“Max — attends, ami! Laisse le partir. Max, to sais que je t’aime. Tu le sais, ami. Tu le sais. Laisse le patir.”
Max and Louis wrestled together in the gangway, Max looking down with hate on his friend. But Louis was determined also, he wrestled as fiercely as Max, and at last the latter began to yield. He was panting and beside himself. Louis still held him by the hand and by the arm.
“Let him go, brother, he isn’t worth it. What does he understand, Max, dear brother, what does he understand? These fellows from the south, they are half children, half animal. They don’t know what they are doing. Has he hurt you, dear friend? Has he hurt you? It was a dummy knife, but it was a heavy blow — the dog of an Italian. Let us see.”
So gradually Max was brought to stand still. From under the edge of his waistcoat, on the shoulder, the blood was already staining the shirt. “Are you cut, brother, brother?” said Louis. “Let us see.”
Max now moved his arm with pain. They took off his waistcoat and pushed back his shirt. A nasty blackening wound, with the skin broken. “If the bone isn’t broken!” said Louis anxiously. “If the bone isn’t broken! Lift thy arm, frére — lift. It hurts you — so — No — no — it is not broken — no — the bone is not broken.”
“There is no bone broken, I know,” said Max.
“The animal. He hasn’t done that, at least.”
“Where do you imagine he’s gone?” asked Mr. May.
The foreigners shrugged their shoulders, and paid no heed. There was no more rehearsal.
“We had best go home and speak to Madame,” said Mr. May, who was very frightened for his evening performance.
They locked up the Endeavour. Alvina was thinking of Ciccio. He was gone in his shirt sleeves. She had taken his jacket and hat from the dressing-room at the back, and carried them under her rain-coat, which she had on her arm.
Madame was in a state of perturbation. She had heard some one come in at the back, and go upstairs, and go out again. Mrs. Rollings had told her it was the Italian, who had come in in his shirt-sleeves and gone out in his black coat and black hat, taking his bicycle, without saying a word. Poor Madame! She was struggling into her shoes, she had her hat on, when the others arrived.
“What is it?” she cried.
She heard a hurried explanation from Louis.
“Ah, the animal, the animal, he wasn’t worth all my pains!” cried poor Madame, sitting with one shoe off and one shoe on. “Why, Max, why didst thou not remain man enough to control that insulting mountain temper of thine. Have I not said, and said, and said that in the Natcha-Kee-Tawara there was but one nation, the Red Indian, and but one tribe, the tribe of Kishwe? And now thou hast called him a dirty Italian, or a dog of an Italian, and he has behaved like an animal. Too much, too much of an animal, too little esprit.” But thou, Max, art almost as bad. Thy temper is a devil’s, which maybe is worse than an animal’s. Ah, this Woodhouse, a curse is on it, I know it is. Would we were away from it. Will the week never pass? We shall have to find Ciccio. Without him the company is ruined — until I get a substitute. I must get a substitute. And how? — and where? — in this country? — tell me that. I am tired of Natcha-Kee-Tawara. There is no true tribe of Kishwe — no, never. I have had enough of Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Let us break up, let us part, my braves, let us say adieu here in this funeste Woodhouse.”
“Oh, Madame, dear Madame,” said Louis, “let us hope. Let us swear a closer fidelity, dear Madame, our Kishwégin. Let us never part. Max, thou dost not want to part, brother, well-loved? Thou dost not want to part, brother whom I love? And thou, Geoffrey, thou — ”
Madame burst into tears, Louis wept too, even Max turned aside his face, with tears. Alvina stole out of the room, followed by Mr. May. In a while Madame came out to them.
“Oh,” she said. “You have not gone away! We are wondering which way Ciccio will have gone, on to Knarborough or to Marchay. Geoffrey will go on his bicycle to find him. But shall it be to Knarborough or to Marchay?”
“Ask the policeman in the market-place,” said Alvina. “He’s sure to have noticed him, because Ciccio’s yellow bicycle is so uncommon.”
Mr. May tripped out on this errand, while the others discussed among themselves where Ciccio might be.
Mr. May returned, and said that Ciccio had ridden off down the Knarborough Road. It was raining slightly.
