them all with some hostility. + +They drank a good deal out there in the sunshine. The women and the +older man talked floridly. Il Duro crouched at the feast in his curious +fashion--he had strangely flexible loins, upon which he seemed to crouch +forward. But he was separate, like an animal that remains quite single, +no matter where it is. + +The party remained until about two o'clock. Then, slightly flushed, it +moved on in a ragged group up to the village beyond. I do not know if +they went to one of the inns of the stony village, or to the large +strange house which belonged to the rich young grocer of the village +below, a house kept only for feasts and riots, uninhabited for the most +part. Maria would tell me nothing about them. Only the young well-to-do +grocer, who had lived in Vienna, the Bertolotti, came later in the +afternoon inquiring for the party. + +And towards sunset I saw the elderly man of the group stumbling home +very drunk down the path, after the two women, who had gone on in front. +Then Paolo sent Giovanni to see the drunken one safely past the +landslip, which was dangerous. Altogether it was an unsatisfactory +business, very much like any other such party in any other country. + +Then in the evening Il Duro came in. His name is Faustino, but everybody +in the village has a nickname, which is almost invariably used. He came +in and asked for supper. We had all eaten. So he ate a little food alone +at the table, whilst we sat round the fire. + +Afterwards we played 'Up, Jenkins'. That was the one game we played with +the peasants, except that exciting one of theirs, which consists in +shouting in rapid succession your guesses at the number of fingers +rapidly spread out and shut into the hands again upon the table. + +Il Duro joined in the game. And that was because he had been in America, +and now was rich. He felt he could come near to the strange signori. But +he was always inscrutable. + +It was queer to look at the hands spread on the table: the Englishwomen, +having rings on their soft fingers; the large fresh hands of the elder +boy, the brown paws of the younger; Paolo's distorted great hard hands +of a peasant; and the big, dark brown, animal, shapely hands +of Faustino. + +He had been in America first for two years and then for five +years--seven years altogether--but he only spoke a very little English. +He was always with Italians. He had served chiefly in a flag factory, +and had had very little to do save to push a trolley with flags from the +dyeing-room to the drying-room I believe it was this. + +Then he had come home from America with a fair amount of money, he had +taken his uncle's garden, had inherited his uncle's little house, and he +lived quite alone. + +He was rich, Maria said, shouting in her strident voice. He at once +disclaimed it, peasant-wise. But before the signori he was glad also to +appear rich. He was mean, that was more, Maria cried, half-teasing, half +getting at him. + +He attended to his garden, grew vegetables all the year round, lived in +his little house, and in spring made good money as a vine-grafter: he +was an expert vine-grafter. + +After the boys had gone to bed he sat and talked to me. He was curiously +attractive and curiously beautiful, but somehow like stone in his clear +colouring and his clear-cut face. His temples, with the black hair, were +distinct and fine as a work of art. + +But always his eyes had this strange, half-diabolic, half-tortured pale +gleam, like a goat's, and his mouth was shut almost uglily, his cheeks +stern. His moustache was brown, his teeth strong and spaced. The women +said it was a pity his moustache was brown. + +'_Peccato!--sa, per bellezza, i baffi neri--ah-h!_' + +Then a long-drawn exclamation of voluptuous appreciation. + +'You live quite alone?' I said to him. + +He did. And even when he had been ill he was alone. He had been ill two +years before. His cheeks seemed to harden like marble and to become pale +at the thought. He was afraid, like marble with fear. + +'But why,' I said, 'why do you live alone? You are sad--_è triste_.' + +He looked at me with his queer, pale eyes. I felt a great static misery +in him, something very strange. + +'_Triste!_' he repeated, stiffening up, hostile. I could not understand. + +'_Vuol' dire che hai l'aria dolorosa_,' cried Maria, like a chorus +interpreting. And there was always a sort of loud ring of challenge +somewhere in her voice. + +'Sad,' I said in English. + +'Sad I' he repeated, also in English. And he did not smile or change, +only his face seemed to become more stone-like. And he only looked at +me, into my eyes, with the long, pale, steady, inscrutable look of a +goat, I can only repeat, something stone-like. + +'Why,' I said, 'don't you marry? Man doesn't live alone.' + +'I don't marry,' he said to me, in his emphatic, deliberate, cold +fashion, 'because I've seen too much. _Ho visto troppo._' + +'I don't understand,' I said. + +Yet I could feel that Paolo, sitting silent, like a monolith also, in +the chimney opening, he understood: Maria also understood. + +Il Duro looked again steadily into my eyes. + +'_Ho visto troppo_,' he repeated, and the words seemed engraved on +stone. 'I've seen too much.' + +'But you can marry,' I said, 'however much you have seen, if you have +seen all the world.' + +He watched me steadily, like a strange creature looking at me. + +'What woman?' he said to me. + +'You can find a woman--there are plenty of women,' I said. + +'Not for me,' he said. 'I have known too many. I've known too much, I +can marry nobody.' + +'Do you dislike women?' I said. + +'No--quite otherwise. I don't think ill of them.' + +'Then why can't you marry? Why must you live alone?' + +'Why live with a woman?' he said to me, and he looked mockingly. 'Which +woman is it to be?' + +'You can find her,' I said. 'There are many women.' + +Again he shook his head in the stony, final fashion. + +'Not for me. I have known too much.' + +'But does that prevent you from marrying?' + +He looked at me steadily, finally. And I could see it was impossible for +us to understand each other, or for me to understand him. I could not +understand the strange white gleam of his eyes, where it came from. + +Also I knew he liked me very much, almost loved me, which again was +strange and puzzling. It was as if he were a fairy, a faun, and had no +soul. But he gave me a feeling of vivid sadness, a sadness that gleamed +like phosphorescence. He himself was not sad. There was a completeness +about him, about the pallid otherworld he inhabited, which excluded +sadness. It was too complete, too final, too defined. There was no +yearning, no vague merging off into mistiness.... He was clear and fine +as semi-transparent rock, as a substance in moonlight. He seemed like a +crystal that has achieved its final shape and has nothing more +to achieve. + +That night he slept on the floor of the sitting-room. In the morning he +was gone. But a week after he came again, to graft the vines. + +All the morning and the afternoon he was among the vines, crouching +before them, cutting them back with his sharp, bright knife, amazingly +swift and sure, like a god. It filled me with a sort of panic to see him +crouched flexibly, like some strange animal god, doubled on his +haunches, before the young vines, and swiftly, vividly, without thought, +cut, cut, cut at the young budding shoots, which fell unheeded on to the +earth. Then again he strode with his curious half-goatlike movement +across the garden, to prepare the lime. + +He mixed the messy stuff, cow-dung and lime and water and earth, +carefully with his hands, as if he understood that too. He was not a +worker. He was a creature in intimate communion with the sensible world, +knowing purely by touch the limey mess he mixed amongst, knowing as if +by relation between that soft matter and the matter of himself. + +Then again he strode over the earth, a gleaming piece of earth himself, +moving to the young vines. Quickly, with a few clean cuts of the knife, +he prepared the new shoot, which he had picked out of a handful which +lay beside him on the ground; he went finely to the quick of the plant, +inserted the graft, then bound it up, fast, hard. + +It was like God grafting the life of man upon the body of the earth, +intimately conjuring with his own flesh. + +All the while Paolo stood by, somehow excluded from the mystery, talking +to me, to Faustino. And Il Duro answered easily, as if his mind were +disengaged. It was his senses that were absorbed in the sensible life of +the plant, and the lime and the cow-dung he handled. + +Watching him, watching his absorbed, bestial, and yet godlike crouching +before the plant, as if he were the god of lower life, I somehow +understood his isolation, why he did not marry. Pan and the ministers of +Pan do not marry, the sylvan gods. They are single and isolated in +their being. + +It is in the spirit that marriage takes place. In the flesh there is +connexion, but only in the spirit is there a new thing created out of +two different antithetic things. In the body I am conjoined with the +woman. But in the spirit my conjunction with her creates a third thing, +an absolute, a Word, which is neither me nor her, nor of me nor of her, +but which is absolute. + +And Faustino had none of this spirit. In him sensation itself was +absolute--not spiritual consummation, but physical sensation. So he +could not marry, it was not for him. He belonged to the god Pan, to the +absolute of the senses. + +All the while his beauty, so perfect and so defined, fascinated me, a +strange static perfection about him. But his movements, whilst they +fascinated, also repelled. I can always see him crouched before the +vines on his haunches, his haunches doubled together in a complete +animal unconsciousness, his face seeming in its strange golden pallor +and its hardness of line, with the gleaming black of the fine hair on +the brow and temples, like something reflective, like the reflecting +surface of a stone that gleams out of the depths of night. It was like +darkness revealed in its steady, unchanging pallor. + +Again he stayed through the evening, having quarrelled once more with +the Maria about money. He quarrelled violently, yet coldly. There was +something terrifying in it. And as soon as the matter of dispute was +settled, all trace of interest or feeling vanished from him. + +Yet he liked, above all things, to be near the English signori. They +seemed to exercise a sort of magnetic attraction over him. It was +something of the purely physical world, as a magnetized needle swings +towards soft iron. He was quite helpless in the relation. Only by +mechanical attraction he gravitated into line with us. + +But there was nothing between us except our complete difference. It was +like night and day flowing together. + + + +_7_ + +JOHN + + +Besides Il Duro, we found another Italian who could speak English, this +time quite well. We had walked about four or five miles up the lake, +getting higher and higher. Then quite suddenly, on the shoulder of a +bluff far up, we came on a village, icy cold, and as if forgotten. + +We went into the inn to drink something hot. The fire of olive sticks +was burning in the open chimney, one or two men were talking at a table, +a young woman with a baby stood by the fire watching something boil in a +large pot. Another woman was seen in the house-place beyond. + +In the chimney-seats sat a young mule-driver, who had left his two mules +at the door of the inn, and opposite him an elderly stout man. They got +down and offered us the seats of honour, which we accepted with +due courtesy. + +The chimneys are like the wide, open chimney-places of old English +cottages, but the hearth is raised about a foot and a half or two feet +from the floor, so that the fire is almost level with the hands; and +those who sit in the chimney-seats are raised above the audience in the +room, something like two gods flanking the fire, looking out of the cave +of ruddy darkness into the open, lower world of the room. + +We asked for coffee with milk and rum. The stout landlord took a seat +near us below. The comely young woman with the baby took the tin +coffee-pot that stood among the grey ashes, put in fresh coffee among +the old bottoms, filled it with water, then pushed it more into +the fire. + +The landlord turned to us with the usual naïve, curious deference, and +the usual question: + +'You are Germans?' + +'English.' + +'Ah--_Inglesi_.' + +Then there is a new note of cordiality--or so I always imagine--and the +rather rough, cattle-like men who are sitting with their wine round the +table look up more amicably. They do not like being intruded upon. Only +the landlord is always affable. + +'I have a son who speaks English,' he says: he is a handsome, courtly +old man, of the Falstaff sort. + +'Oh!' + +'He has been in America.' + +'And where is he now?' + +'He is at home. O--Nicoletta, where is the Giovann'?' + +The comely young woman with the baby came in. + +'He is with the band,' she said. + +The old landlord looked at her with pride. + +'This is my daughter-in-law,' he said. + +She smiled readily to the Signora. + +'And the baby?' we asked. + +'_Mio figlio_,' cried the young woman, in the strong, penetrating voice +of these women. And she came forward to show the child to the Signora. + +It was a bonny baby: the whole company was united in adoration and +service of the bambino. There was a moment of suspension, when religious +submission seemed to come over the inn-room. + +Then the Signora began to talk, and it broke upon the Italian +child-reverence. + +'What is he called?' + +'Oscare,' came the ringing note of pride. And the mother talked to the +baby in dialect. All, men and women alike, felt themselves glorified by +the presence of the child. + +At last the coffee in the tin coffee-pot was boiling and frothing out of +spout and lid. The milk in the little copper pan was also hot, among the +ashes. So we had our drink at last. + +The landlord was anxious for us to see Giovanni, his son. There was a +village band performing up the street, in front of the house of a +colonel who had come home wounded from Tripoli. Everybody in the village +was wildly proud about the colonel and about the brass band, the music +of which was execrable. + +We just looked into the street. The band of uncouth fellows was playing +the same tune over and over again before a desolate, newish house. A +crowd of desolate, forgotten villagers stood round in the cold upper +air. It seemed altogether that the place was forgotten by God and man. + +But the landlord, burly, courteous, handsome, pointed out with a +flourish the Giovanni, standing in the band playing a cornet. The band +itself consisted only of five men, rather like beggars in the street. +But Giovanni was the strangest! He was tall and thin and somewhat +German-looking, wearing shabby American clothes and a very high double +collar and a small American crush hat. He looked entirely like a +ne'er-do-well who plays a violin in the street, dressed in the most +down-at-heel, sordid respectability. + +'That is he--you see, Signore--the young one under the balcony.' + +The father spoke with love and pride, and the father was a gentleman, +like Falstaff, a pure gentleman. The daughter-in-law also peered out to +look at Il Giovann', who was evidently a figure of repute, in his +sordid, degenerate American respectability. Meanwhile, this figure of +repute blew himself red in the face, producing staccato strains on his +cornet. And the crowd stood desolate and forsaken in the cold, upper +afternoon. + +Then there was a sudden rugged '_Evviva, Evviva_!' from the people, the +band stopped playing, somebody valiantly broke into a line of the song: + + _Tripoli, sarà italiana, + Sarà italiana al rombo del cannon'._ + +The colonel had appeared on the balcony, a smallish man, very yellow in +the face, with grizzled black hair and very shabby legs. They all seemed +so sordidly, hopelessly shabby. + +He suddenly began to speak, leaning forward, hot and feverish and +yellow, upon the iron rail of the balcony. There was something hot and +marshy and sick about him, slightly repulsive, less than human. He told +his fellow-villagers how he loved them, how, when he lay uncovered on +the sands of Tripoli, week after week, he had known they were watching +him from the Alpine height of the village, he could feel that where he +was they were all looking. When the Arabs came rushing like things gone +mad, and he had received his wound, he had known that in his own +village, among his own dear ones, there was recovery. Love would heal +the wounds, the home country was a lover who would heal all her sons' +wounds with love. + +Among the grey desolate crowd were sharp, rending 'Bravos!'