“Ah!” said Madame. “And now how to find him, in that great town. I am afraid he will leave us without pity.”
“Surely he will want to speak to Geoffrey before he goes,” said Louis. “They were always good friends.”
They all looked at Geoffrey. He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Always good friends,” he said. “Yes. He will perhaps wait for me at his cousin’s in Battersea.” In Knarborough, I don’t know.”
“How much money had he?” asked Mr. May.
Madame spread her hands and lifted her shoulders.
“Who knows?” she said.
“These Italians,” said Louis, turning to Mr. May. “They have always money. In another country, they will not spend one sou if they can help. They are like this — ” And he made the Neapolitan gesture drawing in the air with his fingers.
“But would he abandon you all without a word?” cried Mr. May. “Yes! Yes!” said Madame, with a sort of stoic pathos. “He would. He alone would do such a thing. But he would do it.”
“And what point would he make for?”
“What point? You mean where would he go? To Battersea, no doubt, to his cousin — and then to Italy, if he thinks he has saved enough money to buy land, or whatever it is.”
“And so good-bye to him,” said Mr. May bitterly.
“Geoffrey ought to know,” said Madame, looking at Geoffrey. Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders, and would not give his comrade away.
“No,” he said. “I don’t know. He will leave a message at Battersea, I know. But I don’t know if he will go to Italy.”
“And you don’t know where to find him in Knarborough?” asked Mr. May, sharply, very much on the spot.
“No — I don’t. Perhaps at the station he will go by train to London.” It was evident Geoffrey was not going to help Mr. May.
“Alors!” said Madame, cutting through this futility. “Go thou to Knarborough, Geoffrey, and see — and be back at the theatre for work. Go now. And if thou can’st find him, bring him again to us. Tell him to come out of kindness to me. Tell him.”
And she waved the young man away. He departed on his nine mile ride through the rain to Knarborough.
“They know,” said Madame. “They know each other’s places. It is a little more than a year since we came to Knarborough. But they will remember.”
Geoffrey rode swiftly as possible through the mud. He did not care very much whether he found his friend or not. He liked the Italian, but he never looked on him as a permanency. He knew Ciccio was dissatisfied, and wanted a change. He knew that Italy was pulling him away from the troupe, with which he had been associated now for three years or more. And the Swiss from Martigny knew that the Neapolitan would go, breaking all ties, one day suddenly back to Italy. It was so, and Geoffrey was philosophical about it.
He rode into town, and the first thing he did was to seek out the music-hall artistes at their lodgings. He knew a good many of them. They gave him a welcome and a whiskey — but none of them had seen Ciccio. They sent him off to other artistes, other lodging-houses. He went the round of associates known and unknown, of lodgings strange and familiar, of third-rate possible public houses. Then he went to the Italians down in the Marsh — he knew these people always ask for one another. And then, hurrying, he dashed to the Midland Station, and then to the Great Central Station, asking the porters on the London departure platform if they had seen his pal, a man with a yellow bicycle, and a black bicycle cape. All to no purpose.
Geoffrey hurriedly lit his lamp and swung off in the dark back to Woodhouse. He was a powerfully built, imperturbable fellow. He pressed slowly
uphill through the streets, then ran downhill into the darkness of the industrial country. He had continually to cross the new tram-lines, which were awkward, and he had occasionally to dodge the brilliantly-illuminated tram-cars which threaded their way across-country through so much darkness. All the time it rained, and his back wheel slipped under him, in the mud and on the new tram-track.
As he pressed in the long darkness that lay between Slaters Mill and Durbeyhouses, he saw a light ahead — another cyclist. He moved to his side of the road. The light approached very fast. It was a strong acetylene flare. He watched it. A flash and a splash and he saw the humped back of what was probably Ciccio going by at a great pace on the low racing machine.
“Hi Cic’ — ! Ciccio!” he yelled, dropping off his own bicycle.
“Ha-er-er!” he heard the answering shout, unmistakably Italian, way down the darkness.
He turned — saw the other cyclist had stopped. The flare swung round, and Ciccio softly rode up. He dropped off beside Geoffrey. “Toi!” said Ciccio.
“Hé! Où vas-tu?”
“Hé!” ejaculated Ciccio.
Their conversation consisted a good deal in noises variously ejaculated.
“Coming back?” asked Geoffrey.
“Where’ve you been?” retorted Ciccio.
“Knarborough — looking for thee. Where have you — ?”
“Buckled my front wheel at Durbeyhouses.”
“Come off?”
“Hé!”
“Hurt?”
“Nothing.”
“Max is all right.”
“Merde!”
“Come on, come back with me.”
“Nay.” Ciccio shook his head.
“Madame’s crying. Wants thee to come back.”
Ciccio shook his head.
“Come on, Cic’ — ” said Geoffrey.
Ciccio shook his head.
“Never?” said Geoffrey.
“Basta — had enough,” said Ciccio, with an invisible grimace. “Come for a bit, and we’ll clear together.”
Ciccio again shook his head.
“What, is it adieu?”
Ciccio did not speak.
“Don’t go, comrade,” said Geoffrey.
“Faut,” said Ciccio, slightly derisive.
“Eh alors! I’d like to come with thee. What?”
“Where?”
“Doesn’t matter. Thou’rt going to Italy?”
“Who knows! — seems so.”
“I’d like to go back.”
“Eh alors!” Ciccio half veered round.
“Wait for me a few days,” said Geoffrey.
“Where?”
“See you tomorrow in Knarborough. Go to Mrs. Pym’s, Hampden Street. Gittiventi is there. Right, eh?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Eleven o’clock, eh?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Friends ever — Ciccio — eh?” Geoffrey held out his hand.
Ciccio slowly took it. The two men leaned to each other and kissed farewell, on either cheek.
“Tomorrow, Cic’ — ”
“Au revoir, Gigi.”
Ciccio dropped on to his bicycle and was gone in a breath. Geoffrey waited a moment for a tram which was rushing brilliantly up to him in the rain. Then he mounted and rode in the opposite direction. He went straight down to Lumley, and Madame had to remain on tenterhooks till ten o’clock.
She heard the news, and said:
“Tomorrow I go to fetch him.” And with this she went to bed.
In the morning she was up betimes, sending a note to Alvina. Alvina appeared at nine o’clock.
“You will come with me?” said Madame. “Come. Together we will go to Knarborough and bring back the naughty Ciccio. Come with me, because I haven’t all my strength. Yes, you will? Good! Good! Let us tell the young men, and we will go now, on the tram-car.”
“But I am not properly dressed,” said Alvina.
“Who will see?” said Madame. “Come, let us go.”
They told Geoffrey they would meet him at the corner of Hampden Street at five minutes to eleven.
“You see,” said Madame to Alvina, “they are very funny, these young men, particularly Italians. You must never let them think you have caught them. Perhaps he will not let us see him — who knows? Perhaps he will go off to Italy all the same.”
They sat in the bumping tram-car, a long and wearying journey. And then they tramped the dreary, hideous streets of the manufacturing town. At the corner of the street they waited for Geoffrey, who rode up muddily on his bicycle.
“Ask Ciccio to come out to us, and we will go and drink coffee at the Geisha Restaurant — or tea or something,” said Madame.
Again the two women waited wearily at the street-end. At last Geoffrey returned, shaking his head.
“He won’t come?” cried Madame.
“No.”
“He says he is going back to Italy?”
“To London.”
“It is the same. You can never trust them. Is he quite obstinate?” Geoffrey lifted his shoulders. Madame could see the beginnings of defection in him too. And she was tired and dispirited.
“We shall have to finish the Natcha-Kee-Tawara, that is all,” she said fretfully.
Geoffrey watched her stolidly, impassively.
“Dost thou want to go with him?” she asked suddenly.
Geoffrey smiled sheepishly, and his colour deepened. But he did not speak.
“Go then — ” she said. “Go then! Go with him! But for the sake of my honour, finish this week at Woodhouse. Can I make Miss Houghton’s father lose these two nights? Where is your shame? Finish this week and then go, go — But finish this week. Tell Francesco that. I have finished with him. But let him finish this engagement. Don’t put me to shame, don’t destroy my honour, and the honour of the Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Tell him that.”