--the people +were in tears--the landlord at my side was repeating softly, +abstractedly: '_Caro--caro--Ettore, caro colonello_--' and when it was +finished, and the little colonel with shabby, humiliated legs was gone +in, he turned to me and said, with challenge that almost frightened me: + +'_Un brav' uomo_.' + +'_Bravissimo_,' I said. + +Then we, too, went indoors. + +It was all, somehow, grey and hopeless and acrid, unendurable. + +The colonel, poor devil--we knew him afterwards--is now dead. It is +strange that he is dead. There is something repulsive to me in the +thought of his lying dead: such a humiliating, somehow degraded corpse. +Death has no beauty in Italy, unless it be violent. The death of man or +woman through sickness is an occasion of horror, repulsive. They belong +entirely to life, they are so limited to life, these people. + +Soon the Giovanni came home, and took his cornet upstairs. Then he came +to see us. He was an ingenuous youth, sordidly shabby and dirty. His +fair hair was long and uneven, his very high starched collar made one +aware that his neck and his ears were not clean, his American crimson +tie was ugly, his clothes looked as if they had been kicking about on +the floor for a year. + +Yet his blue eyes were warm and his manner and speech very gentle. + +'You will speak English with us,' I said. + +'Oh,' he said, smiling and shaking his head, 'I could speak English very +well. But it is two years that I don't speak it now, over two years now, +so I don't speak it.' + +'But you speak it very well.' + +'No. It is two years that I have not spoke, not a word--so, you see, I +have--' + +'You have forgotten it? No, you haven't. It will quickly come back.' + +'If I hear it--when I go to America--then I shall--I shall--' + +'You will soon pick it up.' + +'Yes--I shall pick it up.' + +The landlord, who had been watching with pride, now went away. The wife +also went away, and we were left with the shy, gentle, dirty, and +frowsily-dressed Giovanni. + +He laughed in his sensitive, quick fashion. + +'The women in America, when they came into the store, they said, "Where +is John, where is John?" Yes, they liked me.' + +And he laughed again, glancing with vague, warm blue eyes, very shy, +very coiled upon himself with sensitiveness. + +He had managed a store in America, in a smallish town. I glanced at his +reddish, smooth, rather knuckly hands, and thin wrists in the frayed +cuff. They were real shopman's hands. + +The landlord brought some special feast-day cake, so overjoyed he was to +have his Giovanni speaking English with the Signoria. + +When we went away, we asked 'John' to come down to our villa to see us. +We scarcely expected him to turn up. + +Yet one morning he appeared, at about half past nine, just as we were +finishing breakfast. It was sunny and warm and beautiful, so we asked +him please to come with us picnicking. + +He was a queer shoot, again, in his unkempt longish hair and slovenly +clothes, a sort of very vulgar down-at-heel American in appearance. And +he was transported with shyness. Yet ours was the world he had chosen as +his own, so he took his place bravely and simply, a hanger-on. + +We climbed up the water-course in the mountain-side, up to a smooth +little lawn under the olive trees, where daisies were flowering and +gladioli were in bud. It was a tiny little lawn of grass in a level +crevice, and sitting there we had the world below us--the lake, the +distant island, the far-off low Verona shore. + +Then 'John' began to talk, and he talked continuously, like a foreigner, +not saying the things he would have said in Italian, but following the +suggestion and scope of his limited English. + +In the first place, he loved his father--it was 'my father, my father' +always. His father had a little shop as well as the inn in the village +above. So John had had some education. He had been sent to Brescia and +then to Verona to school, and there had taken his examinations to become +a civil engineer. He was clever, and could pass his examinations. But he +never finished his course. His mother died, and his father, +disconsolate, had wanted him at home. Then he had gone back, when he was +sixteen or seventeen, to the village beyond the lake, to be with his +father and to look after the shop. + +'But didn't you mind giving up all your work?' I said. + +He did not quite understand. + +'My father wanted me to come back,' he said. + +It was evident that Giovanni had had no definite conception of what he +was doing or what he wanted to do. His father, wishing to make a +gentleman of him, had sent him to school in Verona. By accident he had +been moved on into the engineering course. When it all fizzled to an +end, and he returned half-baked to the remote, desolate village of the +mountain-side, he was not disappointed or chagrined. He had never +conceived of a coherent purposive life. Either one stayed in the +village, like a lodged stone, or one made random excursions into the +world, across the world. It was all aimless and purposeless. + +So he had stayed a while with his father, then he had gone, just as +aimlessly, with a party of men who were emigrating to America. He had +taken some money, had drifted about, living in the most comfortless, +wretched fashion, then he had found a place somewhere in Pennsylvania, +in a dry goods store. This was when he was seventeen or eighteen +years old. + +All this seemed to have happened to him without his being very much +affected, at least consciously. His nature was simple and self-complete. +Yet not so self-complete as that of Il Duro or Paolo. They had passed +through the foreign world and been quite untouched. Their souls were +static, it was the world that had flowed unstable by. + +But John was more sensitive, he had come more into contact with his new +surroundings. He had attended night classes almost every evening, and +had been taught English like a child. He had loved the American free +school, the teachers, the work. + +But he had suffered very much in America. With his curious, +over-sensitive, wincing laugh, he told us how the boys had followed him +and jeered at him, calling after him, 'You damn Dago, you damn Dago.' +They had stopped him and his friend in the street and taken away their +hats, and spat into them. So that at last he had gone mad. They were +youths and men who always tortured him, using bad language which +startled us very much as he repeated it, there on the little lawn under +the olive trees, above the perfect lake: English obscenities and abuse +so coarse and startling that we bit our lips, shocked almost into +laughter, whilst John, simple and natural, and somehow, for all his long +hair and dirty appearance, flower-like in soul, repeated to us these +things which may never be repeated in decent company. + +'Oh,' he said, 'at last, I get mad. When they come one day, shouting, +"You damn Dago, dirty dog," and will take my hat again, oh, I get mad, +and I would kill them, I would kill them, I am so mad. I run to them, +and throw one to the floor, and I tread on him while I go upon another, +the biggest. Though they hit me and kick me all over, I feel nothing, I +am mad. I throw the biggest to the floor, a man; he is older than I am, +and I hit him so hard I would kill him. When the others see it they are +afraid, they throw stones and hit me on the face. But I don't feel it--I +don't know nothing. I hit the man on the floor, I almost kill him. I +forget everything except I will kill him--' + +'But you didn't?' + +'No--I don't know--' and he laughed his queer, shaken laugh. 'The other +man that was with me, my friend, he came to me and we went away. Oh, I +was mad. I was completely mad. I would have killed them.' + +He was trembling slightly, and his eyes were dilated with a strange +greyish-blue fire that was very painful and elemental. He looked beside +himself. But he was by no means mad. + +We were shaken by the vivid, lambent excitement of the youth, we wished +him to forget. We were shocked, too, in our souls to see the pure +elemental flame shaken out of his gentle, sensitive nature. By his +slight, crinkled laugh we could see how much he had suffered. He had +gone out and faced the world, and he had kept his place, stranger and +Dago though he was. + +'They never came after me no more, not all the while I was there.' + +Then he said he became the foreman in the store--at first he was only +assistant. It was the best store in the town, and many English ladies +came, and some Germans. He liked the English ladies very much: they +always wanted him to be in the store. He wore white clothes there, and +they would say: + +'You look very nice in the white coat, John'; or else: + +'Let John come, he can find it'; or else they said: + +'John speaks like a born American.' + +This pleased him very much. + +In the end, he said, he earned a hundred dollars a month. He lived with +the extraordinary frugality of the Italians, and had quite a lot +of money. + +He was not like Il Duro. Faustino had lived in a state of miserliness +almost in America, but then he had had his debauches of shows and wine +and carousals. John went chiefly to the schools, in one of which he was +even asked to teach Italian. His knowledge of his own language was +remarkable and most unusual! + +'But what,' I asked, 'brought you back?' + +'It was my father. You see, if I did not come to have my military +service, I must stay till I am forty. So I think perhaps my father will +be dead, I shall never see him. So I came.' + +He had come home when he was twenty to fulfil his military duties. At +home he had married. He was very fond of his wife, but he had no +conception of love in the old sense. His wife was like the past, to +which he was wedded. Out of her he begot his child, as out of the past. +But the future was all beyond her, apart from her. He was going away +again, now, to America. He had been some nine months at home after his +military service was over. He had no more to do. Now he was leaving his +wife and child and his father to go to America. + +'But why,' I said, 'why? You are not poor, you can manage the shop in +your village.' + +'Yes,' he said. 'But I will go to America. Perhaps I shall go into the +store again, the same.' + +'But is it not just the same as managing the shop at home?' + +'No--no--it is quite different.' + +Then he told us how he bought goods in Brescia and in Said for the shop +at home, how he had rigged up a funicular with the assistance of the +village, an overhead wire by which you could haul the goods up the face +of the cliffs right high up, to within a mile of the village. He was +very proud of this. And sometimes he himself went down the funicular to +the water's edge, to the boat, when he was in a hurry. This also +pleased him. + +But he was going to Brescia this day to see about going again to +America. Perhaps in another month he would be gone. + +It was a great puzzle to me why he would go. He could not say himself. +He would stay four or five years, then he would come home again to see +his father--and his wife and child. + +There was a strange, almost frightening destiny upon him, which seemed +to take him away, always away from home, from the past, to that great, +raw America. He seemed scarcely like a person with individual choice, +more like a creature under the influence of fate which was +disintegrating the old life and precipitating him, a fragment +inconclusive, into the new chaos. + +He submitted to it all with a perfect unquestioning simplicity, never +even knowing that he suffered, that he must suffer disintegration from +the old life. He was moved entirely from within, he never questioned his +inevitable impulse. + +'They say to me, "Don't go--don't go"--' he shook his head. 'But I say I +will go.' + +And at that it was finished. + +So we saw him off at the little quay, going down the lake. He would +return at evening, and be pulled up in his funicular basket. And in a +month's time he would be standing on the same lake steamer going +to America. + +Nothing was more painful than to see him standing there in his degraded, +sordid American clothes, on the deck of the steamer, waving us good-bye, +belonging in his final desire to our world, the world of consciousness +and deliberate action. With his candid, open, unquestioning face, he +seemed like a prisoner being conveyed from one form of life to another, +or like a soul in trajectory, that has not yet found a resting-place. + +What were wife and child to him?--they were the last steps of the past. +His father was the continent behind him; his wife and child the +foreshore of the past; but his face was set outwards, away from it +all--whither, neither he nor anybody knew, but he called it America. + + + + +_Italians in Exile_ + + +When I was in Constance the weather was misty and enervating and +depressing, it was no pleasure to travel on the big flat desolate lake. + +When I went from Constance, it was on a small steamer down the Rhine to +Schaffhausen. That was beautiful. Still, the mist hung over the waters, +over the wide shallows of the river, and the sun, coming through the +morning, made lovely yellow lights beneath the bluish haze, so that it +seemed like the beginning of the world. And there was a hawk in the +upper air fighting with two crows, or two rooks. Ever they rose higher +and higher, the crow flickering above the attacking hawk, the fight +going on like some strange symbol in the sky, the Germans on deck +watching with pleasure. + +Then we passed out of sight between wooded banks and under bridges where +quaint villages of old romance piled their red and coloured pointed +roofs beside the water, very still, remote, lost in the vagueness of the +past. It could not be that they were real. Even when the boat put in to +shore, and the customs officials came to look, the village remained +remote in the romantic past of High Germany, the Germany of fairy tales +and minstrels and craftsmen. The poignancy of the past was almost +unbearable, floating there in colour upon the haze of the river. + +We went by some swimmers, whose white shadowy bodies trembled near the +side of the steamer under water. One man with a round, fair head lifted +his face and one arm from the water and shouted a greeting to us, as if +he were a Niebelung, saluting with bright arm lifted from the water, his +face laughing, the fair moustache hanging over his mouth. Then his white +body swirled in the water, and he was gone, swimming with the +side stroke. + +Schaffhausen the town, half old and bygone, half modern, with breweries +and industries, that is not very real. Schaffhausen Falls, with their +factory in the midst and their hotel at the bottom, and the general +cinematograph effect, they are ugly. + +It was afternoon when I set out to walk from the Falls to Italy, across +Switzerland. I remember the big, fat, rather gloomy fields of this part +of Baden, damp and unliving. I remember I found some apples under a tree +in a field near a railway embankment, then some mushrooms, and I ate +both. Then I came on to a long, desolate high-road, with dreary, +withered trees on either side, and flanked by great fields where groups +of men and women were working. They looked at me as I went by down the +long, long road, alone and exposed and out of the world. + +I remember nobody came at the border village to examine my pack, I +passed through unchallenged. All was quiet and lifeless and hopeless, +with big stretches of heavy land. + +Till sunset came, very red and purple, and suddenly, from the heavy +spacious open land I dropped sharply into the Rhine valley again, +suddenly, as if into another glamorous world. + +There was the river rushing along between its high, mysterious, romantic +banks, which were high as hills, and covered with vine. And there was +the village of tall, quaint houses flickering its lights on to the +deep-flowing river, and quite silent, save for the rushing of water. + +There was a fine covered bridge, very dark. I went to the middle and +looked through the opening at the dark water below, at the façade of +square lights, the tall village-front towering remote and silent above +the river. The hill rose on either side the flood; down here was a +small, forgotten, wonderful world that belonged to the date of isolated +village communities and wandering minstrels. + +So I went back to the inn of The Golden Stag, and, climbing some steps, +I made a loud noise. A woman came, and I asked for food. She led me +through a room where were enormous barrels, ten feet in diameter, lying +fatly on their sides; then through a large stone-clean kitchen, with +bright pans, ancient as the Meistersinger; then up some steps and into +the long guest-room, where a few tables were laid for supper. + +A few people were eating. I asked for Abendessen, and sat by the window +looking at the darkness of the river below, the covered bridge, the dark +hill opposite, crested with its few lights. + +Then I ate a very large quantity of knoedel soup and bread, and drank +beer, and was very sleepy. Only one or two village men came in, and +these soon went again; the place was dead still. Only at a long table on +the opposite side of the room were seated seven or eight men, ragged, +disreputable, some impudent--another came in late; the landlady gave +them all thick soup with dumplings and bread and meat, serving them in a +sort of brief disapprobation. They sat at the long table, eight or nine +tramps and beggars and wanderers out of work and they ate with a sort of +cheerful callousness and brutality for the most part, and as if +ravenously, looking round and grinning sometimes, subdued, cowed, like +prisoners, and yet impudent. At the end one shouted to know where he was +to sleep. The landlady called to the young serving-woman, and in a +classic German severity of disapprobation they were led up the stone +stairs to their room. They tramped off in threes and twos, making a bad, +mean, humiliated exit. It was not yet eight o'clock. The landlady sat +talking to one bearded man, staid and severe, whilst, with her work on +the table, she sewed steadily. + +As the beggars and wanderers went slinking out of the room, some called +impudently, cheerfully: + +'_Nacht, Frau Wirtin--G'Nacht, Wirtin--'te Nacht, Frau_,' to all of +which the hostess answered a stereotyped '_Gute Nacht_,' never turning +her head from her sewing, or indicating by the faintest movement that +she was addressing the men who were filing raggedly to the doorway. + +So the room was empty, save for the landlady and her sewing, the staid, +elderly villager to whom she was talking in the unbeautiful dialect, and +the young serving-woman who was clearing away the plates and basins of +the tramps and beggars. + +Then the villager also went. + +'_Gute Nacht, Frau Seidl_,' to the landlady; '_Gute Nacht_,' at random, +to me. + +So I looked at the newspaper. Then I asked the landlady for a cigarette, +not knowing how else to begin. So she came to my table, and we talked. + +It pleased me to take upon myself a sort of romantic, wandering +character; she said my German was '_schön_'; a little goes a long way. + +So I asked her who were the men who had sat at the long table. She +became rather stiff and curt. + +'They are the men looking for work,' she said, as if the subject were +disagreeable. + +'But why do they come here, so many?' I asked. + +Then she told me that they were going out of the country: this was +almost the last village of the border: that the relieving officer in +each village was empowered to give to every vagrant a ticket entitling +the holder to an evening meal, bed, and bread in the morning, at a +certain inn. This was the inn for the vagrants coming to this village. +The landlady received fourpence per head, I believe it was, for each of +these wanderers. + +'Little enough,' I said. + +'Nothing,' she replied. + +She did not like the subject at all. Only her respect for me made her +answer. + +'_Bettler, Lumpen, und Taugenichtse!_' I said cheerfully. + +'And men who are out of work, and are going back to their own parish,' +she said stiffly. + +So we talked a little, and I too went to bed. + +'_Gute Nacht, Frau Wirtin._' + +'_Gute Nacht, mein Herr._' + +So I went up more and more stone stairs, attended by the young woman. It +was a great, lofty, old deserted house, with many drab doors. + +At last, in the distant topmost floor, I had my bedroom, with two beds +and bare floor and scant furniture. I looked down at the river far +below, at the covered bridge, at the far lights on the hill above, +opposite. Strange to be here in this lost, forgotten place, sleeping +under the roof with tramps and beggars. I debated whether they would +steal my boots if I put them out. But I risked it. The door-latch made a +loud noise on the deserted landing, everywhere felt abandoned, +forgotten. I wondered where the eight tramps and beggars were asleep. +There was no way of securing the door. But somehow I felt that, if I +were destined to be robbed or murdered, it would not be by tramps and +beggars. So I blew out the candle and lay under the big feather bed, +listening to the running and whispering of the medieval Rhine. + +And when I waked up again it was sunny, it was morning on the hill +opposite, though the river deep below ran in shadow. + +The tramps and beggars were all gone: they must be cleared out by seven +o'clock in the morning. So I had the inn to myself, I, and the landlady, +and the serving-woman. Everywhere was very clean, full of the German +morning energy and brightness, which is so different from the Latin +morning. The Italians are dead and torpid first thing, the Germans are +energetic and cheerful. + +It was cheerful in the sunny morning, looking down on the swift river, +the covered, picturesque bridge, the bank and the hill opposite. Then +down the curving road of the facing hill the Swiss cavalry came riding, +men in blue uniforms. I went out to watch them. They came thundering +romantically through the dark cavern of the roofed-in bridge, and they +dismounted at the entrance to the village. There was a fresh +morning-cheerful newness everywhere, in the arrival of the troops, in +the welcome of the villagers. + +The Swiss do not look very military, neither in accoutrement nor +bearing. This little squad of cavalry seemed more like a party of common +men riding out in some business of their own than like an army. They +were very republican and very free. The officer who commanded them was +one of themselves, his authority was by consent. + +It was all very pleasant and genuine; there was a sense of ease and +peacefulness, quite different from the mechanical, slightly sullen +manoeuvring of the Germans. + +The village baker and his assistant came hot and floury from the +bakehouse, bearing between them a great basket of fresh bread. The +cavalry were all dismounted by the bridge-head, eating and drinking like +business men. Villagers came to greet their friends: one soldier kissed +his father, who came wearing a leathern apron. The school bell +tang-tang-tanged from above, school children merged timidly through the +grouped horses, up the narrow street, passing unwillingly with their +books. The river ran swiftly, the soldiers, very haphazard and slack in +uniform, real shack-bags, chewed their bread in large mouthfuls; the +young lieutenant, who seemed to be an officer only by consent of the +men, stood apart by the bridge-head, gravely. They were all serious and +self-contented, very unglamorous. It was like a business excursion on +horseback, harmless and uninspiring. The uniforms were almost ludicrous, +so ill-fitting and casual. + +So I shouldered my own pack and set off, through the bridge over the +Rhine, and up the hill opposite. + +There is something very dead about this country. I remember I picked +apples from the grass by the roadside, and some were very sweet. But for +the rest, there was mile after mile of dead, uninspired +country--uninspired, so neutral and ordinary that it was almost +destructive. + +One gets this feeling always in Switzerland, except high up: this +feeling of average, of utter soulless ordinariness, something +intolerable. Mile after mile, to Zurich, it was just the same. It was +just the same in the tram-car going into Zurich; it was just the same in +the town, in the shops, in the restaurant. All was the utmost level of +ordinariness and well-being, but so ordinary that it was like a blight. +All the picturesqueness of the town is nothing, it is like a most +ordinary, average, usual person in an old costume. The place was +soul-killing. + +So after two hours' rest, eating in a restaurant, wandering by the quay +and through the market, and sitting on a seat by the lake, I found a +steamer that would take me away. That is how I always feel in +Switzerland: the only possible living sensation is the sensation of +relief in going away, always going away. The horrible average +ordinariness of it all, something utterly without flower or soul or +transcendence, the horrible vigorous ordinariness, is too much. + +So I went on a steamer down the long lake, surrounded by low grey hills. +It was Saturday afternoon. A thin rain came on. I thought I would rather +be in fiery Hell than in this dead level of average life. + +I landed somewhere on the right bank, about three-quarters of the way +down the lake. It was almost dark. Yet I must walk away. I climbed a +long hill from the lake, came to the crest, looked down the darkness of +the valley, and descended into the deep gloom, down into a +soulless village. + +But it was eight o'clock, and I had had enough. One might as well sleep. +I found the Gasthaus zur Post. + +It was a small, very rough inn, having only one common room, with bare +tables, and a short, stout, grim, rather surly landlady, and a landlord +whose hair stood up on end, and who was trembling on the edge of +delirium tremens. + +They could only give me boiled ham: so I ate boiled ham and drank beer, +and tried to digest the utter cold materialism of Switzerland. + +As I sat with my back to the wall, staring blankly at the trembling +landlord, who was ready at any moment to foam at the mouth, and at the +dour landlady, who was quite capable of keeping him in order, there came +in one of those dark, showy Italian girls with a man. She wore a blouse +and skirt, and no hat. Her hair was perfectly dressed. It was really +Italy. The man was soft, dark, he would get stout later, _trapu_, he +would have somewhat the figure of Caruso. But as yet he was soft, +sensuous, young, handsome. + +They sat at the long side-table with their beer, and created another +country at once within the room. Another Italian came, fair and fat and +slow, one from the Venetian province; then another, a little thin young +man, who might have been a Swiss save for his vivid movement. + +This last was the first to speak to the Germans. The others had just +said '_Bier._' But the little newcomer entered into a conversation with +the landlady. + +At last there were six Italians sitting talking loudly and warmly at the +side-table. The slow, cold German-Swiss at the other tables looked at +them occasionally. The landlord, with his crazed, stretched eyes, glared +at them with hatred. But they fetched their beer from the bar with easy +familiarity, and sat at their