Geoffrey turned again into the house. Madame, in her chic little black hat and spotted veil, and her trim black coat-and-skirt, stood there at the street-corner staring before her, shivering a little with cold, but saying no word of any sort.
Again Geoffrey appeared out of the doorway. His face was impassive.
“He says he doesn’t want,” he said.
“Ah!” she cried suddenly in French, “the ungrateful, the animal! He shall suffer. See if he shall not suffer. The low canaille, without faith or feeling. My Max, thou wert right. Ah, such canaille should be beaten, as dogs are beaten, till they follow at heel. Will no one beat him for me, no one? Yes. Go back. Tell him before he leaves England he shall feel the hand of Kishwégin, and it shall be heavier than the Black Hand. Tell him that, the coward, that causes a woman’s word to be broken against her will. Ah, canaille, canaille! Neither faith nor feeling, neither faith nor feeling. Trust them not, dogs of the south.” She took a few agitated steps down the pavement. Then she raised her veil to wipe away her tears of anger and bitter disappointment.
“Wait a bit,” said Alvina. “I’ll go.” She was touched.
“No. Don’t you!” cried Madame.
“Yes I will,” she said. The light of battle was in her eyes. “You’ll come with me to the door,” she said to Geoffrey.
Geoffrey started obediently, and led the way up a long narrow stair, covered with yellow-and-brown oilcloth, rather worn, on to the top of the house.
“Ciccio,” he said, outside the door.
“Oui!” came the curly voice of Ciccio.
Geoffrey opened the door. Ciccio was sitting on a narrow bed, in a rather poor attic, under the steep slope of the roof.
“Don’t come in,” said Alvina to Geoffrey, looking over her shoulder at him as she entered. Then she closed the door behind her, and stood with her back to it, facing the Italian. He sat loose on the bed, a cigarette between his fingers, dropping ash on the bare boards between his feet. He looked up curiously at Alvina. She stood watching him with wide, bright blue eyes, smiling slightly, and saying nothing. H
e looked up at her steadily, on his guard, from under his long black lashes.
“Won’t you come?” she said, smiling and looking into his eyes. He flicked off the ash of his cigarette with his little finger. She wondered why he wore the nail of his little finger so long, so very long. Still she smiled at him, and still he gave no sign.
“Do come!” she urged, never taking her eyes from him.
He made not the slightest movement, but sat with his hands dropped between his knees, watching her, the cigarette wavering up its blue thread of smoke.
“Won’t you?” she said, as she stood with her back to the door. “Won’t you come?” She smiled strangely and vividly.
Suddenly she took a pace forward, stooped, watching his face as if timidly, caught his brown hand in her own and lifted it towards herself. His hand started, dropped the cigarette, but was not withdrawn.
“You will come, won’t you?” she said, smiling gently into his strange, watchful yellow eyes, that looked fixedly into hers, the dark pupil opening round and softening. She smiled into his softening round eyes, the eyes of some animal which stares in one of its silent, gentler moments. And suddenly she kissed his hand, kissed it twice, quickly, on the fingers and the back. He wore a silver ring. Even as she kissed his fingers with her lips, the silver ring seemed to her a symbol of his subjection, inferiority. She drew his hand slightly. And he rose to his feet.
She turned round and took the door-handle, still holding his fingers in her left hand.
“You are coming, aren’t you?” she said, looking over her shoulder into his eyes. And taking consent from his unchanging eyes, she let go his hand and slightly opened the door. He turned slowly, and taking his coat from a nail, slung it over his shoulders and drew it on. Then he picked up his hat, and put his foot on his half-smoked cigarette, which lay smoking still. He followed her out of the room, walking with his head rather forward, in the half loutish, sensual-subjected way of the Italians.
As they entered the street, they saw the trim, French figure of Madame standing alone, as if abandoned. Her face was very white under her spotted veil, her eyes very black. She watched Ciccio following behind Alvina in his dark, hang-dog fashion, and she did not move a muscle until he came to a standstill in front of her. She was watching his face.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 244