table, creating a bonfire of life in the +callousness of the inn. + +At last they finished their beer and trooped off down the passage. The +room was painfully empty. I did not know what to do. + +Then I heard the landlord yelling and screeching and snarling from the +kitchen at the back, for all the world like a mad dog. But the Swiss +Saturday evening customers at the other tables smoked on and talked in +their ugly dialect, without trouble. Then the landlady came in, and soon +after the landlord, he collarless, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, +showing his loose throat, and accentuating his round pot-belly. His +limbs were thin and feverish, the skin of his face hung loose, his eyes +glaring, his hands trembled. Then he sat down to talk to a crony. His +terrible appearance was a fiasco; nobody heeded him at all, only the +landlady was surly. + +From the back came loud noises of pleasure and excitement and banging +about. When the room door was opened I could see down the dark passage +opposite another lighted door. Then the fat, fair Italian came in for +more beer. + +'What is all the noise?' I asked the landlady at last. + +'It is the Italians,' she said. + +'What are they doing?' + +'They are doing a play.' + +'Where?' + +She jerked her head: 'In the room at the back.' + +'Can I go and look at them?' + +'I should think so.' + +The landlord glaringly watched me go out. I went down the stone passage +and found a great, half-lighted room that might be used to hold +meetings, with forms piled at the side. At one end was raised platform +or stage. And on this stage was a table and a lamp, and the Italians +grouped round the light, gesticulating and laughing. Their beer mugs +were on the table and on the floor of the stage; the little sharp youth +was intently looking over some papers, the others were bending over the +table with him. + +They looked up as I entered from the distance, looked at me in the +distant twilight of the dusky room, as if I were an intruder, as if I +should go away when I had seen them. But I said in German: + +'May I look?' + +They were still unwilling to see or to hear me. + +'What do you say?' the small one asked in reply. + +The others stood and watched, slightly at bay, like suspicious animals. + +'If I might come and look,' I said in German; then, feeling very +uncomfortable, in Italian: 'You are doing a drama, the landlady +told me.' + +The big empty room was behind me, dark, the little company of Italians +stood above me in the light of the lamp which was on the table. They all +watched with unseeing, unwilling looks: I was merely an intrusion. + +'We are only learning it,' said the small youth. + +They wanted me to go away. But I wanted to stay. + +'May I listen?' I said. 'I don't want to stay in there.' And I +indicated, with a movement of the head, the inn-room beyond. + +'Yes,' said the young intelligent man. 'But we are only reading our +parts.' + +They had all become more friendly to me, they accepted me. + +'You are a German?' asked one youth. + +'No--English.' + +'English? But do you live in Switzerland?' + +'No--I am walking to Italy.' + +'On foot?' + +They looked with wakened eyes. + +'Yes.' + +So I told them about my journey. They were puzzled. They did not quite +understand why I wanted to walk. But they were delighted with the idea +of going to Lugano and Como and then to Milan. + +'Where do you come from?' I asked them. + +They were all from the villages between Verona and Venice. They had seen +the Garda. I told them of my living there. + +'Those peasants of the mountains,' they said at once, 'they are people +of little education. Rather wild folk.' + +And they spoke with good-humoured contempt. + +I thought of Paolo, and Il Duro, and the Signor Pietro, our padrone, and +I resented these factory-hands for criticizing them. + +So I sat on the edge of the stage whilst they rehearsed their parts. The +little thin intelligent fellow, Giuseppino, was the leader. The others +read their parts in the laborious, disjointed fashion of the peasant, +who can only see one word at a time, and has then to put the words +together, afterwards, to make sense. The play was an amateur melodrama, +printed in little penny booklets, for carnival production. This was only +the second reading they had given it, and the handsome, dark fellow, who +was roused and displaying himself before the girl, a hard, erect piece +of callousness, laughed and flushed and stumbled, and understood nothing +till it was transferred into him direct through Giuseppino. The fat, +fair, slow man was more conscientious. He laboured through his part. The +other two men were in the background more or less. + +The most confidential was the fat, fair, slow man, who was called +Alberto. His part was not very important, so he could sit by me and +talk to me. + +He said they were all workers in the factory--silk, I think it was--in +the village. They were a whole colony of Italians, thirty or more +families. They had all come at different times. + +Giuseppino had been longest in the village. He had come when he was +eleven, with his parents, and had attended the Swiss school. So he spoke +perfect German. He was a clever man, was married, and had two children. + +He himself, Alberto, had been seven years in the valley; the girl, la +Maddelena, had been here ten years; the dark man, Alfredo, who was +flushed with excitement of her, had been in the village about nine +years--he alone of all men was not married. + +The others had all married Italian wives, and they lived in the great +dwelling whose windows shone yellow by the rattling factory. They lived +entirely among themselves; none of them could speak German, more than a +few words, except the Giuseppino, who was like a native here. + +It was very strange being among these Italians exiled in Switzerland. +Alfredo, the dark one, the unmarried, was in the old tradition. Yet even +he was curiously subject to a new purpose, as if there were some greater +new will that included him, sensuous, mindless as he was. He seemed to +give his consent to something beyond himself. In this he was different +from Il Duro, in that he had put himself under the control of the +outside conception. + +It was strange to watch them on the stage, the Italians all lambent, +soft, warm, sensuous, yet moving subject round Giuseppino, who was +always quiet, always ready, always impersonal. There was a look of +purpose, almost of devotion on his face, that singled him out and made +him seem the one stable, eternal being among them. They quarrelled, and +he let them quarrel up to a certain point; then he called them back. He +let them do as they liked so long as they adhered more or less to the +central purpose, so long as they got on in some measure with the play. + +All the while they were drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. The +Alberto was barman: he went out continually with the glasses. The +Maddelena had a small glass. In the lamplight of the stage the little +party read and smoked and practised, exposed to the empty darkness of +the big room. Queer and isolated it seemed, a tiny, pathetic magicland +far away from the barrenness of Switzerland. I could believe in the old +fairy-tales where, when the rock was opened, a magic underworld +was revealed. + +The Alfredo, flushed, roused, handsome, but very soft and enveloping in +his heat, laughed and threw himself into his pose, laughed foolishly, +and then gave himself up to his part. The Alberto, slow and laborious, +yet with a spark of vividness and natural intensity flashing through, +replied and gesticulated; the Maddelena laid her head on the bosom of +Alfredo, the other men started into action, and the play proceeded +intently for half an hour. + +Quick, vivid, and sharp, the little Giuseppino was always central. But +he seemed almost invisible. When I think back, I can scarcely see him, I +can only see the others, the lamplight on their faces and on their full +gesticulating limbs. I can see--the Maddelena, rather coarse and hard +and repellent, declaiming her words in a loud, half-cynical voice, +falling on the breast of the Alfredo, who was soft and sensuous, more +like a female, flushing, with his mouth getting wet, his eyes moist, as +he was roused. I can see the Alberto, slow, laboured, yet with a kind of +pristine simplicity in all his movements, that touched his fat +commonplaceness with beauty. Then there were the two other men, shy, +inflammable, unintelligent, with their sudden Italian rushes of hot +feeling. All their faces are distinct in the lamplight, all their bodies +ate palpable and dramatic. + +But the face of the Giuseppino is like a pale luminousness, a sort of +gleam among all the ruddy glow, his body is evanescent, like a shadow. +And his being seemed to cast its influence over all the others, except +perhaps the woman, who was hard and resistant. The other men seemed all +overcast, mitigated, in part transfigured by the will of the little +leader. But they were very soft stuff, if inflammable. + +The young woman of the inn, niece of the landlady, came down and called +out across the room. + +'We will go away from here now,' said the Giuseppino to me. 'They close +at eleven. But we have another inn in the next parish that is open all +night. Come with us and drink some wine.' + +'But,' I said, 'you would rather be alone.' + +No; they pressed me to go, they wanted me to go with them, they were +eager, they wanted to entertain me. Alfredo, flushed, wet-mouthed, warm, +protested I must drink wine, the real Italian red wine, from their own +village at home. They would have no nay. + +So I told the landlady. She said I must be back by twelve o'clock. + +The night was very dark. Below the road the stream was rushing; there +was a great factory on the other side of the water, making faint +quivering lights of reflection, and one could see the working of +machinery shadowy through the lighted windows. Near by was the tall +tenement where the Italians lived. + +We went on through the straggling, raw village, deep beside the stream, +then over the small bridge, and up the steep hill down which I had come +earlier in the evening. + +So we arrived at the café. It was so different inside from the German +inn, yet it was not like an Italian café either. It was brilliantly +lighted, clean, new, and there were red-and-white cloths on the tables. +The host was in the room, and his daughter, a beautiful red-haired girl. + +Greetings were exchanged with the quick, intimate directness of Italy. +But there was another note also, a faint echo of reserve, as though they +reserved themselves from the outer world, making a special inner +community. + +Alfredo was hot: he took off his coat. We all sat freely at a long +table, whilst the red-haired girl brought a quart of red wine. At other +tables men were playing cards, with the odd Neapolitan cards. They too +were talking Italian. It was a warm, ruddy bit of Italy within the cold +darkness of Switzerland. + +'When you come to Italy,' they said to me, 'salute it from us, salute +the sun, and the earth, _l'Italia_.' + +So we drank in salute of Italy. They sent their greeting by me. + +'You know in Italy there is the sun, the sun,' said Alfredo to me, +profoundly moved, wet-mouthed, tipsy. + +I was reminded of Enrico Persevalli and his terrifying cry at the end of +_Ghosts_: + +'_Il sole, il sole!_' + +So we talked for a while of Italy. They had a pained tenderness for it, +sad, reserved. + +'Don't you want to go back?' I said, pressing them to tell me +definitely. 'Won't you go back some time?' + +'Yes,' they said, 'we will go back.' + +But they spoke reservedly, without freedom. We talked about Italy, about +songs, and Carnival; about the food, polenta, and salt. They laughed at +my pretending to cut the slabs of polenta with a string: that rejoiced +them all: it took them back to the Italian mezzo-giorno, the bells +jangling in the campanile, the eating after the heavy work on the land. + +But they laughed with the slight pain and contempt and fondness which +every man feels towards his past, when he has struggled away from that +past, from the conditions which made it. + +They loved Italy passionately; but they would not go back. All their +blood, all their senses were Italian, needed the Italian sky, the +speech, the sensuous life. They could hardly live except through the +senses. Their minds were not developed, mentally they were children, +lovable, naïve, almost fragile children. But sensually they were men: +sensually they were accomplished. + +Yet a new tiny flower was struggling to open in them, the flower of a +new spirit. The substratum of Italy has always been pagan, sensuous, the +most potent symbol the sexual symbol. The child is really a +non-Christian symbol: it is the symbol of mans's triumph of eternal life +in procreation. The worship of the Cross never really held good in +Italy. The Christianity of Northern Europe has never had any +place there. + +And now, when Northern Europe is turning back on its own Christianity, +denying it all, the Italians are struggling with might and main against +the sensuous spirit which still dominates them. When Northern Europe, +whether it hates Nietzsche or not, is crying out for the Dionysic +ecstasy, practising on itself the Dionysic ecstasy, Southern Europe is +breaking free from Dionysus, from the triumphal affirmation of life over +death, immortality through procreation. + +I could see these sons of Italy would never go back. Men like Paolo and +Il Duro broke away only to return. The dominance of the old form was too +strong for them. Call it love of country or love of the village, +campanilismo, or what not, it was the dominance of the old pagan form, +the old affirmation of immortality through procreation, as opposed to +the Christian affirmation of immortality through self-death and +social love. + +But 'John' and these Italians in Switzerland were a generation younger, +and they would not go back, at least not to the old Italy. Suffer as +they might, and they did suffer, wincing in every nerve and fibre from +the cold material insentience of the northern countries and of America, +still they would endure this for the sake of something else they wanted. +They would suffer a death in the flesh, as 'John' had suffered in +fighting the street crowd, as these men suffered year after year cramped +in their black gloomy cold Swiss valley, working in the factory. But +there would come a new spirit out of it. + +Even Alfredo was submitted to the new process; though he belonged +entirely by nature to the sort of Il Duro, he was purely sensuous and +mindless. But under the influence of Giuseppino he was thrown down, as +fallow to the new spirit that would come. + +And then, when the others were all partially tipsy, the Giuseppino began +to talk to me. In him was a steady flame burning, burning, burning, a +flame of the mind, of the spirit, something new and clear, something +that held even the soft, sensuous Alfredo in submission, besides all the +others, who had some little development of mind. + +'_Sa signore_,' said the Giuseppino to me, quiet, almost invisible or +inaudible, as it seemed, like a spirit addressing me, '_l'uomo non ha +patria_--a man has no country. What has the Italian Government to do +with us. What does a Government mean? It makes us work, it takes part of +our wages away from us, it makes us soldiers--and what for? What is +government for?' + +'Have you been a soldier?' I interrupted him. + +He had not, none of them had: that was why they could not really go back +to Italy. Now this was out; this explained partly their curious +reservation in speaking about their beloved country. They had forfeited +parents as well as homeland. + +'What does the Government do? It takes taxes; it has an army and police, +and it makes roads. But we could do without an army, and we could be our +own police, and we could make our own roads. What is this Government? +Who wants it? Only those who are unjust, and want to have advantage over +somebody else. It is an instrument of injustice and of wrong. + +'Why should we have a Government? Here, in this village, there are +thirty families of Italians. There is no government for them, no Italian +Government. And we live together better than in Italy. We are richer and +freer, we have no policemen, no poor laws. We help each other, and there +are no poor. + +'Why are these Governments always doing what we don't want them to do? +We should not be fighting in the Cirenaica if we were all Italians. It +is the Government that does it. They talk and talk and do things with +us: but we don't want them.' + +The others, tipsy, sat round the table with the terrified gravity of +children who are somehow responsible for things they do not understand. +They stirred in their seats, turning aside, with gestures almost of +pain, of imprisonment. Only Alfredo, laying his hand on mine, was +laughing, loosely, floridly. He would upset all the Government with a +jerk of his well-built shoulder, and then he would have a spree--such a +spree. He laughed wetly to me. + +The Giuseppino waited patiently during this tipsy confidence, but his +pale clarity and beauty was something constant star-like in comparison +with the flushed, soft handsomeness of the other. He waited patiently, +looking at me. + +But I did not want him to go on: I did not want to answer. I could feel +a new spirit in him, something strange and pure and slightly +frightening. He wanted something which was beyond me. And my soul was +somewhere in tears, crying helplessly like an infant in the night. I +could not respond: I could not answer. He seemed to look at me, me, an +Englishman, an educated man, for corroboration. But I could not +corroborate him. I knew the purity and new struggling towards birth of a +true star-like spirit. But I could not confirm him in his utterance: my +soul could not respond. I did not believe in the perfectibility of man. +I did not believe in infinite harmony among men. And this was his star, +this belief. + +It was nearly midnight. A Swiss came in and asked for beer. The Italians +gathered round them a curious darkness of reserve. And then I must go. + +They shook hands with me warmly, truthfully, putting a sort of implicit +belief in me, as representative of some further knowledge. But there was +a fixed, calm resolve over the face of the Giuseppino, a sort of steady +faith, even in disappointment. He gave me a copy of a little Anarchist +paper published in Geneva. _L'Anarchista_, I believe it was called. I +glanced at it. It was in Italian, naïve, simple, rather rhetorical. So +they were all Anarchists, these Italians. + +I ran down the hill in the thick Swiss darkness to the little bridge, +and along the uneven cobbled street. I did not want to think, I did not +want to know. I wanted to arrest my activity, to keep it confined to the +moment, to the adventure. + +When I came to the flight of stone steps which led up to the door of the +inn, at the side I saw in the darkness two figures. They said a low good +night and parted; the girl began to knock at the door, the man +disappeared. It was the niece of the landlady parting from her lover. + +We waited outside the locked door, at the top of the stone steps, in the +darkness of midnight. The stream rustled below. Then came a shouting and +an insane snarling within the passage; the bolts were not withdrawn. + +'It is the gentleman, it is the strange gentleman,' called the girl. + +Then came again the furious shouting snarls, and the landlord's mad +voice: + +'Stop out, stop out there. The door won't be opened again.' + +'The strange gentleman is here,' repeated the girl. + +Then more movement was heard, and the door was suddenly opened, and the +landlord rushed out upon us, wielding a broom. It was a strange sight, +in the half-lighted passage. I stared blankly in the doorway. The +landlord dropped the broom he was waving and collapsed as if by magic, +looking at me, though he continued to mutter madly, unintelligibly. The +girl slipped past me, and the landlord snarled. Then he picked up the +brush, at the same time crying: + +'You are late, the door was shut, it will not be opened. We shall have +the police in the house. We said twelve o'clock; at twelve o'clock the +door must be shut, and must not be opened again. If you are late you +stay out--' + +So he went snarling, his voice rising higher and higher, away into the +kitchen. + +'You are coming to your room?' the landlady said to me coldly. And she +led me upstairs. + +The room was over the road, clean, but rather ugly, with a large tin, +that had once contained lard or Swiss-milk, to wash in. But the bed was +good enough, which was all that mattered. + +I heard the landlord yelling, and there was a long and systematic +thumping somewhere, thump, thump, thump, and banging. I wondered where +it was. I could not locate it at all, because my room lay beyond another +large room: I had to go through a large room, by the foot of two beds, +to get to my door; so I could not quite tell where anything was. + +But I went to sleep whilst I was wondering. + +I woke in the morning and washed in the tin. I could see a few people in +the street, walking in the Sunday morning leisure. It felt like Sunday +in England, and I shrank from it. I could see none of the Italians. The +factory stood there, raw and large and sombre, by the stream, and the +drab-coloured stone tenements were close by. Otherwise the village was a +straggling Swiss street, almost untouched. + +The landlord was quiet and reasonable, even friendly, in the morning. He +wanted to talk to me: where had I bought my boots, was his first +question. I told him in Munich. And how much had they cost? I told him +twenty-eight marks. He was much impressed by them: such good boots, of +such soft, strong, beautiful leather; he had not seen such boots for a +long time. + +Then I knew it was he who had cleaned my boots. I could see him +fingering them and wondering over them. I rather liked him. I could see +he had had imagination once, and a certain fineness of nature. Now he +was corrupted with drink, too far gone to be even a human being. I hated +the village. + +They set bread and butter and a piece of cheese weighing about five +pounds, and large, fresh, sweet cakes for breakfast. I ate and was +thankful: the food was good. + +A couple of village youths came in, in their Sunday clothes. They had +the Sunday stiffness. It reminded me of the stiffness and curious +self-consciousness that comes over life in England on a Sunday. But the +Landlord sat with his waistcoat hanging open over his shirt, +pot-bellied, his ruined face leaning forward, talking, always talking, +wanting to know. + +So in a few minutes I was out on the road again, thanking God for the +blessing of a road that belongs to no man, and travels away from +all men. + +I did not want to see the Italians. Something had got tied up in me, and +I could not bear to see them again. I liked them so much; but, for some +reason or other, my mind stopped like clockwork if I wanted to think of +them and of what their lives would be, their future. It was as if some +curious negative magnetism arrested my mind, prevented it from working, +the moment I turned it towards these Italians. + +I do not know why it was. But I could never write to them, or think of +them, or even read the paper they gave me though it lay in my drawer for +months, in Italy, and I often glanced over six lines of it. And often, +often my mind went back to the group, the play they were rehearsing, the +wine in the pleasant café, and the night. But the moment my memory +touched them, my whole soul stopped and was null; I could not go on. +Even now I cannot really consider them in thought. + +I shrink involuntarily away. I do not know why this is. + + + + +_The Return Journey_ + + +When one walks, one must travel west or south. If one turns northward or +eastward it is like walking down a cul-de-sac, to the blind end. + +So it has been since the Crusaders came home satiated, and the +Renaissance saw the western sky as an archway into the future. So it is +still. We must go westwards and southwards. + +It is a sad and gloomy thing to travel even from Italy into France. But +it is a joyful thing to walk south to Italy, south and west. It is so. +And there is a certain exaltation in the thought of going west, even to +Cornwall, to Ireland. It is as if the magnetic poles were south-west and +north-east, for our spirits, with the south-west, under the sunset, as +the positive pole. So whilst I walk through Switzerland, though it is a +valley of gloom and depression, a light seems to flash out under every +footstep, with the joy of progression. + +It was Sunday morning when I left the valley where the Italians lived. I +went quickly over the stream, heading for Lucerne. It was a good thing +to be out of doors, with one's pack on one's back, climbing uphill. But +the trees were thick by the roadside; I was not yet free. It was Sunday +morning, very still. + +In two hours I was at the top of the hill, looking out over the +intervening valley at the long lake of Zurich, spread there beyond with +its girdle of low hills, like a relief-map. I could not bear to look at +it, it was so small and unreal. I had a feeling as if it were false, a +large relief-map that I was looking down upon, and which I wanted to +smash. It seemed to intervene between me and some reality. I could not +believe that that was the real world. It was a figment, a fabrication, +like a dull landscape painted on a wall, to hide the real landscape. + +So I went on, over to the other side of the hill, and I looked out +again. Again there were the smoky-looking hills and the lake like a +piece of looking-glass. But the hills were higher: that big one was the +Rigi. I set off down the hill. + +There was fat agricultural land and several villages. And church was +over. The churchgoers were all coming home: men in black broadcloth and +old chimney-pot silk hats, carrying their umbrellas; women in ugly +dresses, carrying books and umbrellas. The streets were dotted with +these black-clothed men and stiff women, all reduced to a Sunday +nullity. I hated it. It reminded me of that which I knew in my boyhood, +that stiff, null 'propriety' which used to come over us, like a sort of +deliberate and self-inflicted cramp, on Sundays. I hated these elders in +black broadcloth, with their neutral faces, going home piously to their +Sunday dinners. I hated the feeling of these villages, comfortable, +well-to-do, clean, and proper. + +And my boot was chafing two of my toes. That always happens. I had come +down to a wide, shallow valley-bed, marshy. So about a mile out of the +village I sat down by a stone bridge, by a stream, and tore up my +handkerchief, and bound up the toes. And as I sat binding my toes, two +of the elders in black, with umbrellas under their arms, approached from +the direction of the village. + +They made me so furious, I had to hasten to fasten my boot, to hurry on +again, before they should come near me. I could not bear the way they +walked and talked, so crambling and material and mealy-mouthed. + +Then it did actually begin to rain. I was just going down a short hill. +So I sat under a bush and watched the trees drip. I was so glad to be +there, homeless, without place or belonging, crouching under the leaves +in the copse by the road, that I felt I had, like the meek, inherited +the earth. Some men went by, with their coat-collars turned up, and the +rain making still blacker their black broadcloth shoulders. They did not +see me. I was as safe and separate as a ghost. So I ate the remains of +my food that I had bought in Zurich, and waited for the rain. + +Later, in the wet Sunday afternoon, I went on to the little lake, past +many inert, neutral, material people, down an ugly road where trams ran. +The blight of Sunday was almost intolerable near the town. + +So on I went, by the side of the steamy, reedy lake, walking the length +of it. Then suddenly I went in to a little villa by the water for tea. +In Switzerland every house is a villa. + +But this villa, was kept by two old ladies and a delicate dog, who must +not get his feet wet. I was very happy there. I had good jam and strange +honey-cakes for tea, that I liked, and the little old ladies pattered +round in a great stir, always whirling like two dry leaves after the +restless dog. + +'Why must he not go out?' I said. + +'Because it is wet,' they answered, 'and he coughs and sneezes.' + +'Without a handkerchief, that is not _angenehm_' I said. + +So we became bosom friends. + +'You are Austrian?' they said to me. + +I said I was from Graz; that my father was a doctor in Graz, and that I +was walking for my pleasure through the countries of Europe. + +I said this because I knew a doctor from Graz who was always wandering +about, and because I did not want to be myself, an Englishman, to these +two old ladies. I wanted to be something else. So we exchanged +confidences. + +They told me, in their queer, old, toothless fashion, about their +visitors, a man who used to fish all day, every day for three weeks, +fish every hour of the day, though many a day he caught nothing--nothing +at all--still he fished from the boat; and so on, such trivialities. +Then they told me of a third sister who had died, a third little old +lady. One could feel the gap in the house. They cried; and I, being an +Austrian from Graz, to my astonishment felt my tears slip over on to the +table. I also _was_ sorry, and I would have kissed the little old ladies +to comfort them. + +'Only in heaven it is warm, and it doesn't rain, and no one dies,' I +said, looking at the wet leaves. + +Then I went away. I would have stayed the night at this house: I wanted +to. But I had developed my Austrian character too far. + +So I went on to a detestable brutal inn in the town. And the next day I +climbed over the back of the detestable Rigi, with its vile hotel, to +come to Lucerne. There, on the Rigi, I met a lost young Frenchman who +could speak no German, and who said he could not find people to speak +French. So we sat on a stone and became close friends, and I promised +faithfully to go and visit him in his barracks in Algiers: I was to sail +from Naples to Algiers. He wrote me the address on his card, and told me +he had friends in the regiment, to whom I should be introduced, and we +could have a good time, if I would stay a week or two, down there +in Algiers. + +How much more real Algiers was than the rock on the Rigi where we sat, +or the lake beneath, or the mountains beyond. Algiers is very real, +though I have never seen it, and my friend is my friend for ever, though +I have lost his card and forgotten his name. He was a Government clerk +from Lyons, making this his first foreign tour before he began his +military service. He showed me his 'circular excursion ticket'. Then at +last we parted, for he must get to the top of the Rigi, and I must get +to the bottom. + +Lucerne and its lake were as irritating as ever--like the wrapper round +milk chocolate. I could not sleep even one night there: I took the +steamer down the lake, to the very last station. There I found a good +German inn, and was happy. + +There was a tall thin young man, whose face was red and inflamed from +the sun. I thought he was a German tourist. He had just come in; and he +was eating bread and milk. He and I were alone in the eating-room. He +was looking at an illustrated paper. + +'Does the steamer stop here all night?' I asked him in German, hearing +the boat bustling and blowing her steam on the water outside, and +glancing round at her lights, red and white, in the pitch darkness. + +He only shook his head over his bread and milk, and did not lift his +face. + +'Are you English, then?' I said. + +No one but an Englishman would have hidden his face in a bowl of milk, +and have shaken his red ears in such painful confusion. + +'Yes,' he said, 'I am.' + +And I started almost out of my skin at the unexpected London accent. It +was as if one suddenly found oneself in the Tube. + +'So am I,' I said. 'Where have you come from?' + +Then he began, like a general explaining his plans, to tell me. He had +walked round over the Furka Pass, had been on foot four or five days. He +had walked tremendously. Knowing no German, and nothing of the +mountains, he had set off alone on this tour: he had a fortnight's +holiday. So he had come over the Rhône Glacier across the Furka and down +from Andermatt to the Lake. On this last day he had walked about thirty +mountain miles. + +'But weren't you tired?' I said, aghast. + +He was. Under the inflamed redness of his sun- and wind- and snow-burned +face he was sick with fatigue. He had done over a hundred miles in the +last four days. + +'Did you enjoy it?' I asked. + +'Oh yes. I wanted to do it all.' He wanted to do it, and he _had_ done +it. But God knows what he wanted to do it for. He had now one day at +Lucerne, one day at Interlaken and Berne, then London. + +I was sorry for him in my soul, he was so cruelly tired, so perishingly +victorious. + +'Why did you do so much?' I said. 'Why did you come on foot all down the +valley when you could have taken the train? Was it worth it?' + +'I think so,' he said. + +Yet he was sick with fatigue and over-exhaustion. His eyes were quite +dark, sightless: he seemed to have lost the power of seeing, to be +virtually blind. He hung his head forward when he had to write a post +card, as if he felt his way. But he turned his post card so that I +should not see to whom it was addressed; not that I was interested; only +I noticed his little, cautious, English movement of privacy. + +'What time will you be going on?' I asked. + +'When is the first steamer?' he said, and he turned out a guide-book +with a time-table. He would leave at about seven. + +'But why so early?' I said to him. + +He must be in Lucerne at a certain hour, and at Interlaken in the +evening. + +'I suppose you will rest when you get to London?' I said. + +He looked at me quickly, reservedly. + +I was drinking beer: I asked him wouldn't he have something. He thought +a moment, then said he would have another glass of hot milk. The +landlord came--'And bread?' he asked. + +The Englishman refused. He could not eat, really. Also he was poor; he +had to husband his money. The landlord brought the milk and asked me, +when would the gentleman want to go away. So I made arrangements between +the landlord and the stranger. But the Englishman was slightly +uncomfortable at my intervention. He did not like me to know what he +would have for breakfast. + +I could feel so well the machine that had him in its grip. He slaved for +a year, mechanically, in London, riding in the Tube, working in the +office. Then for a fortnight he was let free. So he rushed to +Switzerland, with a tour planned out, and with just enough money to see +him through, and to buy presents at Interlaken: bits of the edelweiss +pottery: I could see him going home with them. + +So he arrived, and with amazing, pathetic courage set forth on foot in a +strange land, to face strange landlords, with no language but English at +his command, and his purse definitely limited. Yet he wanted to go among +the mountains, to cross a glacier. So he had walked on and on, like one +possessed, ever forward. His name might have been Excelsior, indeed. + +But then, when he reached his Furka, only to walk along the ridge and to +descend on the same side! My God, it was killing to the soul. And here +he was, down again from the mountains, beginning his journey home again: +steamer and train and steamer and train and Tube, till he was back in +the machine. + +It hadn't let him go, and he knew it. Hence his cruel self-torture of +fatigue, his cruel exercise of courage. He who hung his head in his milk +in torment when I asked him a question in German, what courage had he +not needed to take this his very first trip out of England, alone, +on foot! + +His eyes were dark and deep with unfathomable courage. Yet he was going +back in the morning. He was going back. All he had courage for was to go +back. He would go back, though he died by inches. Why not? It was +killing him, it was like living loaded with irons. But he had the +courage to submit, to die that way, since it was the way allotted +to him. + +The way he sank on the table in exhaustion, drinking his milk, his will, +nevertheless, so perfect and unblemished, triumphant, though his body +was broken and in anguish, was almost too much to bear. My heart was +wrung for my countryman, wrung till it bled. + +I could not bear to understand my countryman, a man who worked for his +living, as I had worked, as nearly all my countrymen work. He would not +give in. On his holiday he would walk, to fulfil his purpose, walk on; +no matter how cruel the effort were, he would not rest, he would not +relinquish his purpose nor abate his will, not by one jot or tittle. His +body must pay whatever his will demanded, though it were torture. + +It all seemed to me so foolish. I was almost in tears. He went to bed. I +walked by the dark lake, and talked to the girl in the inn. She was a +pleasant girl: it was a pleasant inn, a homely place. One could be +happy there. + +In the morning it was sunny, the lake was blue. By night I should be +nearly at the crest of my journey. I was glad. + +The Englishman had gone. I looked for his name in the book. It was +written in a fair, clerkly hand. He lived at Streatham. Suddenly I hated +him. The dogged fool, to keep his nose on the grindstone like that. What +was all his courage but the very tip-top of cowardice? What a vile +nature--almost Sadish, proud, like the infamous Red Indians, of being +able to stand torture. + +The landlord came to talk to me. He was fat and comfortable and too +respectful. But I had to tell him all the Englishman had done, in the +way of a holiday, just to shame his own fat, ponderous, inn-keeper's +luxuriousness that was too gross. Then all I got out of his enormous +comfortableness was: + +'Yes, that's a _very_ long step to take.' + +So I set off myself, up the valley between the close, snow-topped +mountains, whose white gleamed above me as I crawled, small as an +insect, along the dark, cold valley below. + +There had been a cattle fair earlier in the morning, so troops of cattle +were roving down the road, some with bells tang-tanging, all with soft +faces and startled eyes and a sudden swerving of horns. The grass was +very green by the roads and by the streams; the shadows of the mountain +slopes were very dark on either hand overhead, and the sky with snowy +flanks and tips was high up. + +Here, away from the world, the villages were quiet and obscure--left +behind. They had the same fascinating atmosphere of being forgotten, +left out of the world, that old English villages have. And buying apples +and cheese and bread in a little shop that sold everything and smelled +of everything, I felt at home again. + +But climbing gradually higher, mile after mile, always between the +shadows of the high mountains, I was glad I did not live in the Alps. +The villages on the slopes, the people there, seemed, as if they _must_ +gradually, bit by bit, slide down and tumble to the water-course, and be +rolled on away, away to the sea. Straggling, haphazard little villages +ledged on the slope, high up, beside their wet, green, hanging meadows, +with pine trees behind and the valley bottom far below, and rocks right +above, on both sides, seemed like little temporary squattings of outcast +people. It seemed impossible that they should persist there, with great +shadows wielded over them, like a menace, and gleams of brief sunshine, +like a window. There was a sense of momentariness and expectation. It +seemed as though some dramatic upheaval must take place, the mountains +fall down into their own shadows. The valley beds were like deep graves, +the sides of the mountains like the collapsing walls of a grave. The +very mountain-tops above, bright with transcendent snow, seemed like +death, eternal death. + +There, it seemed, in the glamorous snow, was the source of death, which +fell down in great waves of shadow and rock, rushing to the level earth. +And all the people of the mountains, on the slopes, in the valleys, +seemed to live upon this great, rushing wave of death, of breaking-down, +of destruction. + +The very pure source of breaking-down, decomposition, the very quick of +cold death, is the snowy mountain-peak above. There, eternally, goes on +the white foregathering of the crystals, out of the deathly cold of the +heavens; this is the static nucleus where death meets life in its +elementality. And thence, from their white, radiant nucleus of death in +life, flows the great flux downwards, towards life and warmth. And we +below, we cannot think of the flux upwards, that flows from the +needle-point of snow to the unutterable cold and death. + +The people under the mountains, they seem to live in the flux of death, +the last, strange, overshadowed units of life. Big shadows wave over +them, there is the eternal noise of water falling icily downwards from +the source of death overhead. + +And the people under the shadows, dwelling in the tang of snow and the +noise of icy water, seem dark, almost sordid, brutal. There is no +flowering or coming to flower, only this persistence, in the ice-touched +air, of reproductive life. + +But it is difficult to get a sense of a native population. Everywhere +are the hotels and the foreigners, the parasitism. Yet there is, unseen, +this overshadowed, overhung, sordid mountain population, ledged on the +slopes and in the crevices. In the wider valleys there is still a sense +of cowering among the people. But they catch a new tone from their +contact with the foreigners. And in the towns are nothing but +tradespeople. + +So I climbed slowly up, for a whole day, first along the highroad, +sometimes above and sometimes below the twisting, serpentine railway, +then afterwards along a path on the side of the hill--a path that went +through the crew-yards of isolated farms and even through the garden of +a village priest. The priest was decorating an archway. He stood on a +chair in the sunshine, reaching up with a garland, whilst the +serving-woman stood below, talking loudly. + +The valley here seemed wider, the great flanks of the mountains gave +place, the peaks above were further back. So one was happier. I was +pleased as I sat by the thin track of single flat stones that dropped +swiftly downhill. + +At the bottom was a little town with a factory or quarry, or a foundry, +some place with long, smoking chimneys; which made me feel quite at home +among the mountains. + +It is the hideous rawness of the world of men, the horrible, desolating +harshness of the advance of the industrial world upon the world of +nature, that is so painful. It looks as though the industrial spread of +mankind were a sort of dry disintegration advancing and advancing, a +process of dry disintegration. If only we could learn to take thought +for the whole world instead of for merely tiny bits of it. + +I went through the little, hideous, crude factory-settlement in the high +valley, where the eternal snows gleamed, past the enormous +advertisements for chocolate and hotels, up the last steep slope of the +pass to where the tunnel begins. Göschenen, the village at the mouth of +the tunnel, is all railway sidings and haphazard villas for tourists, +post cards, and touts and weedy carriages; disorder and sterile chaos, +high up. How should any one stay there! + +I went on up the pass itself. There were various parties of visitors on +the roads and tracks, people from towns incongruously walking and +driving. It was drawing on to evening. I climbed slowly, between the +great cleft in the rock where are the big iron gates, through which the +road winds, winds half-way down the narrow gulley of solid, living rock, +the very throat of the path, where hangs a tablet in memory of many +Russians killed. + +Emerging through the dark rocky throat of the pass I came to the upper +world, the level upper world. It was evening, livid, cold. On either +side spread the sort of moorland of the wide pass-head. I drew near +along the high-road, to Andermatt. + +Everywhere were soldiers moving about the livid, desolate waste of this +upper world. I passed the barracks and the first villas for visitors. +Darkness was coming on; the straggling, inconclusive street of Andermatt +looked as if it were some accident--houses, hotels, barracks, +lodging-places tumbled at random as the caravan of civilization crossed +this high, cold, arid bridge of the European world. + +I bought two post cards and wrote them out of doors in the cold, livid +twilight. Then I asked a soldier where was the post-office. He directed +me. It was something like sending post cards from Skegness or Bognor, +there in the post-office. + +I was trying to make myself agree to stay in Andermatt for the night. +But I could not. The whole place was so terribly raw and flat and +accidental, as if great pieces of furniture had tumbled out of a +pantechnicon and lay discarded by the road. I hovered in the street, in +the twilight, trying to make myself stay. I looked at the announcements +of lodgings and boarding for visitors. It was no good. I could not go +into one of these houses. + +So I passed on, through the old, low, broad-eaved houses that cringe +down to the very street, out into the open again. The air was fierce and +savage. On one side was a moorland, level; on the other a sweep of naked +hill, curved concave, and sprinkled with snow. I could see how wonderful +it would all be, under five or six feet of winter snow, skiing and +tobogganing at Christmas. But it needed the snow. In the summer there is +to be seen nothing but the winter's broken detritus. + +The twilight deepened, though there was still the strange, glassy +translucency of the snow-lit air. A fragment of moon was in the sky. A +carriage-load of French tourists passed me. There was the loud noise of +water, as ever, something eternal and maddening in its sound, like the +sound of Time itself, rustling and rushing and wavering, but never for a +second ceasing. The rushing of Time that continues throughout eternity, +this is the sound of the icy streams of Switzerland, something that +mocks and destroys our warm being. + +So I came, in the early darkness, to the little village with the broken +castle that stands for ever frozen at the point where the track parts, +one way continuing along the ridge, to the Furka Pass, the other +swerving over the hill to the left, over the Gotthardt. + +In this village I must stay. I saw a woman looking hastily, furtively +from a doorway. I knew she was looking for visitors. I went on up the +hilly street. There were only a few wooden houses and a gaily lighted +wooden inn, where men were laughing, and strangers, men, standing +talking loudly in the doorway. + +It was very difficult to go to a house this night. I did not want to +approach any of them. I turned back to the house of the peering woman. +She had looked hen-like and anxious. She would be glad of a visitor to +help her pay her rent. + +It was a clean, pleasant wooden house, made to keep out the cold. That +seemed its one function: to defend the inmates from the cold. It was +furnished like a hut, just tables and chairs and bare wooden walls. One +felt very close and secure in the room, as in a hut, shut away from the +outer world. + +The hen-like woman came. + +'Can I have a bed,' I said, 'for the night?' + +'_Abendessen, ja!_' she replied. 'Will you have soup and boiled beef and +vegetables?' + +I said I would, so I sat down to wait, in the utter silence. I could +scarcely hear the ice-stream, the silence seemed frozen, the house +empty. The woman seemed to be flitting aimlessly, scurriedly, in reflex +against the silence. One could almost touch the stillness as one could +touch the walls, or the stove, or the table with white American +oil-cloth. + +Suddenly she appeared again. + +'What will you drink?' + +She watched my face anxiously, and her voice was pathetic, slightly +pleading in its quickness. + +'Wine or beer?' she said. + +I would not trust the coldness of beer. + +'A half of red wine,' I said. + +I knew she was going to keep me an indefinite time. + +She appeared with the wine and bread. + +'Would you like omelette after the beef?' she asked. 'Omelette with +cognac--I can make it _very_ good.' + +I knew I should be spending too much, but I said yes. After all, why +should I not eat, after the long walk? + +So she left me again, whilst I sat in the utter isolation and stillness, +eating bread and drinking the wine, which was good. And I listened for +any sound: only the faint noise of the stream. And I wondered, Why am I +here, on this ridge of the Alps, in the lamp-lit, wooden, close-shut +room, alone? Why am I here? + +Yet somehow I was glad, I was happy even: such splendid silence and +coldness and clean isolation. It was something eternal, unbroachable: I +was free, in this heavy, ice-cold air, this upper world, alone. London, +far away below, beyond, England, Germany, France--they were all so +unreal in the night. It was a sort of grief that this continent all +beneath was so unreal, false, non-existent in its activity. Out of the +silence one looked down on it, and it seemed to have lost all +importance, all significance. It was so big, yet it had no significance. +The kingdom of the world had no significance: what could one do but +wander about? + +The woman came with my soup. I asked her, did not many people come in +the summer. But she was scared away, she did not answer, she went like a +leaf in the wind. However, the soup was good and plentiful. + +She was a long time before she came with the next course. Then she put +the tray on the table, and looking at me, then looking away, +shrinking, she said: + +'You must excuse me if I don't answer you--I don't hear well--I am +rather deaf.' + +I looked at her, and I winced also. She shrank in such simple pain from +the fact of her defect. I wondered if she were bullied because of it, or +only afraid lest visitors would dislike it. + +She put the dishes in order, set me my plate, quickly, nervously, and +was gone again, like a scared chicken. Being tired, I wanted to weep +over her, the nervous, timid hen, so frightened by her own deafness. The +house was silent of her, empty. It was perhaps her deafness which +created this empty soundlessness. + +When she came with the omelette, I said to her loudly: + +'That was very good, the soup and meat.' So she quivered nervously, and +said, 'Thank you,' and I managed to talk to her. She was like most deaf +people, in that her terror of not hearing made her six times worse than +she actually was. + +She spoke with a soft, strange accent, so I thought she was perhaps a +foreigner. But when I asked her she misunderstood, and I had not the +heart to correct her. I can only remember she said her house was always +full in the winter, about Christmas-time. People came for the winter +sport. There were two young English ladies who always came to her. + +She spoke of them warmly. Then, suddenly afraid, she drifted off again. +I ate the omelette with cognac, which was very good, then I looked in +the street. It was very dark, with bright stars, and smelled of snow. +Two village men went by. I was tired, I did not want to go to the inn. + +So I went to bed, in the silent, wooden house. I had a small bedroom, +clean and wooden and very cold. Outside, the stream was rushing. I +covered myself with a great depth of featherbed, and looked at the +stars, and the shadowy upper world, and went to sleep. + +In the morning I washed in the ice-cold water, and was glad to set out. +An icy mist was over the noisy stream, there were a few meagre, shredded +pine-trees. I had breakfast and paid my bill: it was seven francs--more +than I could afford; but that did not matter, once I was out in the air. + +The sky was blue and perfect, it was a ringing morning, the village was +very still. I went up the hill till I came to the signpost. I looked +down the direction of the Furka, and thought of my tired Englishman from +Streatham, who would be on his way home. Thank God I need not go home: +never, perhaps. I turned up the track to the left, to the Gothard. + +Standing looking round at the mountain-tops, at the village and the +broken castle below me, at the scattered debris of Andermatt on the moor +in the distance, I was jumping in my soul with delight. Should one ever +go down to the lower world? + +Then I saw another figure striding along, a youth with knee-breeches and +Alpine hat and braces over his shirt, walking manfully, his coat slung +in his rucksack behind. I laughed, and waited. He came my way. + +'Are you going over the Gothard?' I said. + +'Yes,' he replied. 'Are you also?' + +'Yes' I said. 'We will go together.' + +So we set off, climbing a track up the heathy rocks. + +He was a pale, freckled town youth from Basel, seventeen years old. He +was a clerk in a baggage-transport firm--Gondrand Frères, I believe. He +had a week's holiday, in which time he was going to make a big circular +walk, something like the Englishman's. But he was accustomed to this +mountain walking: he belonged to a Sportverein. Manfully he marched in +his thick hob-nailed boots, earnestly he scrambled up the rocks. + +We were in the crest of the pass. Broad snow-patched slopes came down +from the pure sky; the defile was full of stones, all bare stones, +enormous ones as big as a house, and small ones, pebbles. Through these +the road wound in silence, through this upper, transcendent desolation, +wherein was only the sound of the stream. Sky and snow-patched slopes, +then the stony, rocky bed of the defile, full of morning sunshine: this +was all. We were crossing in silence from the northern world to +the southern. + +But he, Emil, was going to take the train back, through the tunnel, in +the evening, to resume his circular walk at Göschenen. + +I, however, was going on, over the ridge of the world, from the north +into the south. So I was glad. + +We climbed up the gradual incline for a long time. The slopes above +became lower, they began to recede. The sky was very near, we were +walking under the sky. + +Then the defile widened out, there was an open place before us, the very +top of the pass. Also there were low barracks, and soldiers. We heard +firing. Standing still, we saw on the slopes of snow, under the radiant +blue heaven, tiny puffs of smoke, then some small black figures crossing +the snow patch, then another rattle of rifle-fire, rattling dry and +unnatural in the upper, skyey air, between the rocks. + +'_Das ist schön_,' said my companion, in his simple admiration. + +'_Hübsch_,' I said. + +'But that would be splendid, to be firing up there, manoeuvring up in +the snow.' + +And he began to tell me how hard a soldier's life was, how hard the +soldier was drilled. + +'You don't look forward to it?' I said. + +'Oh yes, I do. I want to be a soldier, I want to serve my time.' + +'Why?'I said. + +'For the exercise, the life, the drilling. One becomes strong.' + +'Do all the Swiss want to serve their time in the army?' I asked. + +'Yes--they all want to. It is good for every man, and it keeps us all +together. Besides, it is only for a year. For a year it is very good. +The Germans have three years--that is too long, that is bad.' + +I told him how the soldiers in Bavaria hated the military service. + +'Yes,' he said, 'that is true of Germans. The system is different. Ours +is much better; in Switzerland a man enjoys his time as a soldier. I +want to go.' + +So we watched the black dots of soldiers crawling over the high snow, +listened to the unnatural dry rattle of guns, up there. + +Then we were aware of somebody whistling, of soldiers yelling down the +road. We were to come on, along the level, over the bridge. So we +marched quickly forward, away from the slopes, towards the hotel, once a +monastery, that stood in the distance. The light was blue and clear on +the reedy lakes of this upper place; it was a strange desolation of +water and bog and rocks and road, hedged by the snowy slopes round the +rim, under the very sky. + +The soldier was yelling again. I could not tell what he said. + +'He says if we don't run we can't come at all,' said Emil. + +'I won't run,' I said. + +So we hurried forwards, over the bridge, where the soldier on guard was +standing. + +'Do you want to be shot?' he said angrily, as we came up. + +'No, thanks,' I said. + +Emil was very serious. + +'How long should we have had to wait if we hadn't got through now?' he +asked the soldier, when we were safely out of danger. + +'Till one o'clock,' was the reply. + +'Two hours!' said Emil, strangely elated. 'We should have had to wait +two hours before we could come on. He was riled that we didn't run,' and +he laughed with glee. + +So we marched over the level to the hotel. We called in for a glass of +hot milk. I asked in German. But the maid, a pert hussy, elegant and +superior, was French. She served us with great contempt, as two +worthless creatures, poverty-stricken. It abashed poor Emil, but we +managed to laugh at her. This made her very angry. In the smoking-room +she raised up her voice in French: + +'_Du lait chaud pour les chameaux._' + +'Some hot milk for the camels, she says,' I translated for Emil. He was +covered with confusion and youthful anger. + +But I called to her, tapped the table and called: + +'_Mademoiselle!_' + +She appeared flouncingly in the doorway. + +'_Encore du lait pour les chameaux_,' I said. + +And she whisked our glasses off the table, and flounced out without a +word. + +But she would not come in again with the milk. A German girl brought it. +We laughed, and she smiled primly. + +When we set forth again, Emil rolled up his sleeves and turned back his +shirt from his neck and breast, to do the thing thoroughly. Besides, it +was midday, and the sun was hot; and, with his bulky pack on his back, +he suggested the camel of the French maid more than ever. + +We were on the downward slope. Only a short way from the hotel, and +there was the drop, the great cleft in the mountains running down from +this shallow pot among the peaks. + +The descent on the south side is much more precipitous and wonderful +than the ascent from the north. On the south, the rocks are craggy and +stupendous; the little river falls headlong down; it is not a stream, it +is one broken, panting cascade far away in the gulley below, in +the darkness. + +But on the slopes the sun pours in, the road winds down with its tail in +its mouth, always in endless loops returning on itself. The mules that +travel upward seem to be treading in a mill. + +Emil took the narrow tracks, and, like the water, we cascaded down, +leaping from level to level, leaping, running, leaping, descending +headlong, only resting now and again when we came down on to another +level of the high-road. + +Having begun, we could not help ourselves, we were like two stones +bouncing down. Emil was highly elated. He waved his thin, bare, white +arms as he leapt, his chest grew pink with the exercise. Now he felt he +was doing something that became a member of his Sportverein. Down we +went, jumping, running, britching. + +It was wonderful on this south side, so sunny, with feathery trees and +deep black shadows. It reminded me of Goethe, of the romantic period: + + _Kennst du das Land, wo die Citronen blühen?_ + +So we went tumbling down into the south, very swiftly, along with the +tumbling stream. But it was very tiring. We went at a great pace down +the gully, between the sheer rocks. Trees grew in the ledges high over +our heads, trees grew down below. And ever we descended. + +Till gradually the gully opened, then opened into a wide valley-head, +and we saw Airolo away below us, the railway emerging from its hole, the +whole valley like a cornucopia full of sunshine. + +Poor Emil was tired, more tired than I was. And his big boots had hurt +his feet in the descent. So, having come to the open valley-head, we +went more gently. He had become rather quiet. + +The head of the valley had that half-tamed, ancient aspect that reminded +me of the Romans. I could only expect the Roman legions to be encamped +down there; and the white goats feeding on the bushes belonged to a +Roman camp. + +But no, we saw again the barracks of the Swiss soldiery, and again we +were in the midst of rifle-fire and manoeuvres. But we went evenly, +tired now, and hungry. We had nothing to eat. + +It is strange how different the sun-dried, ancient, southern slopes of +the world are, from the northern slopes. It is as if the god Pan really +had his home among these sun-bleached stones and tough, sun-dark trees. +And one knows it all in one's blood, it is pure, sun-dried memory. So I +was content, coming down into Airolo. + +We found the streets were Italian, the houses sunny outside and dark +within, like Italy, there were laurels in the road. Poor Emil was a +foreigner all at once. He rolled down his shirt sleeves and fastened his +shirt-neck, put on his coat and collar, and became a foreigner in his +soul, pale and strange. + +I saw a shop with vegetables and grapes, a real Italian shop, a dark +cave. + +'_Quanto costa l'uva?_' were my first words in the south. + +'_Sessanta al chilo_,' said the girl. + +And it was as pleasant as a drink of wine, the Italian. + +So Emil and I ate the sweet black grapes as we went to the station. + +He was very poor. We went into the third-class restaurant at the +station. He ordered beer and bread and sausage; I ordered soup and +boiled beef and vegetables. + +They brought me a great quantity, so, whilst the girl was serving +coffee-with-rum to the men at the bar, I took another spoon and knife +and fork and plates for Emil, and we had two dinners from my one. When +the girl--she was a woman of thirty-five--came back, she looked at us +sharply. I smiled at her coaxingly; so she gave a small, kindly smile +in reply. + +'_Ja, dies ist reizend_,' said Emil, _sotto voce_, exulting. He was very +shy. But we were curiously happy, in that railway restaurant. + +Then we sat very still, on the platform, and waited for the train. It +was like Italy, pleasant and social to wait in the railway station, all +the world easy and warm in its activity, with the sun shining. + +I decided to take a franc's worth of train-journey. So I chose my +station. It was one franc twenty, third class. Then my train came, and +Emil and I parted, he waving to me till I was out of sight. I was sorry +he had to go back, he did so want to venture forth. + +So I slid for a dozen miles or more, sleepily, down the Ticino valley, +sitting opposite two fat priests in their feminine black. + +When I got out at my station I felt for the first time ill at ease. Why +was I getting out at this wayside place, on to the great, raw high-road? +I did not know. But I set off walking. It was nearly tea-time. + +Nothing in the world is more ghastly than these Italian roads, new, +mechanical, belonging to a machine life. The old roads are wonderful, +skilfully aiming their way. But these new great roads are desolating, +more desolating than all the ruins in the world. + +I walked on and on, down the Ticino valley, towards Bellinzona. The +valley was perhaps beautiful: I don't know. I can only remember the +road. It was broad and new, and it ran very often beside the railway. It +ran also by quarries and by occasional factories, also through villages. +And the quality of its sordidness is something that does not bear +thinking of, a quality that has entered Italian life now, if it was not +there before. + +Here and there, where there were quarries or industries, great +lodging-houses stood naked by the road, great, grey, desolate places; +and squalid children were playing round the steps, and dirty men +slouched in. Everything seemed under a weight. + +Down the road of the Ticino valley I felt again my terror of this new +world which is coming into being on top of us. One always feels it in a +suburb, on the edge of a town, where the land is being broken under the +advance of houses. But this is nothing, in England, to the terror one +feels on the new Italian roads, where these great blind cubes of +dwellings rise stark from the destroyed earth, swarming with a sort of +verminous life, really verminous, purely destructive. + +It seems to happen when the peasant suddenly leaves his home and becomes +a workman. Then an entire change comes over everywhere. Life is now a +matter of selling oneself to slave-work, building roads or labouring in +quarries or mines or on the railways, purposeless, meaningless, really +slave-work, each integer doing his mere labour, and all for no purpose, +except to have money, and to get away from the old system. + +These Italian navvies work all day long, their whole life is engaged in +the mere brute labour. And they are the navvies of the world. And whilst +they are navvying, they are almost shockingly indifferent to their +circumstances, merely callous to the dirt and foulness. + +It is as if the whole social form were breaking down, and the human +element swarmed within the disintegration, like maggots in cheese. The +roads, the railways are built, the mines and quarries are excavated, but +the whole organism of life, the social organism, is slowly crumbling and +caving in, in a kind of process of dry rot, most terrifying to see. So +that it seems as though we should be left at last with a great system of +roads and railways and industries, and a world of utter chaos seething +upon these fabrications: as if we had created a steel framework, and the +whole body of society were crumbling and rotting in between. It is most +terrifying to realize; and I have always felt this terror upon a new +Italian high-road--more there than anywhere. + +The remembrance of the Ticino valley is a sort of nightmare to me. But +it was better when at last, in the darkness of night, I got into +Bellinzona. In the midst of the town one felt the old organism still +living. It is only at its extremities that it is falling to pieces, as +in dry rot. + +In the morning, leaving Bellinzona, again I went in terror of the new, +evil high-road, with its skirting of huge cubical houses and its +seething navvy population. Only the peasants driving in with fruit were +consoling. But I was afraid of them: the same spirit had set in in them. + +I was no longer happy in Switzerland, not even when I was eating great +blackberries and looking down at the Lago Maggiore, at Locarno, lying by +the lake; the terror of the callous, disintegrating process was too +strong in me. + +At a little inn a man was very good to me. He went into his garden and +fetched me the first grapes and apples and peaches, bringing them in +amongst leaves, and heaping them before me. He was Italian-Swiss; he had +been in a bank in Bern; now he had retired, had bought his paternal +home, and was a free man. He was about fifty years old; he spent all his +time in his garden; his daughter attended to the inn. + +He talked to me, as long as I stayed, about Italy and Switzerland and +work and life. He was retired, he was free. But he was only nominally +free. He had only achieved freedom from labour. He knew that the system +he had escaped at last, persisted, and would consume his sons and his +grandchildren. He himself had more or less escaped back to the old form; +but as he came with me on to the hillside, looking down the high-road at +Lugano in the distance, he knew that his old order was collapsing by a +slow process of disintegration. + +Why did he talk to me as if I had any hope, as if I represented any +positive truth as against this great negative truth that was advancing +up the hill-side. Again I was afraid. I hastened down the high-road, +past the houses, the grey, raw crystals of corruption. + +I saw a girl with handsome bare legs, ankles shining like brass in the +sun. She was working in a field, on the edge of a vineyard. I stopped to +look at her, suddenly fascinated by her handsome naked flesh that shone +like brass. + +Then she called out to me, in a jargon I could not understand, something +mocking and challenging. And her voice was raucous and challenging; I +went on, afraid. + +In Lugano I stayed at a German hotel. I remember sitting on a seat in +the darkness by the lake, watching the stream of promenaders patrolling +the edge of the water, under the trees and the lamps. I can still see +many of their faces: English, German, Italian, French. And it seemed +here, here in this holiday-place, was the quick of the disintegration, +the dry-rot, in this dry, friable flux of people backwards and forwards +on the edge of the lake, men and women from the big hotels, in evening +dress, curiously sinister, and ordinary visitors, and tourists, and +workmen, youths, men of the town, laughing, jeering. It was curiously +and painfully sinister, almost obscene. + +I sat a long time among them, thinking of the girl with her limbs of +glowing brass. Then at last I went up to the hotel, and sat in the +lounge looking at the papers. It was the same here as down below, though +not so intense, the feeling of horror. + +So I went to bed. The hotel was on the edge of a steep declivity. I +wondered why the whole hills did not slide down, in some great natural +catastrophe. + +In the morning I walked along the side of the Lake of Lugano, to where I +could take a steamer to ferry me down to the end. The lake is not +beautiful, only picturesque. I liked most to think of the Romans +coming to it. + +So I steamed down to the lower end of the water. When I landed and went +along by a sort of railway I saw a group of men. Suddenly they began to +whoop and shout. They were hanging on to an immense pale bullock, which +was slung up to be shod; and it was lunging and kicking with terrible +energy. It was strange to see that mass of pale, soft-looking flesh +working with such violent frenzy, convulsed with violent, active frenzy, +whilst men and women hung on to it with ropes, hung on and weighed it +down. But again it scattered some of them in its terrible convulsion. +Human beings scattered into the road, the whole place was covered with +hot dung. And when the bullock began to lunge again, the men set up a +howl, half of triumph, half of derision. + +I went on, not wanting to see. I went along a very dusty road. But it +was not so terrifying, this road. Perhaps it was older. + +In dreary little Chiasso I drank coffee, and watched the come and go +through the Customs. The Swiss and the Italian Customs officials had +their offices within a few yards of each other, and everybody must stop. +I went in and showed my rucksack to the Italian, then I mounted a tram, +and went to the Lake of Como. + +In the tram were dressed-up women, fashionable, but business-like. They +had come by train to Chiasso, or else had been shopping in the town. + +When we came to the terminus a young miss, dismounting before me, left +behind her parasol. I had been conscious of my dusty, grimy appearance +as I sat in the tram, I knew they thought me a workman on the roads. +However, I forgot that when it was time to dismount. + +'_Pardon, Mademoiselle_,' I said to the young miss. She turned and +withered me with a rather overdone contempt--'_bourgeoise_,' I said to +myself, as I looked at her--'_Vous avez laissé votre parasol_.' + +She turned, and with a rapacious movement darted upon her parasol. How +her soul was in her possessions! I stood and watched her. Then she went +into the road and under the trees, haughty, a demoiselle. She had on +white kid boots. + +I thought of the Lake of Como what I had thought of Lugano: it must have +been wonderful when the Romans came there. Now it is all villas. I think +only the sunrise is still wonderful, sometimes. + +I took the steamer down to Como, and slept in a vast old stone cavern of +an inn, a remarkable place, with rather nice people. In the morning I +went out. The peace and the bygone beauty of the cathedral created the +glow of the great past. And in the market-place they were selling +chestnuts wholesale, great heaps of bright, brown chestnuts, and sacks +of chestnuts, and peasants very eager selling and buying. I thought of +Como, it must have been wonderful even a hundred years ago. Now it is +cosmopolitan, the cathedral is like a relic, a museum object, everywhere +stinks of mechanical money-pleasure. I dared not risk walking to Milan: +I took a train. And there, in Milan, sitting in the Cathedral Square, on +Saturday afternoon, drinking Bitter Campari and watching the swarm of +Italian city-men drink and talk vivaciously, I saw that here the life +was still vivid, here the process of disintegration was vigorous, and +centred in a multiplicity of mechanical activities that engage the human +mind as well as the body. But always there was the same purpose stinking +in it all, the mechanizing, the perfect mechanizing of human life. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Twilight in Italy, by D.H. Lawrence + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWILIGHT IN ITALY *** + +This file should be named 8twit10.txt or 8twit10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8twit11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8twit10a.txt + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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